STARRING KITTY BLOG TOUR: Exclusive first look

Hello and Happy Thursday!

At the beginning of the week we had to announce the very frustrating news that the fabulous STARRING KITTY by the also fabulous Keris Stainton had been held up and wouldn't be arriving for another two weeks. These faces all round at Catnip Towers: >:(
(Particularly for me - I have the proof cover and pages on my desk and want to share!)

So to stop me running out into the street and reading the book aloud to strangers, Keris has something rather exciting for you all while we wait for Kitty to arrive - the Starring Kitty blog tour! There are ELEVEN posts for you to read and the chance to find out a bit more about Kitty, and her best friends Hannah and Sunny before you are properly introduced to them on 24 July.

To kick off the tour, I am rather excited to be posting the opening chapters of the book. 

So I hope you enjoy the chance to meet Kitty, Sunny and Hannah (plus someone else rather special) and follow the tour for plenty more fun Kitty-related stuff!

  

Sometimes the greatest love stories happen behind the scenes… 

Kitty's keeping secrets. Like how she's struggling to cope with her mum's illness. And how she's falling for the girl with the purpley-red hair... A fun film competition with her friends Sunny and Hannah seems like the perfect distraction. But then Dylan wants to be more than Kitty's secret. Is Kitty ready to let her two worlds meet or will she risk losing Dylan forever?

Starring Kitty by Keris Stainton

Romance Festival 2014: Interview with KERIS STAINTON

To celebrate this weekend's Digital Romance Festival, fabulous Catnip author Keris Stainton and I are going on a blog date. I put on my best, most romantic outfit and my most seductive facial expression (I will leave you to imagine that) and then I locked Keris in my interview room (currently decorated in hearts and renamed The Catnip Lurve Cafe).

We talked about Keris's heart-melting and fabulous new book Starring Kitty (out 10 July) and then we played a game of 'Make Your Own Romance Novel'. Enjoy and feel the lurve!

Hello Keris and welcome to the Catnip Lurve Cafe! Feel free to have a coffee or one of my homemade Catnip love buns. 

So first, tell me a bit about you and Starring Kitty.

Just give me a minute to stop sniggering at "love buns"... Hello! I'm Keris, I live in Lancashire with my husband and two small-ish sons. I'm obsessed with American TV and Twitter. My new book, Starring Kitty, is about three friends who enter a film competition and what happens when one girl (Kitty) finds she has feelings for another girl...

Do you have a storyline in mind or do you create your characters and see what they do?

I hardly ever have any story in mind. Maybe a tiny bit. I almost always start with a character or setting. I start writing and after a few thousand words, panic that the book's not about anything. Eventually, I start to see patterns and connections and ideas pop up (usually when I'm in the shower or washing the dishes) and, eventually, it's all fine. This happens every single time, but I never get used to it.

Tell us a bit about Kitty, Hannah and Sunny and how you came up with them.

Kitty is a worrier, dealing with her mum's illness and her fears about her feelings for this girl she barely knows. Hannah seems much more confident, but she's the kind of girl who keeps everything inside... until it bursts out. Sunny puts herself under a lot of pressure, not least because she wants to keep everyone happy. They've been friends since primary school and live in a slightly faded seaside town.

I can't really remember how I came up with them. Kitty and Hannah were partly inspired by a photo I saw in a magazine. All three were partly inspired by girls I've met on school visits. And one of them was also partly inspired by a book blogger I know and love. So they're a bit Frankenstein's monster-ish. But in a good way.

I felt like Kitty's relationships with her best friends were just as important as her relationship with Dylan. Is this something you thought about?

Oh absolutely. I still remember those intense teen friendships, how you can spend all your time together, but still not necessarily know what's really going on with each other. Something I think about a lot is how when I was a teen, I was often scared to talk to my friends about more serious things because I wasn't sure whether they were "normal" or not, I didn't know how they were going to react. You don't want to risk the friendship.

Something I've found hard in writing romance is building the sense that two people have fallen in love when you have only the length of a book! (Whereas we had plenty of episodes to make us really care about Pacey and Joey or Tim and Dawn). Do you have any tips for romance writers for creating those couples that the reader roots for?
   

Ummm... no? I'm glad you've mentioned Tim and Dawn though, because that relationship definitely inspires me when I'm writing. Just the little looks, noticing things about each other. I think that makes all the difference.

I'll be cryptic to avoid spoilers, but my favourite Kitty/Dylan moment involves Google Maps! Do you have a favourite scene or one that you think really sums up their relationship?

Aw, I love that scene too - thanks! (Also, I spend a lot of time "travelling" via Google Maps.) I have a soft spot for the bit near the beginning where they meet on the beach. Kitty's discovering how expressing her feelings (by throwing rocks) can actually make her feel better. And Dylan jumps off the wall to the beach, rather than clambering down cautiously, like Kitty does. That probably doesn't make any sense to anyone who hasn't read the book...

The next book is Spotlight on Sunny, out early next year. Can you give us a taster of what is to come?

Er. You know above when I said about not knowing what the book's about? And panicking a bit? That's where I am with SOS (!) at the moment. Even you saying "early next year" gave me the wiggins. Also, almost anything I say will be spoilery. I can say that there's a new setting and some new characters, including a very lovely boy and a not so lovely girl.

MAKE YOUR OWN ROMANCE

Now we are going to play a little game of Make Your Own Romance! We are each going to select our favourite fictional ingredients to make our ultimate love story recipe. 

Favourite couple (I will allow TV shows as well as books):

Keris:   

Coach and Tami Taylor from Friday Night Lights. Adore them both.

Liz: 

Georgia and Dave the Laugh from the Georgia Nicolson Diaries by Louise Rennison. I spent ten books wanting Georgia to forget about the Sex Gods and the Lurve Gods and realise Dave and his clown nose would be the one to have her laughing away on a fast camel. 

Supporting characters - you need to populate the book with some of your favourite fictional romance characters otherwise the main couple will get lonely. These can be hilarious characters, evil people to stir things up, people you really fancy - anyone! Please pick two (although more are allowed).

Keris: 
Because I just mentioned Friday Night Lights and then you just mentioned "people you really fancy" I literally can't think of anyone but Tim Riggins. The most perfectly gorgeous misunderstood bad boy. *fans self*

Amy Poehler is my dream best friend, so I'll have her too.

Liz:
Lydia from Pride and Prejudice (because she seems like fun), the nurse from Romeo and Juliet because none of my characters so far are very organised and she can make sure the plot stays on track, and Dawson Leery from Dawson's Creek, to analyse everything and because if things got all intense and emotional, he could break the tension and make everyone laugh by doing this:

Favourite romantic moment

Keris: 

Keris: *tries to think of a book* *fails* The declaration at the end of When Harry Met Sally (my favourite film): "I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

Liz: Lizzie and Darcy's eyes meeting over the piano in the BBC Pride and Prejudice. 

Favourite kiss

Keris: When Nick and Jess first kissed on New Girl. I rewound it and watched it again. And again. And again. That was a heck of a kiss. I also always always well up when Rachel crosses the room to kiss Ross in The One With the Prom Video. 

Liz: Ron and Hermione. I think I actually yelped mid-read. 

Favourite love song (to be in the soundtrack when it is made into a film)

Keris: Weekend in New England by Barry Manilow. Shut up.  

Liz: All I Want is You by Barry Louis Polisar

Happily ever after (or not) - favourite ending

Keris: Even though I have some issues with the film (waah for her beautiful shop!), I always cry at the end of You've Got Mail. "I wanted it to be you." Sigh. I'm such a Nora Ephron fangirl. 

Liz: THE. NOTEBOOK. Although it was difficult to see because of MY SOUL SPILLING OUT OF MY EYES.

Keris' ultimate romance:

Eric and Tami are just friends (they claim) and spend their time coaching a football team, misunderstanding their bad boy friend Tim and talking to each other on the Internet without realising it's them. Their friend Amy, who works in local government, turns a local quarry pit into a football pitch and to celebrate locks Eric and Tami in a cupboard. They refuse to kiss, but then they do kiss later and it is the BEST KISS EVER and Barry Manilow's Weekend in England is playing. Eric runs across the football pitch to get to Tami's new year party and makes a passionate speech. Then she realises he is the man from the Internet and Phoebe says 'he's her lobster!'

Liz's ultimate romance:

Georgia and Dave's eyes meet over a piano and they start to fall in love, but are distracted when Georgia's sister Lydia, helped by an organised nurse, elopes with a sobbing Dawson Leery and shames the family. Georgia and Dave get past that and finally kiss in the middle of a war with an evil wizard (while the Juno soundtrack plays). Then it ends in heartbreaking Notebook fashion, with the crying led by Dawson.   

What do you think of our homemade romances? Have we missed any key romantic bits? Let us know your chosen bits below! 

There are lots of lovely love-shaped things going on right in the Romance Festival - just head here to take a look and follow all the action on Twitter with #Romance14. Also check out Lydia Syson's amazing blog post on putting the political in to romance - here! 

And look out for Dylan and Kitty (described by one blogger as 'ridiculously cute') - coming your way on 10 July!

INTERVIEW WITH A WEIRDO: Publication day musings with Natasha Desborough

Welcome to the Day of the Bumskulls! 

This is day that WEIRDOS VS BUMSKULLS (by right weirdo Natasha Desborough) is unleashed upon the world. 

WEIRDOS VS. BUMSKULLS by Natasha Desborough 
Catnip 9781846471827 £6.99

Funnier, weirder, ruder - Blossom is back. 
Blossom and Petrina, school weirdos, are on a (natural) high after their band Camel Toe shared the bill with International Rock God Josh Raven. Now they have the chance to perform at a real festival when they enter Battle of the Bands

But then Blossom meets Vince (AKA MANCAKE), sexy lead singer of rival band Bumskulls. And supposedly loved-up Petrina has been spotted staring (dribbling) at the bass player... 

Amidst a churning whirlpool of love, sex and music, can the Weirdos keep their quest for musical domination on track or will it all go norks up?

To celebrate the publication of this hilariously funny, delightfully rude and utterly brilliant book (which I am ridiculously proud to be able to publish), I thought it would be nice to interview Natasha and get an insight into her strange mind. I knew she would be difficult to pin down now she's a super-awesome author busy doing author things, but all it took was a few emails, some phone calls and a threatening letter that I wrote in my own blood and then Natasha kindly agreed.  

So I channeled my inner Jeremy Paxman and asked the deep, probing questions that everyone needs to know.    

1. Hello Natasha and welcome to the Catnip blog! I've locked the door so you can't leave. Could you please start by describing yourself in three words. (None of them can be swears.) 

A bit odd.

2. Let's play Snog Marry Avoid. We'll start off with some characters from the book.

Josh Raven, Vince Aston-Granger and Matthew Ludlow
(AKA an international rock god, a local sexy MANCAKE and Matthew Ludlow.)  

OK, first of all, let’s pretend that I’m not a withered, saggy middle-aged woman so that this answer doesn’t sound too revolting. Are we ready? OK - I’d snog Vince – as I dreamed him up to look like just the kind of boy I would have fancied when I was sixteen. He’d never have looked at me back then as I was a chubby, pale-faced teenager who dressed like a farmer. Then I’d marry Matthew as he is LOVELY and I’d avoid Josh Raven because he’s a rock star and having kissed a few in my time, I know there is no point and I might catch a cold sore.

3. Now we'll try it with some proper famous celebs.

Dave Grohl, Robbie Williams, Dougie Poynter

This is TOO easy. I’d marry Dave Grohl. When I interviewed him for my breakfast show on Xfm he gave me a kiss ON THE LIPS (though he didn’t give me a cold sore) and then gave me a special gift (which I still have and keep under my bed). I interpreted this as a sign of his love for me and I am ready to divorce my current husband whenever Dave says the word. Then I’d snog Dougie Poynter from McFly because he is GORGEOUS and looks like I imagined Vince would in Bumskulls (look at the Bumskulls cover. It’s Dougie). And finally, I’d avoid Robbie Williams because he looks like a big hairy baby. I’d have had a rethink if it had been Jason Orange instead. He’s HOT.

4. Would you rather… have trotters for hands or the face of a pig?

I had the face of a pig when I was a teenager. I had a porky face that went bright pink when I was embarrassed or fancied someone (which was ALL the time). My nose was a bit too long and pointed to be an actual snout, but otherwise I could easily have passed as a pig in DMs and a lumberjack shirt. I survived the ‘pig face’ phase once and I could do it again so I’ll take that option and give the trotters a miss.

5. Now imagine you are Blossom at the beginning of WEIRDOS VS. BUMSKULLS. Would you rather… win Battle of the Bands or get a hot sexy rock star boyfriend?

Win Battle of the Bands of course. That way all the hot rock star boys would want to snog me anyway. I’d have the best of both worlds. And loads of cold sores.

6. Let’s play I Have Never. I’ll go first. I have never strapped any processed foods to my chest. How about you?

I see what you’re doing there. You know that the scene in WEIRDOS VS QUIMBOIDS where Blossom ends up with two pieces of processed ham Sellotaped to her chest is based on an event from my own real life. You obviously want me to spill the beans. Well, I can’t. It’s top secret. Let’s just say that the real event was much, much worse than the scene in Quimboids and that the ham wasn’t Sellotaped to my chest. We’ll leave it there shall we? Next question.

7. YOU ARE ON A DESERT ISLAND. Which book, luxury item and person would you have with you?

Okay, I’m going to strike you a deal here. Can I swap the book for a couple of great Bluetooth speakers? Because my luxury item would be an iPod crammed full of new music and classic albums. Is it bad that as an author I’d rather take music than a book with me? But I would be making up stories in my head to amuse myself too. And as for the person? Well, I’d need another music lover to chat for hours/days/years about music. I suppose that’s what I do with my husband anyway, but I fancy a change. So Dave Grohl please. No, actually Chris Packham from Springwatch. He’s lovely and grumpy and I quite fancy him at the moment. He’ll do nicely.

8. YOU ARE IN PRISON. What crime did you commit to get there?

I once said a really, really bad swear word on primetime live TV and during the horribly severe telling off that I received afterwards, I thought they might send me to prison. So perhaps I would go to prison for doing bad swears. My swears are pretty badass.

9. If you could be any character from your books, who would you be? And how about from someone else’s book?

I’m already in the Weirdos books. I’m sort of spread over a few of the characters. A bit of Blossom, a dash of Walter and a LOT of Matthew. If I could be a character in someone else’s book – well I hate myself for saying this but I’d like to find out what it’s like to be cool and have hot boyfriends. So I’d be one of the twins from the Sweet Valley High series. But just for one day and I wouldn’t want to be Elizabeth, the boring frigid one. I’d be Jessica so that I could snog the boy with the moustache on the cover of ‘All Night Long’. Is it weird that I once actually fancied a drawing of a fictional boy?

I wanted the Catnip blog readers to be able to make an informed decision on this, so I have found the boy with the moustache.

10. Finally, could you describe WEIRDOS VS. BUMSKULLS in a sentence? (All the words must be swears.) (Joke.)

I’m not going to lie – I just spent over an hour trying to answer this stupid question. And you know what? I can’t do it. The best I came up with was ‘A weirdo encounters a massive bush’ which is true but I don’t think really does the book justice. WEIRDOS VS. BUMSKULLS is funny, rude and I’m extremely proud of it.

And we at Catnip are proud to a ridiculous degree that we are able to bring the Weirdos out into the world. 

If you haven't already seen what Natasha was up to before I locked her in my interview cupboard, then do go and check these out!

Tuesday 13th May SNEAK PEEK chapter extract on The Overflowing Library

Thursday 15th May Reveal of 'Nork-Grabbing Quimboid' the new single by Blossom's band, Camel Toe, on Wondrous Reads

Tuesday 20th May Character playlists - listen to the soundtracks for all the main characters in WEIRDOS VS. BUMSKULLS on Readaraptor

And keep an eye out next week for:

Tuesday 27th May Battle of the Bands! Musical talents from the character playlists battle it out in front of judge Natasha Desborough and hosted by SisterSpooky

Thursday 29th May Online dating - Weirdos style with Natasha Desborough and YA Yeah Yeah.

COVER REVEAL! WEIRDOS vs BUMSKULLS by Natasha Desborough

Hello and happy Thursday!

We on the good ship Catnip are very excited to reveal (along with lots of lovely bloggers) the cover for WEIRDOS VS BUMSKULLS by Natasha Desborough, the hilarious follow up to last year’s WEIRDOS VS QUIMBOIDS. 

Flippin’ awesome illustrator/designer Vicky Barker (http://vicky-barker.co.uk/) has come out with another cracking cover . . . and here it is:

Funnier, weirder ruder . . . Blossom is back.

Blossom and Petrina, school weirdos, are on a (natural) high after their band Camel Toe share the bill with INTERNATIONAL ROCK GOD Josh Raven. Now they have the chance to perform at a real festival when they enter Battle of the Bands.

But then Blossom meets Vince, lead singer of rival band Bumskulls and TOTAL MANCAKE. And supposedly loved-up Petrina has been spotted staring (dribbling) at the bass player. 

In a churning whirlpool of love, sex and music, can the Weirdos keep their quest for Musical Domination on track? Or is everything about to go norks up?

In the next few weeks there will be lots of exciting Bumskulls material around (including the brand new Camel Toe single, NORK-GRABBING QUIMBOID, described by a Radio 1 producer as ‘The Horrors + The XX on huge amounts of steroids’) Get ready to laugh your bumskulls off!

Words of praise and wonder for WEIRDOS VS QUIMBOIDS:

‘This is the third most important publication in the world after The Beano and Steve Brookstein - My Struggle. It’s also flipping funny. In fact, it should come with a free pair of socks because you’ll laugh off your current ones.’

Greg James, Radio 1 DJ

‘I LOVE it! I’m hooked...think Georgia Nicolson meets Adrian Mole. B.U.M. is my new literary heroine – sort of – a bloomin’ delightful read!’
Nemone Metaxas, BBC 6 Music DJ

‘This book is as good as all the others I haven’t read.’ Karl Pilkington  

It's goodbye from me... & hello from her

Hello. it's been a while, sorry about that. Anyway, I (Non) have news:

I'm leaving Catnip Publishing at Christmas. It’s been a truly fantastic five years working with a range of wonderful and talented authors, building relationships with agents, booksellers and reviewers and hunting out new books to bring to new audiences. It has also been five years of very hard work, which has only become harder the more things I’ve tried to commit to outside of the office.

In 2014 my first book is coming out with Walker, and my first child will start school. I am lucky to have the opportunity to do something I love (writing and talking about books) on a schedule that will fit around someone I love. It may not be for ever – no one knows how hard it is to make it work as a full-time author than someone who’s worked in the industry already – but for the next two years, that’s what I’ll be doing.

So from the end of next week (20^thDecember), the utterly awesome Liz Bankes will be the person behind the twitter feed @catnipbooks, the (maybe slightly less neglected) blog and all the important editorial decisions. Liz is fantastically knowledgeable about all things children's bookish, efficient and inspired – with a great eye for comedy – and I have no doubt that everyone who’s been a proud and passionate supporter of Catnip will get behind her as much as they once did me. Catnip has some extremely exciting books coming out next year with long-established Catnip authors such as Joan Lingard, Patricia Leitch, Margaret Bateson-Hill and Sam Hay; second books from this year’s debut authors Jason Beresford and Natasha Desborough and two wonderful authors to welcome to the list: the ever-popular Keris Stainton and debut author Anne Booth.

I will still be very much shouting about children’s books on twitter as @NonPratt (and on any other forum if I get half a chance), and I’m sure you’re all forgive me if I retain a slight Catnip-bias.

Merry Christmas – and here’s to new eras.

NoN

What a Weird night...

Last night we welcomed a book into the world, dousing its head in Prosecco and christening it: WEIRDOS VS QUIMBOIDS (actually, we christened it before that, but for the sake of the metaphor...)

Editor Non (looking like a massive quimboid), Illustrator Vicky & Author Tash

I won't bother with a write-up of the event itself - there are some fantastic ones already live complete with a reading from Nastasha Desborough (the author) on Teen Librarian, or for a thorough overview not only of night, but also Catnip and the list (as well as some truly beautiful photos) head over to Achuka.

There was a lovely mix of people there - smooth-voiced Radio people (as promised on the invitation), family, friends, industry types and bloggers and it was lovely to see a lot of hard work turn into a fantastic evening. Thank you all very much for coming, those who could make it - had you not, it would just have been me (Non), Liz and Tash drinking our way through the bar tab and cackling at our favourite bits of the book. (Not that different from the editorial meetings, then...)

We also ran a wee twitter game yesterday, encouraging people to share their stories of teenage weirdness using #teenweirdo - we printed these on sheets that were spread about the room and then, at the end of the night, we picked a guest of honour (Ella, AN ACTUAL TEENAGER) to pick three winners:

Look what you've won, you weirdos!

"I was annoyed that everyone else had an allergy and I didn't, so I pretended I was allergic to oranges - until someone pointed out that I drank orange juice, at which point I claimed I was only allergic to the peel." @Char_Ronald

"At youth club I persuaded everyone that there was a mummified cat in the loft that we had to find and “release”" @KatyjaMoran

"I used to spend lunchtimes trying to hypnotise myself" @BBookLBook

There are more hilarious stories of teen weirdness on twitter, some gathered from the Catnip team as well as the Bounce bunch, so feel free to check out #teenweirdo - if you feel compelled to contribute, we might do another giveaway next week...

In the meantime, you can find out more at www.natashadesborough.co.uk  and if you feel so compelled, why not hunt down copies of WEIRDOS VS QUIMBOIDS in the wild, capture them and drag them home for devouring? You will not be disappointed.

New blog post! New book! New Author!

Non Pratt at Catnip Books has signed Anne Booth's GIRL WITH A WHITE DOG, a novel that "will change hearts and minds".

Catnip has UK and Commonwealth rights through Anne Clark of the Anne Clark Literary Agency, and will publish in March 2014.

Girl with a White Dog is the story of Jessie, who desperately wishes for a dog. But when her gran gets a white Alsatian puppy, a mystery starts to unfold. At school Jessie is studying the Nazis' rise to power, and she starts to make connections, uncovering something long-buried, troubling and somehow linked to another girl, and another white dog . . .

Pratt said: "Jessie's voice is entirely authentic as a child on the cusp of realising how the world works. Anne's passion for her characters and the themes that inspired her to write this book bubbles fiercely under the surface of a beautifully told story - one with the power to move me, and the sales team, to tears."