News

New year. New book. New blogpost.

On 14th January, The Many Worlds of Albie Bright will be published by Nosy Crow. You can find out more about this novel on the Books page of this website and read the first chapter here. The Many Worlds of Albie Bright is a very different book to Twelve Minutes to Midnight and the other Penelope Tredwell novels – my best effort at an elevator pitch is Millions meets Sliding Doors with a side order of quantum physics. It’s a book about love, loss and parallel universes.

For me the build-up to publication day is similar to how I imagine actors feel before the curtain goes up on opening night, filled with nervous anticipation, so it’s been really heartening to hear some early reviews of The Many Worlds of Albie Bright. Thank you to @bookloverJo and @chaletfan for these fantastic first reviews:

“This book is such a delight – it made me laugh out loud, took my breath away and made me cry. It truly is a wonderful story which I loved reading.” BookLover Jo

“The Many Worlds of Albie Bright is a gloriously eccentric and individualistic beast. It’s one to hoard those post Christmas book tokens for, I think.” L.H. Johnson

It’s been amazing too to hear some really positive feedback about the novel from authors I admire and I want to thank Piers Torday for his quotes about The Many Worlds of Albie Bright that grace the cover of the book and the title of this blogpost.

I’ve got some exciting stuff planned for the rest of the month, so keep checking back for updates. You can read my Top Ten list of parallel worlds in fiction at the Guardian Children’s Books website. And if you’re interested in finding out more about the real-life science behind The Many Worlds of Albie Bright, check out the Pinterest board for the book.

Wishing you all a very happy new year. I hope your world in 2016 is filled with hope and wonder.

I had a ton of fun at the Cheltenham Literature Festival last week running a HOW TO WRITE YOUR BEST STORY EVER! creative writing workshop as part of the Festival’s Write On! strand. It was really fantastic to hear the inspirational and off-the-wall stories created by the children in the workshop and I’m sure I must have met some future bestselling authors! A huge thank you to Jane Churchill and all at Cheltenham for inviting me to be part of the festival.

It’s been great to see too some of the brilliant reviews that HOW TO WRITE YOUR BEST STORY EVER! has been receiving since it was published back in May and I’ve gathered a few of these together in this blog post.

“I’ve been on the receiving end of enough creative writing courses since those aforementioned school days to know that a lot of the tips and suggestions here are current and relevant to learners of all ages, and they’re going to be essential for the younger sources of the creative juices. This is a great way to get them flowing.” The Bookbag

“Get the kids’ imagination working overtime with this inspirational new book.” Dad Info

“If you have ever thought that you would like to write a story but you were not sure where to start then this is definitely the book for you.” Booktrust

“All together this book is a tremendously successful treatment of its subject and is very highly recommended.” Armadillo Magazine

“Here is the perfect book to get kids enthused about creative writing. Whether they already love writing stories, or struggle with words or ideas, children will find plenty of handy tips to help them on their way.” Blackpool Gazette

“A fun, informative and creative non-fiction children’s title.” Minerva Reads ‘Book of the Week’

“Funny but also authoritative, it gives children all the tools they need to make creative writing a pleasure.” Salad Days magazine

A huge thank you to all the reviewers who have taken the time to share their thoughts on HOW TO WRITE YOUR BEST STORY EVER!

If you’d have asked me what books inspired me to read as a child, I would usually have answered with The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper or The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner or even The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin. But these books were all books that I read once I had learned to read, whilst the memories of the books that had got me to that point were lost in a haze of colour-coded reading schemes.

All except one. I can distinctly recall sitting on a rug in the corner of my primary school classroom, a chill winter’s day rapping on the window outside, whilst I was lost in a story about a boy named Tim and a cat who could fly on a broomstick. I can remember the image of the two of them, silhouetted against the night sky, and, for the first time, the words of the story being mine to read alone.

The magic and mystery of this story stayed with me across the years, even though its title was lost somewhere in the overstuffed filing cabinets of my mind. Until, that is, Saturday the 8th of February – National Libraries Day, when I had been invited to speak at Tewkesbury and Dursley Libraries alongside the very talented children’s author and illustrator, Tom Percival.

After I had talked about mystery, Victorian moustaches and the final book in the Twelve Minutes to Midnight trilogy, The Black Crow Conspiracy, Tom stepped up to talk about what inspired his stories. He asked if anyone had learned to read using a 1970s reading scheme called Tim and the Hidden People, and, as he talked about the adventures of a boy named Tim and his cat called Tobias, I realised that this was the book that had held me spellbound all those years ago.

After Googling Tim and the Hidden People I’ve discovered that the reading scheme these books belonged to was called Flightpath to Reading. Now long out of print and fetching astronomical prices on eBay – £3000 for a complete set of 32 books! – the memories stirred by these covers remind me that this was the series that launched my love of reading. From learning to decode words and sentences to discovering the worlds of magic and wonder they could reveal, Tim and the Hidden People was the key for me, setting me on path that led to Susan Cooper, Alan Garner, Neil Gaiman and countless other authors and books, as well as being the taproot of my own writing.

So, thank you Sheila K. McCullagh. Thank you for teaching me how to fly.

Just a swift post about some upcoming events.

On Saturday 8th February, I’ll be appearing alongside Tom Percival, author of Tobias Secret and illustrator of Skullduggery Pleasant, at Tewkesbury and Dursley libraries for National Libraries Day. You can get free tickets on EventBrite bookings.

On Saturday 1st March, I’ll be at Octavia’s Bookshop in Cirencester giving an interactive talk and mystery writing workshop as well as signing copies of The Black Crow Conspiracy.

And looking a little further ahead, I’ll be appearing at the 10th anniversary Wychwood Festival in Cheltenham.

If you’re around, come and say hello!

Amidst the excitement of the publication of The Black Crow Conspiracy, the third and final book in the series that began with Twelve Minutes to Midnight, I was thrilled to learn last week that Shadows of the Silver Screen, the second book in the series, has been shortlisted for the 2014 Lambeth Phoenix Book Award. I was particularly pleased about this as Twelve Minutes to Midnight was up for the same award back in 2013, appearing on the shortlist then alongside books by such wonderful authors as Michael Morpurgo and Jonathan Meres.

Nobody writes a novel in order to be shortlisted for a prize - not even Hilary Mantel - but since Twelve Minutes to Midnight was published back in 2012, one of the most exciting things for me as an author has been seeing it appear on the shortlists of regional book awards across the country. After months spent writing alone in a shed at the bottom of my garden, to suddenly find out that young readers from Northern Ireland to Warwickshire, Redbridge to Southampton, not to mention Hillingdon, Dudley and Oldham too, were reading the adventures of Penelope and her friends at The Penny Dreadful was completely amazing and rather thrilling to me. When Twelve Minutes to Midnight won its category at the Stockport Schools Book Award, it was fantastic to have the chance to meet the children who had voted for the award - to see the wonderful and creative work that their reading had inspired and hear their excitement about the books they had read. For me, these awards are about celebrating young readers - encouraging children to discover new authors, pick up books that they might not usually try, and, most importantly, to read for pleasure.

I’m really looking forward to attending the award ceremony in Lambeth on the 1st of May and finding out what the readers there have made of Shadows of the Silver Screen. And if you’re a young reader in Lambeth, don’t forget to vote!

The Black Crow Conspiracy, the third and final book in the series that began with Twelve Minutes to Midnight and continued with Shadows of the Silver Screen, was published today by Nosy Crow. To celebrate, I’ve put together a playlist that inspired me whilst I was writing the book - just click the links to hear the songs. This is the soundtrack to The Black Crow Conspiracy.

The Queen is Dead by The Smiths

The Black Crow Conspiracy starts in the shadow of Queen Victoria’s passing as London prepares for the new King’s coronation. But from across the sea, there are rumours of war…

Treason by The Teardrop Explodes

If, in the manner of Desert Island Discs, I had to pick one record from this playlist that summed up The Black Crow Conspiracy, it would be this song,and not least for the title. As the great man himself sings, ‘Until you realise, it’s just a story…’

The Village Green Preservation Society by The Kinks

As Penelope uncovers the plot that lurks at the heart of The Black Crow Conspiracy, she learns that there is more at stake than just the theft of the Crown Jewels of England.

Herman Loves Pauline by the Super Furry Animals

As was the case in Twelve Minutes to Midnight and Shadows of the Silver Screen, several real-life historical figures make an appearance in the pages of The Black Crow Conspiracy, including one namechecked in this fantastic song.

The Economy by Tim Burgess

And finally, a beautiful song that I turned to more times than I can remember when I was writing The Black Crow Conspiracy. If ‘Treason’ by The Teardrop Explodes is the theme song to the book The Black Crow Conspiracy, then the album ‘Oh No I Love You’ by Tim Burgess was the soundtrack to my writing it.

I hope readers of Twelve Minutes to Midnight and Shadows of the Silver Screen enjoy this final instalment in the series, and a huge thank you to Matt Imrie for his first look review of The Black Crow Conspiracy and Kirsty Connor for including it in her We Love This Book preview of the best Young Adult books of 2014.

Thirty years ago, at the age of nine, I won a prize from my local library service in Manchester for reading the most books over the long summer holiday. I can’t remember what my prize was now, but I suspect it was probably a book token that I soon put to good use.

Fast forward to the 30th October 2013 and I am seated in the stunning Plaza Theatre in Stockport, the auditorium filled with school children, parents, teachers and librarians, all gathered together for the glitzy Stockport Schools’ Book Awards Ceremony. I have been invited to this wonderful celebration of books and reading as Twelve Minutes to Midnight had been shortlisted in the Key Stage 2 category alongside fantastic books by Philip Reeve, Gill Lewis, Ruth Eastham and Elen Caldecott. Before each award was announced, the audience was shown wonderful presentations that school children had prepared for each of the shortlisted titles, combining animation, readings and readers’ comments. These were fabulous and wouldn’t have looked out of place at the Oscars!

I was absolutely thrilled when Twelve Minutes to Midnight was announced as the winner of the Stockport Schools’ Book Award for Key Stage 2 and made sure not to trip over my laces in best Oscars fashion as I climbed the steps to the stage. There I was awarded with my prize, an incredible painting created by Molly-Mae Rafferty which was inspired by Twelve Minutes to Midnight. In my acceptance speech, I told the audience how this had been the first prize that I had won since that day thirteen miles and thirty years ago and how honoured I was to receive an award that had been voted for by the children themselves. I explained how filling myself up with stories when I was young had turned me into a writer, but that reading books could do so much more than this; how every book contained a spark that could set a reader’s imagination ablaze and even transform their life.

I’d like to thank Stockport council, and especially the Stockport Schools Library Service for organising this wonderful event that allowed the young readers of Stockport to celebrate the pleasure of reading and books. I was proud to be part of such a special evening and have the chance to chat to so many fabulous librarians, teachers and young readers - the true reading champions.

On Wednesday evening I went to the Oxford Playhouse to see Neil Gaiman in conversation with Philip Pullman. It was a wonderful event and you can listen to nearly the whole thing in this Waterstones podcast (although sadly this doesn’t include Neil Gaiman’s hilarious reading of an extract from his forthcoming children’s book Fortunately, The Milk which rounded off the evening).

The two authors spoke about imagination and creation, dreams and stories, the books that shaped them as children and the wonders of The Library. As I sat there on the back row of the balcony listening to them talk, it reminded me what an absolute privilege it is to be a children’s author. To have the chance to sow a single seed in the shape of a story which might then take root in the mind of a reader. I thought about the forests that both Neil Gaiman and Philip Pullman have seen spring from the stories that they have told, and the inspiration they have given to countless other imaginations in turn.

Alongside the hardback editions of The Ocean at the End of the Lane and Sandman that I had in my bag, I had a copy of my novel Twelve Minutes to Midnight with a dedication to Neil Gaiman written inside. I had last seen him twenty-five years ago, when I had bunked off school aged fourteen to see him at a book signing alongside Dave McKean at a comic book shop in Manchester. That was the moment that made me believe it was even possible to become an author, and Neil Gaiman’s books took pride of place on the shelves of the library of my childhood; the fuel that has fed my imagination as a writer ever since.

My position at the very back row of the balcony turned out to be a golden ticket as it took me to almost the front of the queue for the signing that took place after the event. As Neil signed my books, I explained that I’d last seen him at a signing in Manchester twenty-five years earlier and he amazed me by remembering the blogpost I had written about this, where I also had tried to express my feelings about The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I finally had the chance to thank him in person and he very kindly thanked me in turn for my gift of Twelve Minutes to Midnight, saying he was looking forward to reading this. When he opens the novel he’ll see the following dedication inside:

“Thank you for helping to plant a seed twenty-five years ago. It grew into this book.”

Many thanks to Charlotte Morris and Leen Van Broeck for allowing me to include their photographs of the event here.

Lots of exciting things have been happening recently with Twelve Minutes to Midnight getting shortlisted for some more fantastic regional book awards including Southampton’s Favourite Book Award 2013 and the Stockport Schools Book Award, the rather chic French edition of Douze Minutes Avant Minuit being published by Flammarion earlier this summer, and the wonderful news that Twelve Minutes to Midnight will be published in North America by Albert Whitman in the Spring of 2014.

However, what I want to share with you today is something even more exciting - the front cover of The Black Crow Conspiracy! This will be the final book in the Penelope Tredwell series and will be published by Nosy Crow on the 9th January 2014. One of the joys of writing this series has been seeing the wonderful cover art that Eric Orchard has produced for each of the books. The first time I saw Penelope through somebody else’s eyes was when I saw the fantastic cover art Eric created for Twelve Minutes to Midnight, and with his artwork for Shadows of the Silver Screen and now The Black Crow Conspiracy, I think he has outdone himself each time.

Rather fittingly, I think The Black Crow Conspiracy is Penelope’s most exciting adventure yet and I hope you agree when you get to read it in January.

Nearly two years ago now, when my debut novel was published and I had my first ever book signing, I blogged about how I had bunked off school aged fourteen to see Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean sign copies of their debut graphic novel, Violent Cases, on what I imagine was Neil Gaiman’s first ever signing tour. If you want to, you can read the blog post here.

This summer Neil Gaiman published his new novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and embarked on what he announced would be his final book signing tour. And this Wednesday Neil Gaiman will be in conversation with Philip Pullman at the Oxford Playhouse, with both authors signing books at the end of the evening. And I’ve got a ticket.

Needless to say, I’m rather excited. One of the highlights of my brief authorial career to date was when I appeared alongside Philip Pullman at the Oxford Literary Festival last year at an event to talk about the influence of Charles Dickens’s work on children’s fiction. Although I was too nervous to say more than a handful of words to him backstage before the event, on stage he showed a real generosity of spirit to myself and Jasmine Richards, the other debut author on the panel, and after the event, he very kindly signed my copy of Lyra’s Oxford with best wishes for Penelope Tredwell and Twelve Minutes to Midnight! I’m currently halfway through his wonderful retellings of Grimm’s folk tales and reading each story is like discovering a fresh stream in an ancient forest, his pellucid prose illuminating these familiar and half-forgotten tales in so many fascinating ways.

But before I began reading this, I was immersed in the pages of The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and, to be honest, I think I’m still recovering from this. Halfway through the first chapter, I almost put the book down and didn’t think that I was going to be able to read it to the end. Not because it is a bad book, far from it; but to borrow the words of a fellow Mancunian, it was too close to home and too near the bone…

The first book of Neil Gaiman’s I ever read was Violent Cases, a story where the adult narrator looks back on events from his childhood, recalling through a haze of distance and memory, a confusing world where adults lied and cruelty seems a common currency. When I read this as a teenager, the story sang to me, even though I probably didn’t fully understand every detail of the tale contained in its pages. Fast forward twenty-five years and I’m reading The Ocean at the End of the Lane, a story where the unnamed adult narrator returns to his old hometown for the funeral of his father, and, from there, drives to find the ocean at the end of the lane and begins to recall exactly what happened to him when he was a boy. But unlike the narrator of Violent Cases, the narrator of The Ocean at the End of the Lane recounts the events of his youth with a crystal-clear clarity: the loneliness and the unhappiness, the refuge he found in the books he read, and above all, the darkness. As I turned the pages I felt as though I was reading the book through two pairs of eyes: the eyes of my adult self, and the boy I once was. But as Lettie Hempstock says in the pages of the story “The truth is there aren’t any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.”

I won’t say anymore about this remarkable novel, but if you haven’t read it, I’d strongly urge you to do so. And on Wednesday evening I’m looking forward to seeing Neil Gaiman in conversation with Philip Pullman, and I hope that I get the chance to say thank you.