By Maureen Lynas Look, I'm cross. Can't you tell? Do I have to actually spell it out for you! Grrrrrrrrr I once attended an excellent weekend course run by Cornerstones Literary Consultancy. Each day was split into sessions based on plot, character, settings etc. and all was well until we reached the session on ‘Show Not Tell’ Blank looks all round. Explanations were given. Examples
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Blog: Notes from the Slushpile (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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By: Candy Gourlay,
on 1/27/2013
I’m a recently qualified primary school teacher who lives somewhere north of London and south of Glasgow. When not meddling in writing or photography (which I love) I’m busy answering bizarre questions from my two small children and trying to wrestle vegetables into their mouths.
I first took a real interest in writing when I was studying for an English degree and realised that if I did a piece of creative writing for my dissertation I wouldn’t have to write an essay or scour textbooks looking for quotes.
After university, I spent about five years writing and re-writing one novel idea. It turns out I wasn’t ready to write that novel at that time, but I learned a ton from trying. After spending years writing one manuscript, I finished my Felix Munroe: Hell’s Angel MS in about a month and was flabbergasted when it was chosen for Undiscovered Voices. I’ve still not let go of that other idea though and I think I’m finally ready to do it justice!
This is my short blurb for Felix Munroe: Hell’s Angel:
When Felix Munroe bites the dust and finds himself damned to Hell for all eternity, he does what any teenager would do – he kidnaps the antichrist, Lucy Jones, and holds her to ransom. But unluckily for him, he’s inadvertently saved the 12 year old brat from an assassination attempt. Now Felix and Lucy must thwart a plot to take over Hell and save Felix’s skin. Cliché or not, all Hell is about to break loose…
The manuscript is a lower-YA fantasy with elements of the grotesque and macabre (but in a light-hearted way, honestly!). It’s for people who are not afraid to snigger at exploding seagulls and train-rides through a dragon’s intestines. Some of the scenes in the opening are based on real-life incidents but I remain hopeful that the perpetrators of these sins will escape being sent to Hell alongside Felix (note to my brother and Irish cousins: yes, I’m talking about you).
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I’ve been drawing since I can first remember. As a child I’d always wanted to be either an artist or a veterinarian. Drawing animals and making up stories were a private retreat and way to deal with the solitude of being an only child in an immigrant household – I was born in Taiwan, grew up in the US and am now based in London. That mixed background influences me to this day and as I grew up my interests were equally peripatetic.
I have a degree in Biophysics, Fashion design and now an MA in Comparative Literature. I have worked in such places as a flea market, a dentist’s office, a pharmaceutical lab, a newspaper, a bank (gasp!), a fashion studio, and a social network. Once, I worked in a morgue.
But stories and art have always been true to my heart. I’ve exhibited photography, sculpture, sketches, made costumes, and most recently, just completed an attachment at the National Theatre Studios to adapt a play by the Nobel prize-winning playwright Gao Xingjian. I’m still hoping all of this will make sense one day. Until then I’ve decided I’ll just start making things up and drawing them out as I go along.
I am always imagining little characters floating around in different worlds. This one is a finder of forgotten things—broken dreams, lost thoughts, hidden voices—all left behind in a callous, cold and unfeeling factory of a world. He’s a bit of a quiet but curious character that senses something amiss in his surroundings but doesn’t quite know what. When he takes up this discarded object—this stolen voice—and tries to keep it, he goes on an adventure, eventually discovering an authenticity and meaning otherwise missing from his existence.
I think I relate to that kind of character. I pity lone objects. I will project whole interior lives onto something as plain and simple as a lost shoe or fallen french-fry (a habit I suspect is not uncommon with most illustrators and writers). I sometimes take home discarded, broken things. You’d think this only leads to enormous amounts of clutter, which
I’m a geologist – which essentially means I make things up for a living! I grew up in a variety of places around England, leaving my accent wonderfully muddled, and now I live in south Oxfordshire, with beautiful countryside and a power station for inspiration.
Growing up I was addicted to books. I spent most of my childhood buried in something or other, usually imagining I was racing down the trunk of the Faraway Tree with the Saucepan Man, or thinking about what trick I would play on Mr and Mrs Twit if I had the chance (and whether I could get away with putting worms in my sister’s dinner).
But then after school came college, and after that I went to study Geology in Leeds, and forgot all about writing. But sitting on a bench in a Nottingham park one day, I felt the urge to buy a pen and a cheap notepad, and I’ve never looked back.
The first thing I wrote was a middle-grade fantasy adventure – a story I’d been carrying around in my head for a long time. But it was a first novel – and no matter how many times I edited and rewrote it, it was still a first novel. So I tried my hand at a couple of other middle-grade adventure stories – and then I discovered Meg Rosoff’s wonderful ‘How I Live Now’, and then the gripping ‘Numbers’ by Rachel Ward, and I was sold – I wanted to write for young adults.
I had the idea for Magpie after I came off the phone to my sister one day. We were living apart after spending sixteen years attached at the hip, and I wondered what would happen if two sisters were forced to live separate lives, and couldn’t find a way back.
I tried to write Magpie several times, always coming unstuck at the mystical 20,000 word mark, so I put it away in a drawer and worked on something else. Then a while later, after my sister had been bugging me for months to finish it, a friend told me to put what I was working on away, dust off Magpie and work on that because it was good, and within a few weeks I’d re-plotted and finished a first draft. Amazing what a short break, an honest opinion and an annoying sibling can do! The idea inevitably morphed as I wrote and edited away, but the theme of family, and the way they are capable of affecting each other even when they are distances apart, is still at its heart.
When I got the call from Sara Grant to say I was one of the Undiscovered Voices winners, well, I have no idea what I said. I do know I was grinning like an idiot, and I also remember racing out of a workshop I was supposed to be running at work when my phone started ringing, just in case it was Sara!
I have no idea what’s going to happen next, but I’m excited to find out. For now, it’s on with the next manuscript – I’m off to have fun with some new characters!
Thanks!
I'm a 28 year old from London and I work in the publishing industry - as an editor at the very Working Partners Ltd that sponsors the anthology. I've worked as a freelance writer for them too, one action adventure middle grade series and one standalone YA fantasy novel.
I tweet quite a bit as @opportunemoment and I'm a huge nerd for comics, genre fiction of all kinds and choral singing.
Skulk is a YA fantasy/horror. The first chapter sees a teenage girl, Meg, going out in the middle of the night to graffiti the walls of her school - but the plot takes a magical twist when a dying fox shapeshifts into a man right in front of her.
I hope that readers are going to love the turn into the weird, and the way that the fantasy elements mingle with reality. I hope that they're going to faint at the horror bits, cringe at the embarrassing bits, and swoon when Meg finally meets a boy worth the time of day.
It’s easy to enter -- Here's what to do!
• Leave a comment on the blog; say hi, leave your name and tell us if you'd like to be entered for the draw.
If you want to leave your email address that's great, if not, we'll be announcing the winners after midday on the 1st March, UK time. So make sure to check in here and on twitter.
All entries go into a hat and TWO winners will be chosen at random.
Sorry, but this competition is open to UK entrants only.
Dave: When I met Zoë one day at Stansted Airport I could tell she was immediately drawn to me. I knew by the way she was following me.
Zoë: And there you have Dave in a nutshell – such a lively imagination! I was in the passport queue behind him. I had to say hello because he was with someone I knew.
Dave: And there you have Zoë in a nutshell – such enterprising creativity!
Zoë: Anyway, we got chatting and soon discovered we both wanted to write. The result was many Sunday afternoons in The Abingdon off High Street Kensington, telling each other wild stories and a children's book, KALAHARI, was born.
Dave: It’s been an interesting journey writing in tandem. Zoë drinks camomile tea, I love coffee. She’s a day person, I stay up all night ...
Zoë: ... He has sartorial flair, I wear corduroy.
Dave: They will come back into fashion. You’ll see. Anyway ... somehow we managed to agree on the plot and development of KALAHARI. Of course we didn’t always agree – we even had a few scraps along the way.
Zoë: But nothing three policemen and a couple of paramedics couldn’t sort out.
Dave: The truth is, writing is an insular occupation, requiring hours of self-enforced solitude. Nothing but your swirling thoughts and the blank page. Having someone to bounce ideas off and to jointly imagine distant worlds is a piece of terrific luck.
Zoë: Much like winning a spot on the UV 2012 list!
Dave: Hopefully the more we practice, the luckier we’ll get.
KALAHARI is Wolf Brother meets Pan’s Labyrinth. It’s an epic African adventure in a world where normal is turned upside down and nothing is what it seems.
Maisha Bryce is a 13-year-old girl brought up alone by her maverick veterinarian father on a remote farm ravaged by drought. Her only friend is an orphaned elephant bull, named Djembe.
One night, the farm is attacked by sinister figures and Maisha is forced to flee. She must go where she has never been before. She must travel across the vast Kalahari to find her grandmother – a woman she has never met.
Maisha’s odyssey across the desert with Djembe will bring her
Hello and thanks for the congratulations!
I think I was about five or six years old when I decided I wanted to be a writer. My sister and I were playing schools. She was the teacher and I was the pupil. She started to read a book to me as part of the game. It just so happened to be The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. Well, we both forgot about the game because we got so engrossed in the story – she ended up reading the whole thing to me. I loved it – the whole magical world of talking animals and Narnia and always being winter and never Christmas. Soon, we were both hooked on the whole series of Narnia books. It was around this time that I decided that I would like to be a writer when I grew up. The world of story seemed a fascinating and exciting world to me.
I grew up in Devon and Cornwall, an environment I always found very inspiring for the stories I loved to write at school and in my spare time. I remember I used to like writing poems about the sea as well – I could fill a whole notebook with them! In the 1990s, I moved to Salford to do a degree in English Literature at the university there. It was quite a change! I swapped beaches and green fields for tower block buildings and factories. It was like stepping into a Lowry picture. I loved it. A whole new environment to inspire me and my stories.
It didn’t quite work out like that though. Between discovering exactly how amazing books really are on my degree course and discovering more shops, clubs and pubs than I’d ever been used to before, I didn’t get much writing done! After university I got myself a teaching qualification and got a job at a sixth form college in Manchester. I also managed to acquire three children in the space of a year! This was due to my stepchildren coming to live with me and their Dad, plus our own daughter being born soon after. As you might imagine, I didn’t do much writing at all that year!
Having young children in the house made me re-discover my love of children’s books though. I remember reading them the Harry Potter books, thinking ‘let’s see what all this hype is about.’ I soon found myself sneaking the books out of their room and staying up late at night reading them all with the same kind of excitement I’d had for the Narnia books years before.
As the children began to get older, I realised if I really wanted to be a writer and fulfill my childhood ambition, I’d better get started. I would wait until the kids were in bed and then begin. I started off with short stories first, entering small competitions. I had a bit of luck with one of them and won a hundred pounds. It felt really good to spend that money! However – my attempts at writing a novel for adults were awful. I would inevitably give up, disillusioned, before I’d even properly begun.
One day I decided to try my hand at a children’s
I joined the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators especially to enter the UV2012 Competition on the recommendation of a friend, so I couldn’t believe it when I found out I'd been selected as one of the six lucky illustrator winners!
My background is in Illustration and Printmaking; I studied at Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University and Brighton University.
I have worked as a college lecturer in art and design for several years and I have a real passion for all aspects of illustration, especially children’s books.
In my work I have enjoyed experimenting with a variety of mediums including painting and textiles, underpinned by a strong sense of drawing and composition. I have recently been combining traditional printmaking techniques with digital media.
I take inspiration from the natural world, but I also love drawing everyday objects, toys and the domestic paraphernalia that comes with family life.
My children are an endless source of inspiration and often come up with ideas for stories and characters!
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Blog: Notes from the Slushpile (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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35 Comments on Show Not Tell, said Maureen crossly., last added: 2/16/2013
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2. DEBORAH HEWITT: One of the Twelve Voices Chosen for SCBWI-BI's Undiscovered Voices Anthology 2012
By: Tracy,
on 2/19/2012
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: SCBWI, Book Giveaway, Competition, Working Partners, Undiscovered Voices, Add a tag
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: SCBWI, Book Giveaway, Competition, Working Partners, Undiscovered Voices, Add a tag
* Congratulations, Deborah, on achieving a coveted place in Undiscovered Voices 2012! and welcome to tall tales & short stories.
The floor is yours, please tell us all about yourself, your writing journey and anything else you'd like to add.
I’m a recently qualified primary school teacher who lives somewhere north of London and south of Glasgow. When not meddling in writing or photography (which I love) I’m busy answering bizarre questions from my two small children and trying to wrestle vegetables into their mouths.
I first took a real interest in writing when I was studying for an English degree and realised that if I did a piece of creative writing for my dissertation I wouldn’t have to write an essay or scour textbooks looking for quotes.
After university, I spent about five years writing and re-writing one novel idea. It turns out I wasn’t ready to write that novel at that time, but I learned a ton from trying. After spending years writing one manuscript, I finished my Felix Munroe: Hell’s Angel MS in about a month and was flabbergasted when it was chosen for Undiscovered Voices. I’ve still not let go of that other idea though and I think I’m finally ready to do it justice!
* Could you tell our readers all about your winning entry and why they are going to love it!
This is my short blurb for Felix Munroe: Hell’s Angel:
When Felix Munroe bites the dust and finds himself damned to Hell for all eternity, he does what any teenager would do – he kidnaps the antichrist, Lucy Jones, and holds her to ransom. But unluckily for him, he’s inadvertently saved the 12 year old brat from an assassination attempt. Now Felix and Lucy must thwart a plot to take over Hell and save Felix’s skin. Cliché or not, all Hell is about to break loose…
The manuscript is a lower-YA fantasy with elements of the grotesque and macabre (but in a light-hearted way, honestly!). It’s for people who are not afraid to snigger at exploding seagulls and train-rides through a dragon’s intestines. Some of the scenes in the opening are based on real-life incidents but I remain hopeful that the perpetrators of these sins will escape being sent to Hell alongside Felix (note to my brother and Irish cousins: yes, I’m talking about you).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
COMPETITION TIME!
...WIN a copy of Undiscovered Voices, by Working Partners & SCWBI-BI.
Your chance to read all the selected excerpts, see the fabulous illustrations
and read what the judges had to say!
Display Comments Add a Comment
By: Tracy,
on 2/17/2012
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Book Giveaway, Competition, Illustrator interview, Working Partners, Undiscovered Voices, SCBWI, Add a tag
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Book Giveaway, Competition, Illustrator interview, Working Partners, Undiscovered Voices, SCBWI, Add a tag
* Congratulations, Amber, on achieving a coveted place in Undiscovered Voices 2012! and welcome to tall tales & short stories.
The floor is yours, please tell us all about yourself, your journey as an artist/illustrator and anything else you'd like to add.
I’ve been drawing since I can first remember. As a child I’d always wanted to be either an artist or a veterinarian. Drawing animals and making up stories were a private retreat and way to deal with the solitude of being an only child in an immigrant household – I was born in Taiwan, grew up in the US and am now based in London. That mixed background influences me to this day and as I grew up my interests were equally peripatetic.
I have a degree in Biophysics, Fashion design and now an MA in Comparative Literature. I have worked in such places as a flea market, a dentist’s office, a pharmaceutical lab, a newspaper, a bank (gasp!), a fashion studio, and a social network. Once, I worked in a morgue.
But stories and art have always been true to my heart. I’ve exhibited photography, sculpture, sketches, made costumes, and most recently, just completed an attachment at the National Theatre Studios to adapt a play by the Nobel prize-winning playwright Gao Xingjian. I’m still hoping all of this will make sense one day. Until then I’ve decided I’ll just start making things up and drawing them out as I go along.
* Could you tell our readers all about the story behind your chosen entry, and most importantly why they are going to love your work!
And so Chairogo Brought Forth the Stolen Voice... |
I am always imagining little characters floating around in different worlds. This one is a finder of forgotten things—broken dreams, lost thoughts, hidden voices—all left behind in a callous, cold and unfeeling factory of a world. He’s a bit of a quiet but curious character that senses something amiss in his surroundings but doesn’t quite know what. When he takes up this discarded object—this stolen voice—and tries to keep it, he goes on an adventure, eventually discovering an authenticity and meaning otherwise missing from his existence.
I think I relate to that kind of character. I pity lone objects. I will project whole interior lives onto something as plain and simple as a lost shoe or fallen french-fry (a habit I suspect is not uncommon with most illustrators and writers). I sometimes take home discarded, broken things. You’d think this only leads to enormous amounts of clutter, which
5 Comments on AMBER HSU: One of the Six Illustrators Chosen for SCBWI-BI's Undiscovered Voices Anthology 2012, last added: 2/20/2012
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By: Tracy,
on 2/15/2012
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Competition, Book Giveaway, Working Partners, Undiscovered Voices, SCBWI, Add a tag
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Competition, Book Giveaway, Working Partners, Undiscovered Voices, SCBWI, Add a tag
* Congratulations, Jo, on achieving a coveted place in Undiscovered Voices 2012! and welcome to tall tales & short stories.
The floor is yours, please tell us all about yourself, your writing journey and anything else you'd like to add.
I’m a geologist – which essentially means I make things up for a living! I grew up in a variety of places around England, leaving my accent wonderfully muddled, and now I live in south Oxfordshire, with beautiful countryside and a power station for inspiration.
Growing up I was addicted to books. I spent most of my childhood buried in something or other, usually imagining I was racing down the trunk of the Faraway Tree with the Saucepan Man, or thinking about what trick I would play on Mr and Mrs Twit if I had the chance (and whether I could get away with putting worms in my sister’s dinner).
But then after school came college, and after that I went to study Geology in Leeds, and forgot all about writing. But sitting on a bench in a Nottingham park one day, I felt the urge to buy a pen and a cheap notepad, and I’ve never looked back.
The first thing I wrote was a middle-grade fantasy adventure – a story I’d been carrying around in my head for a long time. But it was a first novel – and no matter how many times I edited and rewrote it, it was still a first novel. So I tried my hand at a couple of other middle-grade adventure stories – and then I discovered Meg Rosoff’s wonderful ‘How I Live Now’, and then the gripping ‘Numbers’ by Rachel Ward, and I was sold – I wanted to write for young adults.
I had the idea for Magpie after I came off the phone to my sister one day. We were living apart after spending sixteen years attached at the hip, and I wondered what would happen if two sisters were forced to live separate lives, and couldn’t find a way back.
I tried to write Magpie several times, always coming unstuck at the mystical 20,000 word mark, so I put it away in a drawer and worked on something else. Then a while later, after my sister had been bugging me for months to finish it, a friend told me to put what I was working on away, dust off Magpie and work on that because it was good, and within a few weeks I’d re-plotted and finished a first draft. Amazing what a short break, an honest opinion and an annoying sibling can do! The idea inevitably morphed as I wrote and edited away, but the theme of family, and the way they are capable of affecting each other even when they are distances apart, is still at its heart.
When I got the call from Sara Grant to say I was one of the Undiscovered Voices winners, well, I have no idea what I said. I do know I was grinning like an idiot, and I also remember racing out of a workshop I was supposed to be running at work when my phone started ringing, just in case it was Sara!
I have no idea what’s going to happen next, but I’m excited to find out. For now, it’s on with the next manuscript – I’m off to have fun with some new characters!
*
17 Comments on JO WYTON: One of the Twelve Voices Chosen for SCBWI-BI's Undiscovered Voices Anthology 2012, last added: 2/17/2012
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By: Tracy,
on 2/14/2012
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Working Partners, Undiscovered Voices, SCBWI, Book Giveaway, Competition, Add a tag
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Working Partners, Undiscovered Voices, SCBWI, Book Giveaway, Competition, Add a tag
* Congratulations, Rosie, on achieving a coveted place in Undiscovered Voices 2012! and welcome to tall tales & short stories.
The floor is yours, please tell us all about yourself, your writing journey and anything else you'd like to add.
Thanks!
I'm a 28 year old from London and I work in the publishing industry - as an editor at the very Working Partners Ltd that sponsors the anthology. I've worked as a freelance writer for them too, one action adventure middle grade series and one standalone YA fantasy novel.
I tweet quite a bit as @opportunemoment and I'm a huge nerd for comics, genre fiction of all kinds and choral singing.
* Could you tell our readers all about your winning entry and why they are going to love it!
Skulk is a YA fantasy/horror. The first chapter sees a teenage girl, Meg, going out in the middle of the night to graffiti the walls of her school - but the plot takes a magical twist when a dying fox shapeshifts into a man right in front of her.
I hope that readers are going to love the turn into the weird, and the way that the fantasy elements mingle with reality. I hope that they're going to faint at the horror bits, cringe at the embarrassing bits, and swoon when Meg finally meets a boy worth the time of day.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
COMPETITION TIME!
...WIN a copy of Undiscovered Voices, by Working Partners & SCWBI-BI.
Your chance to read all the selected excerpts, see the fabulous illustrations
and read what the judges had to say!
WE HAVE TWO COPIES TO GIVE AWAY!
It’s easy to enter -- Here's what to do!
• Leave a comment on the blog; say hi, leave your name and tell us if you'd like to be entered for the draw.
If you want to leave your email address that's great, if not, we'll be announcing the winners after midday on the 1st March, UK time. So make sure to check in here and on twitter.
All entries go into a hat and TWO winners will be chosen at random.
Sorry, but this competition is open to UK entrants only.
1 Comments on ROSIE BEST: One of the Twelve Voices Chosen for SCBWI-BI's Undiscovered Voices Anthology 2012, last added: 2/14/2012
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By: Tracy,
on 2/11/2012
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: SCBWI, Book Giveaway, Competition, Working Partners, Undiscovered Voices, Add a tag
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: SCBWI, Book Giveaway, Competition, Working Partners, Undiscovered Voices, Add a tag
Our Writing Journey – Dave Hofmeyr & Zoë Crookes
Dave: When I met Zoë one day at Stansted Airport I could tell she was immediately drawn to me. I knew by the way she was following me.
Zoë: And there you have Dave in a nutshell – such a lively imagination! I was in the passport queue behind him. I had to say hello because he was with someone I knew.
Dave: And there you have Zoë in a nutshell – such enterprising creativity!
Zoë: Anyway, we got chatting and soon discovered we both wanted to write. The result was many Sunday afternoons in The Abingdon off High Street Kensington, telling each other wild stories and a children's book, KALAHARI, was born.
Dave: It’s been an interesting journey writing in tandem. Zoë drinks camomile tea, I love coffee. She’s a day person, I stay up all night ...
Zoë: ... He has sartorial flair, I wear corduroy.
Dave: They will come back into fashion. You’ll see. Anyway ... somehow we managed to agree on the plot and development of KALAHARI. Of course we didn’t always agree – we even had a few scraps along the way.
Zoë: But nothing three policemen and a couple of paramedics couldn’t sort out.
Dave: The truth is, writing is an insular occupation, requiring hours of self-enforced solitude. Nothing but your swirling thoughts and the blank page. Having someone to bounce ideas off and to jointly imagine distant worlds is a piece of terrific luck.
Zoë: Much like winning a spot on the UV 2012 list!
Dave: Hopefully the more we practice, the luckier we’ll get.
* Why KALAHARI Matters
KALAHARI is Wolf Brother meets Pan’s Labyrinth. It’s an epic African adventure in a world where normal is turned upside down and nothing is what it seems.
Maisha Bryce is a 13-year-old girl brought up alone by her maverick veterinarian father on a remote farm ravaged by drought. Her only friend is an orphaned elephant bull, named Djembe.
One night, the farm is attacked by sinister figures and Maisha is forced to flee. She must go where she has never been before. She must travel across the vast Kalahari to find her grandmother – a woman she has never met.
Maisha’s odyssey across the desert with Djembe will bring her
3 Comments on DAVE HOFMEYR AND ZOE CROOKES: A Writing Partnership and One of the Twelve Voices Chosen for SCBWI-BI's Undiscovered Voices Anthology 2012, last added: 2/13/2012
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By: Tracy,
on 2/10/2012
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Book Giveaway, Competition, Working Partners, Undiscovered Voices, SCBWI, Add a tag
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Book Giveaway, Competition, Working Partners, Undiscovered Voices, SCBWI, Add a tag
* Congratulations, Rachel, on achieving a coveted place in Undiscovered Voices 2012! and welcome to tall tales & short stories.
The floor is yours, please tell us all about yourself, your writing journey and anything else you'd like to add.
Hello and thanks for the congratulations!
I think I was about five or six years old when I decided I wanted to be a writer. My sister and I were playing schools. She was the teacher and I was the pupil. She started to read a book to me as part of the game. It just so happened to be The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. Well, we both forgot about the game because we got so engrossed in the story – she ended up reading the whole thing to me. I loved it – the whole magical world of talking animals and Narnia and always being winter and never Christmas. Soon, we were both hooked on the whole series of Narnia books. It was around this time that I decided that I would like to be a writer when I grew up. The world of story seemed a fascinating and exciting world to me.
I grew up in Devon and Cornwall, an environment I always found very inspiring for the stories I loved to write at school and in my spare time. I remember I used to like writing poems about the sea as well – I could fill a whole notebook with them! In the 1990s, I moved to Salford to do a degree in English Literature at the university there. It was quite a change! I swapped beaches and green fields for tower block buildings and factories. It was like stepping into a Lowry picture. I loved it. A whole new environment to inspire me and my stories.
It didn’t quite work out like that though. Between discovering exactly how amazing books really are on my degree course and discovering more shops, clubs and pubs than I’d ever been used to before, I didn’t get much writing done! After university I got myself a teaching qualification and got a job at a sixth form college in Manchester. I also managed to acquire three children in the space of a year! This was due to my stepchildren coming to live with me and their Dad, plus our own daughter being born soon after. As you might imagine, I didn’t do much writing at all that year!
Having young children in the house made me re-discover my love of children’s books though. I remember reading them the Harry Potter books, thinking ‘let’s see what all this hype is about.’ I soon found myself sneaking the books out of their room and staying up late at night reading them all with the same kind of excitement I’d had for the Narnia books years before.
As the children began to get older, I realised if I really wanted to be a writer and fulfill my childhood ambition, I’d better get started. I would wait until the kids were in bed and then begin. I started off with short stories first, entering small competitions. I had a bit of luck with one of them and won a hundred pounds. It felt really good to spend that money! However – my attempts at writing a novel for adults were awful. I would inevitably give up, disillusioned, before I’d even properly begun.
One day I decided to try my hand at a children’s
3 Comments on RACHEL WOLFREYS: One of the Twelve Voices Chosen for SCBWI-BI's Undiscovered Voices Anthology 2012, last added: 2/13/2012
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By: Tracy,
on 2/9/2012
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: SCBWI, Book Giveaway, Competition, Illustrator interview, Working Partners, Undiscovered Voices, Add a tag
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: SCBWI, Book Giveaway, Competition, Illustrator interview, Working Partners, Undiscovered Voices, Add a tag
* Congratulations, Julia, on achieving a coveted place in Undiscovered Voices 2012! and welcome to tall tales & short stories.
The floor is yours, please tell us all about yourself, your journey as an artist/illustrator and anything else you'd like to add.
I joined the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators especially to enter the UV2012 Competition on the recommendation of a friend, so I couldn’t believe it when I found out I'd been selected as one of the six lucky illustrator winners!
My background is in Illustration and Printmaking; I studied at Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University and Brighton University.
I have worked as a college lecturer in art and design for several years and I have a real passion for all aspects of illustration, especially children’s books.
In my work I have enjoyed experimenting with a variety of mediums including painting and textiles, underpinned by a strong sense of drawing and composition. I have recently been combining traditional printmaking techniques with digital media.
I take inspiration from the natural world, but I also love drawing everyday objects, toys and the domestic paraphernalia that comes with family life.
My children are an endless source of inspiration and often come up with ideas for stories and characters!
3 Comments on JULIA GROVES: One of the Six Illustrators Chosen for SCBWI-BI's Undiscovered Voices Anthology 2012, last added: 2/9/2012
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By: Tracy,
on 12/5/2011
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap) JacketFlap tags: Working Partners, Undiscovered Voices, SCBWI, Add a tag
We interrupt this service for a very important announcement. London – Thirteen promising, unpublished UK writers and, for the first time, six unpublished illustrators, were selected from hundreds of submissions to be included in the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) anthology, titled Undiscovered Voices 2012. The anthology features 4,000-word extracts of novels written for children and black and white illustrations on the theme of ‘undiscovered voices’. “We are delighted to showcase an array of enchanting new voices from amongst SCBWI British Isles members – this time both in words and pictures,” said Natascha Biebow, Regional Advisor (Chair) of the SCBWI in the British Isles. “We are confident that they won’t stay undiscovered for very long.” SCBWI congratulates the following 13 authors and their novel extracts that will be included in the 2012 anthology: Skulk by Rosie Best, London Dragons Do. Dodos Don’t. by Veronica Cossanteli, Southampton Gabbleratchet by Sandra Greaves, Devon The Executioner’s Child by Jane Hardstaff, London Felix Munroe: Hell’s Angel by Deborah Hewitt, Cheshire Kalahari by David Hofmeyr and Zoe Crookes, London Dead Jealous by Sharon Jones, Lancashire To Dance with the Wind by Rachel Latham, Cumbria To Destiny or Death! by Maureen Lynas, Cleveland Boonie by Richard Masson, Cornwall Touch by Rachel Wolfreys, Manchester Magpie by Jo Wyton, Oxfordshire “Every year I’m amazed and thrilled by the range of stories in this anthology, but I truly believe that this year will prove to be a vintage year,” said award-winning author Malorie Blackman, honorary chair for the 2012 anthology. Blackman has written more than 50 books including the Noughts and Crosses series and Boys Don’t Cry. “The quality of the writing is outstanding.” From the two previous anthologies in 2008 and 2010, 13 of the 24 selected authors have received publishing contracts and sold more than 50,000 books. These authors have been nominated for and won an amazing array of literary prizes: including winning the Bedfordshire Children's Book of the Year, being shortlisted for 17 regional awards, the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize and the Branford Boase Award. We’ve had two titles shortlisted for Blue Peter awards and one title long-listed for the Carnegie Medal. “We are delighted by the success of the first two anthologies,” Biebow said. “It’s exciting to see novels that were initially printed as extracts in the anthologies in bookshops and winning major prizes. We hope that both the writers and illustrators in the 2012 edition will have similar success.” The following six illustrations will be featured in the 2012 anthology. These artists created black and white drawings in response to the prompt of ‘undiscovered voices’. Birdsong by Julia Groves, East Anglia And so Chairogo brought forth the stolen voice..
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By: Tracy,
on 4/17/2011
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap) JacketFlap tags: Book Review, book recommendation, debut author, Working Partners, Undiscovered Voices, Agent Comments, Writing Tips, Add a tag
* Hi Bryony and welcome to tall tales & short stories. Would you like to tell us a bit about yourself? Hi Tracy. Thank you for having me. I’m really excited at the moment and kind of reeling, it seems very strange that anyone would actually be interested in anything I have to say and I feel a bit celeb-ish. However, I’m going to do my best with these questions and try not to be too boring (like every fanatic, I do love to go on about my subject). What can I say about me? I’m in my mid-ish thirties. I have two small children (a girl aged five and a boy aged two). I’m a full time Mum, so all my writing has to slot in around the sleep times of small people. I have a cat, who is kind of starved of attention and likes to sit on my laptop (not my lap mark you) and I watch far too much television. ANGEL'S FURY Every atrocity. Every war. Every act of vengeance. Will come back to haunt her. A fallen angel walks the earth to bring mankind to its destruction... Turning love into hate, forgiveness into blame, hope into despair. Through the fires of hell he has come to haunt one girl's dreams. But what if everything she ever dreamed was true? Every time Cassie Smith tries to sleep, she is plagued by visions of a death: A little girl called Zillah. A victim of the holocaust. In desperation Cassie is sent for treatment in an old manor house. There she meets other children just like her. Including Seth...Seth who looks so familiar. Her dream becomes nightmare. And then reality. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * What inspired you to write Angel’s Fury? There wasn’t one single thing. The character of Cassie has existed for a while; the girl with the nightmares has been living alongside me for sometime, but she didn’t have a story and I didn’t know why she had the nightmares. A few years ago, I went on holiday to Bali and learned about the local belief in reincarnation – which gave me a reason for her suffering, but not a storyline. Finally a random piece of research for another idea led me to Nephilim and I had a hook to hold the whole thing together. Things sit in the back of my head and percolate until they’re ready. Angel’s Fury was literally an idea whose time had come. * Without giving too much away, Angel’s Fury touches
2 Comments on Interview with a Debut Author: BRYONY PEARCE, last added: 4/17/2011
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By: Tracy,
on 6/13/2010
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap) JacketFlap tags: Writing Advice, Working Partners, Publisher interview, Senior Commissioning Editor, Add a tag
Hi Jasmine. Welcome to tall tales & short stories and thank you for agreeing to be interviewed. Could you tell us a little about yourself? I’m a senior commissioning editor for children’s fiction at Oxford University Press and have worked in publishing for 7 years or so. I previously worked for a company called Working Partners where I developed series fiction including Rainbow Magic, My Secret Unicorn and Beast Quest. (Interview on this blog with Sara O'Connor of Working Partners) When I’m not editing, I’m writing, and my novel the Windrose - the first in the trilogy- has just been picked up by Harper Collins US. Which authors/stories did you enjoy reading as a child/teenager? How do you think they compare to the children’s/YA novels available today? What do you think children of today want to read? What I liked to read as a child/teenager • Roald Dahl – The Witches, Matilda, The Twits • William Sleator—Interstellar Pig • Phillip Pullman – Ruby in the Smoke • Judy Blume Tiger Eyes, Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret • Lois Duncan – Stranger With My Face • Christopher Pike and Point Horror books. • Meredith Ann Pierce – Dark Angel, The Woman Who Loved Reindeer • L.J Smith – The Vampire Diaries _ I read these the first time round, really pleased that a new generation of readers are getting a flavour of such an awesome love triangle. • Michelle Magorian – Goodnight Mr Tom • Harry Potter – I was still a teenager [just] so it counts! What do you think children of today want to read? The same things that children of yesterday read, great narratives, characters that you can love and empathise with. Funny stories, sad stories, love stories and horror stories. The fundamentals of good storytelling don’t change. What inspired you to become a children's/YA book editor and how did you prepare for this career? I have been a lifelong reader of children’s books. Indeed the fact that I was still reading children’s books when I was an adult was my first clue as to what I should do for a living! I studied English Literature and Language at Oxford University and learnt lots about analysing books and talking about them. After I left uni, I worked for a year going to state schools around the country talking to young people about higher education and its benefits. I realised how important books were to raising aspirations and how they had raised my aspirations as a child without me even really noticing! After that epiphany, I knew I wanted to work with books—writing them and editing them. I then got onto the Penguin Graduate programme. It was an eighteen month programme where I got to work in lots of different parts of the business – marketing, publicity, sales, a stint in the Penguin US office as we
18 Comments on Interview with JASMINE RICHARDS, SENIOR COMMISSIONING EDITOR at OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS., last added: 6/16/2010
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By: Tracy,
on 5/23/2010
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap) JacketFlap tags: SCBWI, Writing Advice, Working Partners, Undiscovered Voices, Senior Commissioning Editor, Add a tag
SARA O’CONNOR - SENIOR COMMISSIONING EDITOR at WORKING PARTNERS Sara O'Connor (right) and Sara Grant at the SCBWI Undiscovered Voices launch party. Hi Sara. Welcome to tall tales & short stories and thank you for agreeing to be interviewed. Could you tell us a little about yourself? Thanks for having me. I’m an American, born of British parents, and have been living in England for just under six years. I’ve been at WP for five and a half years and I worked at Little Brown BFYR in New York prior to moving out here. What inspired you to want to work in children's books? When I went to university at Emerson College, I stumbled onto an Introduction to Children’s Writing class taught by Lisa Jahn-Clough. Streaks of sun light shone down through the clouds and trumpets blared. It had never occurred to me that children’s book publishing was a profession, but once it did, there was nothing else I wanted to do. I took every children’s class there was and then made up my own on independent study. Which authors/stories did you enjoy reading as a child/teenager? How do you think they compare to the children’s/YA novels available today? What do you think children of today want to read? I think I was about 11 when I stopped reading books meant for my age group. There wasn’t anything available to buy in between Sweet Valley High (which I gobbled up) and Stephen King (which gobbled me up). I went from the Babysitter’s Club to Jean M Auel’s Earth Children series, from Christopher Pike to John Saul. In high school and college I read a lot of fantasy: Robert Heinlein, Robert Jordan, the Death Gate Cycle, etc. I have always been a fan of series fiction. In comparison, the “adult” books I was reading then are on the same level as YA is now in terms of mature content. The difference is that now, YA books are set in high schools or have teens as the protagonists, which can serve to make it that bit more real for the in-between reader. Children of today want to read excellent stories: emotional, romantic, scary, triumphant – same as I did back then. Could you tell us about Working Partners and how the company works? 5 Comments on Interview with SARA O'CONNOR: Senior Commissioning Editor at Working Partners, last added: 5/26/2010
By: Tracy,
on 3/27/2010
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap) JacketFlap tags: SCBWI, Working Partners, Undiscovered Voices, Add a tag
Follow the link to read all about Find out more about Undiscovered Voices Sponsors of the competition Working Partners To become a member of SCBWI please follow this link Click here to find out more about SCBWI British Isles The Undiscovered Voices Winners 2010 Left to right foreground: Yona Wiseman, Lisa Joy Smith, David Cousins, Anne Anderson, Paula Rawsthorne; back row: Nick Cross, Melvin Burgess, Jane McLoughlin, Lauren Sabel, Abbie Todd, Claire O'Brien, Emily George (not in picture, Jude Ensaff) Click on the winners' names to read their interviews
2 Comments on SCBWI Undiscovered Voices Winners: A Final Round-up, last added: 3/28/2010
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By: Tracy,
on 3/15/2010
Blog: tall tales & short stories (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap) JacketFlap tags: Working Partners, Undiscovered Voices, SCBWI, Add a tag As a member of SCBWI British Isles, I've thoroughly enjoyed and benefited from the support, friendship, guidance and networking possibilities the organisation has provided. Of particular importance to the British Isles group is the Undiscovered Voices competition. Now in its second year the twelve winners were recently announced and their writing journeys are well underway. I asked the winners if they would like to share their experiences and over the next few days I shall be posting their stories on tall tales & short stories. First up, with some background and information about the Undiscovered Voices competition is Sara O'Connor, one half of the two Sara's who came up with the fantastic idea of holding the competition. Sara Grant & Sara O'Connor Undiscovered Voices is an anthology of novel extracts from twelve unpublished children's book authors. It is selected by three agents and three editors, printed and then sent, at no cost, to every agent and editor in the US and the UK, in the hopes that the authors would then be discovered and ultimately published. From the inagural 2008 edition, eight of the twelve selected authors are now published or under contract to be published. The contest is hosted by and exclusively for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, British Isles chapter (SCBWI-BI). The co-editors are both long time members of the SCBWI and volunteer their time to make the project happen. About SCBWI-BI: The SCBWI-BI is an incredibly supportive and connected community of writers and illustrators passionate about books for children. There is the interactive ning, the Yahoo group, the professional series, critique groups, the conferences, the masterclasses... The opportunities for authors to improve their writing and get their questions answered are boundless. Anyone with an interest in creating books for children should be a member, in my opinion. How Undiscovered Voices happened: Undiscovered Voices happened because of Sara -- the actual name. Sara Grant and I met because we shared the same name (quite essentially with the same spelling)
1 Comments on British SCBWI (The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) - UNDISCOVERED VOICES 2010, last added: 3/16/2010
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You make an interesting and valid point about showing and telling. I guess that the balance between the two ends up being based on what will suit your readership, your genre and what is happening at that point in your story.<br />I have my kindle app at the ready and am looking forward to downloading your story.
Thank you very much, Maureen. Another peice to print out and pin on my board. I, too, having been struggling with the amount of telling I see in successful books, despite overwhelming advice against it and the exhausting nature of reading (and writing) scenes that unremittingly show. James Scott Bell - write on.<br />
Tremendously useful, Maureen - thank you. As a writer on BEAST QUEST I'm always particularly intrigued by what makes them so successful, as they aren't the most entertaining books to write. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves of our audience and not get too uppity about stating the obvious!
Brilliant piece on showing not telling! And folks, I've read Florence and I can guarantee you a wonderful read!
Great post, said Ros admiringly.
Thanks for this really useful post, Maureen. I've often wondered why my daughter loved the Beast Quest books so much, apart from the wonderfully-collectable cards at the end. Maybe a reason why Enid Blyton has been so popular, too? Does this mean we should add a bit of telling every now and then so younger children can understand?
Thanks, Amanda. And I haven't forgotten about your appearance on the funEverse, I'll be emailing you this week, sorry it's taken me longer than expected.
Hi, Rowena :) James Scott Bell is one of the masters of 'How To' isn't he.
I'd love it if I had a Beast Quest book in my portfolio, the kids have such enthusiasm for them. They have their place in a child's journey to become an independent reader.
Aw, thanks, Candy. Have a cupcake.
'WoW! Thanks!' said the author of the blog, excitedly. Because she really was pleased that Ros had admired the post.
Hi Anna, I tried to find some samples from Dahl where he'd shown, then confirmed what he'd shown by adding a little bit of telling. I'd spotted them last year, but I didn't have time to do the research. Also I've noticed that good illustrations often confirm the showing. So children know they were on the right track with their interpretation of the text. Interesting subject
GREAT post, Maureen! Thank you so much. In the past I've held back on 'telling' in my novel for fear of being 'reprimanded' ;0) but have been realising recently (through studying other books) that some telling is not only ok but essential (for the reasons you describe above - although I hadn't really thought about how the child's limited life experiences affected this
Thanks Emma :)<br />I used to live in fear of the 'Show Not Tell Police' too. I think one of the tricks is to pick a novel that you absolutely love and analyse how that author has balanced showing and telling. Then you'll have a guideline that suits you. Maybe the book's pace comes from that balance. <br /><br />Glad to hear I've lightened the load!
Thanks Maureen, your posts are always so useful.
Cracking post! Thanks.
No problem Maureen. I wasn't expecting to hear from you so soon - whenever you are ready is fine.
This was a wonderfully instructive article. As an illustrator/author, I tend to think visually. I believe the examples you've given are going to really stick with me. Thank you!
Thank you, Heather :)
Thanks, Paula.
My pleasure, Sue, The triangle of words, pictures and gap is fascinating to me. I wish my illustration skills were good enough to do the whole thing myself. Maybe one day.
This is a great post, and what an insight into the cursed Rainbow Fairies (I will give my poor daughter a break now and allow her to read them without my judgement!) <br /><br />I think that 'telling' is the biggest mistake that people make when writing a picture book, especially if they are not illustrators as well - they forget that the words and illustrations should work together.
Ah, happy times ahead for your daughter :) Until she gets bored and moves on. <br />The example makes sense, Lucy. If you can see it, you don't need to write it.
Great post, thanks! I have heard that you can tell a bit more in picture books, and your post explains so clearly why.
This explanation/demonstration of why we shouldn't "tell" is very pointy indeed.
Ha ha K is for Phillippa!
Mind the gap!
Sylvia, picture books are different to the series reads where telling is used more. In a book like Rosie's Walk there seems to be a lot of telling in the text, but none of the story is told. The pictures show the story. It's a brilliant example of the words, pictures and the gap working together. <br />You can actually have less telling in a picture book and more showing not just because
I thank you for pointing that out, Helen :)
Maureen, you're a star - she said, fawningly. The issue of the gap being different for different ages really is an important point - and so nicely put. I still struggle enormously with this. <br /><br />And of course *donning her neuroscience teacher hat for a moment* well done for identifying that it's the synapse where communication between the neurones happens. It's getting
Hahahahaha! You big show off in your big hat! I did know it, I did!, said Maureen smugly. Big hug, Louise.
Maureen, you are an excellent teacher. The concept of The Gap is brilliant and I just read Louise's comment about synapses which confirms it.<br />Great post and I do like Florence's cover. Thank you.
Thank you, Jan, on all counts.
Oh **** I knew that. Sorry Phillipa.
Awesome, Maureen. I am always struggling with showing and telling, and it's hard to recognize it at times. I like your explanation and your examples are very clear. Thanks!