I've had a busy couple of days in London. On Tuesday, I went to the reception for the new Children's Laureate. It was all a very well kept secret, but if I'd spotted the gent in question, I would have known it was him. I could not have been more pleased when we finally got to the 'without further ado' moment and the new laureate was announced. Anthony Browne. He is an immensely talented and distinguished illustrator, astonishingly creative, genuinely inspirational and a really nice guy. His picture books are extraordinarily clever, but instantly accessible; full of detail that re-pays looking and re-looking. Part of his success lies in the fact that adults and children both quickly become absorbed by his work, stepping into the immensely rich world he creates in his books. He has an enormous reputation abroad, and I hope that he can get the British to finally appreciate the great wealth of artists and illustrators that we have in this country. I also hope that he gets everybody to play the Shape Game!

Yesterday, I was helping to chair a quite extraordinary  meeting of all sorts of people: authors, illustrators, publishers, agents, librarians, teachers, teacher trainers, journalists, critics, representatives from organisations involved in promoting reading and literacy, booksellers, and others involved in the world of children's books. We were all there to hear Michael Rosen talk about how we can get reading for pleasure, for fun, for enjoyment back into our schools. All those terms don't really work. Independent reading is all those things, but much more. It is the way to independent thought and full intellectual maturity. There was much discussion and a lot of points raised. I'm not sure what will happen next, but something will. With Arnold Shwarzenegger wanting to rid schools of books altogether, something has to happen. Watch this space.

Hay Festival

I haven't blogged for a while. Not because I've had nothing to blog about, more because blogging is a bit like keeping New Year's Resolutions - I'll start tomorrow. Also, this is my third attempt (and counting) at getting this up on the website. Anyway, this is a pic of me holding forth at Hay. I was on a panel with Sally Gardner, chaired by Julia Eccleshare, Children's Fiction Editor for The Guardian, discussing the French Revolution (note the tricolor rosette I bought in a costume shop near the Opera in Paris). We were talking about my novel, Sovay, and Sally's novel The Silver Blade, the sequel to The Red Necklace. It always interests me that two writers can choose the same time and the same place almost exactly, two of our characters would have been in the same prison on the same day, but will end up writing something completely different. Sally's novel is on this year's Guardian Children's Fiction Prize Longlist. I was one of the judges and it deserves its place. One never knows how many people will turn up, so it was a relief to see that the tent so full (maybe some of your were there, if so, let me know!). Afterwards, we signed lots of books and were all very happy that it went so well.

I'm always thrilled to be invited to go to Hay. It is such a great festival, full of people who love books and reading. I first went in 1990, as a wannerbe writer, never dreaming (OK dreaming) that one day I'd be there on the platform. If I'm at Hay, I always try to go and see other writers. Just like all the other readers there, I'm interested in what they have to say about their books, and I'm a big believer that writers can learn from each other. This year I went to see Patrick Ness, one of my fellow Guardian Judges, talking about his books, The Knife of Never Letting Go, and the new one, The Ask and The Answer. I'm not a big fan of dystopian novels, unless they are very good, and his are very good. He's an exciting writer, not afraid to do something very different. I thoroughly enjoyed his session, and meeting him on the judging panel. It is easy to get complacent about one's own writing and he's a reminder not to do that. I went back to Hay on Saturday, especially to see Sarah Waters. I am a huge fan of her historical novels and had to go and see her speaking. I also bought her new book, The Little Stranger, and she was gracious enough to sign it for me in the Green Room before she went on stage.

The Festival is over now, soon the site will be just a muddy field. Time to get back to my current book (more about that in the next blog). The book is not even finished yet, but if I'm there next year that is the one I'll be talking about, so I'd better get on with it!

Happy New Year!

I've got quite a bit of writing done since New Year (didn't get much done before - best intentions and all that). Sovay is being published in Germany, so on Monday I'm going there for a week's tour and a Festival in Berlin. From there, I'm going to Athens for a British Council Fair. Foreign visits are like buses - nothing then two at once. There will be lots of other writers going, like Catherine Johnson, Keith Gray and Theresa Breslin, so it will be good to catch up with them. After that, I don't have much on, so I'll be back at my desk. If Claire is reading this, I could be tempted to go for a coffee...

Christmas is coming...

and I'm finally getting a bit of time to do some writing. I've more or less finished with visits and meetings for this year. I really enjoyed the The Literlund Festival in Sweden. It was wonderful to be able to meet and talk to Swedish readers and to meet other writers from different countries. I also had a great time recently at Highgate School in London, who had organised a Gothic Day for their Year 8 students. Linda Newbery, Adele Geras and Sarah Singleton were also there, but I got to visit Highgate's famous West Cemetery (the setting for much of Blood Sinister) with my group of students. We had a guided tour, took lots of photographs, and then went back to the school to do some writing. My perfect workshop!

Events

In the next couple of weeks I will be at:

17th October, 2008
YLG Training Day - London

23rd & 24th October, 2008
LitteraLund Festival, Lund, Sweden.
www.litteralund.se

25th October, 2008
Perth Festival - Perth Concert Hall & Perth Theatre
Perth, Scotland
Tickets from: www.horsecross.co.uk

27th November, 2008

Gothic Day, Highgate School, Highgate, London

writing workshops, festivals and other things in between...

I've had a busy couple of weeks. First, at Ty Newydd in North Wales tutoring a course with Mary Hoffman www.maryhoffman.co.uk . It was a great week, with really enthusiastic students, keen to know more about writing and hone their skills. We worked them pretty hard, but I think that they enjoyed themselves. If you want to write, then check out the courses at Ty Newydd www.tynewydd.org or at one of the centres run by the Arvon Foundation www.arvonfoundation.org . Marcus Sedgwick came along as our visiting author. It was great to see him and the students really enjoyed hearing about his next novel. When I go back from Ty Newydd, I did another writers' workshop for Warwick Words, but this time it was pretty local. The session was full of dedicated people, dedicated enough to tip up at 10:00 on a Sunday morning in the pouring rain. It was lovely to see some old friends there and nice to meet Claire who has her own blog and has already been in touch via mine, so somebody is reading this! Joe, the book that I was trying to remember was The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick.

On Saturday, 11th October, I was at the Cheltenham Festival - 'hi' to everyone who came along, especially the Bookwitch, who was there with her daughter and came up afterwards to have her book signed. She's one of the best of the book bloggers, who are getting to be quite a power in the land. You can find her at: www.bookwitch.wordpress.com .

I'm nearly at the end of quite a busy time, so now I'm going to try and get some writing done...

update

Thought it was about time for an update. I've had a pretty busy summer. I spent the early part of it visiting schools, like Faringdon (see picture of keen readers), talking about my books, especially Sovay. I went on holiday to France for a week and spent another week at a writers' retreat at Charney Manor in Oxfordshire. I was supposed to be getting on with a new book, Illyria, but didn't get all that much done. I don't think that I'm very good at retreating - I enjoy other people's company too much.

I'm Chair of the Society of Authors' Children's Writers and Illustrators Group this year and we had our Conference at the end of August. That went very well, but it took a lot of organising. The hot topic was Age Ranging - whether it is right to put a suggested age on the back of books. Publishers are for it, but a lot of writers (as well as teachers and librarians) are against it, so feelings were running high. I had a bit of a break at the beginning of September, but I was at the Bath Festival last week, and this Monday I was at North London Collegiate School in Edgeware, the oldest girls' school in the country. I had a lovely time there and was especially honoured that their readers' group decided to have a Celia Rees Week later this term.

Tomorrow I'm off to the Saffron Walden Festival and then next week I'm at Ty Newydd in North Wales, acting as co-tutor with Mary Hoffman on a course for people who want to write for children and teenagers. Marcus Sedgwick is our guest writer. I've just finished his latest book The Kiss of Death (what a great title) about vampires in Venice (what's not to like?), so I'm looking forward to talking to him about that.

When I get back, I'm at the Warwick Words Festival on Sunday, 5th October, doing a Writing Workshop. After a whole week of it, I should be full of ideas. The next weekend, I'll be at the Cheltenham Festival. My event is on Saturday 11th October at 5:30, so if any of you want to come along, it will be great to see you there.