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Henrietta Branford Writing Competition Now Open

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The Henrietta Branford Writing Competition, the annual competition for young people which runs in conjunction with the Branford Boase Award, is now open.

The Branford Boase Award recognises a debut children’s author and their editor and was set up in memory of the outstanding children’s writer Henrietta Branford and the gifted editor, Wendy Boase, Editorial Director of Walker Books. They both died of cancer in 1999. 

The Henrietta Branford Writing Competition aims to find and encourage writers of the future, something Henrietta Branford was always keen to do.

 The 2018 competition is open now and anyone under the age of 19 can enter. Entrants are invited to complete this story begun by last year’s winner, author of Beetle Boy, M. G. Leonard:

 ‘The map had led us to an old wall covered with ivy. I reached through the leaves till I was touching the bricks and felt my way sideways. The wall continued three paces then changed from the rough touch of fired sand to the smooth damp texture of rotting wood. We pulled the evergreen curtain aside. Beneath it was a hidden door. I grabbed the heavy iron ring handle that was riveted to the ancient wood and twisted it with both hands, hoping the door would open.’

The story should be no longer than 1000 words, must follow on from the starter paragraph, and have a title. All entrants must live in the UK and be under 19 years of age. Entries will be judged by Prue Goodwin, consultant and lecturer in children’s literature. She says: ‘We are looking for stories that keep the reader wanting to know what is going to happen from beginning to end, are imaginative and unpredictable, and are written with a genuine reader in mind’.

Six winners will be invited to attend the Branford Boase Award celebration party in London in July. There they will meet M. G. Leonard and the authors shortlisted for the 2018 award as well as editors, publishers, agents, and other professionals in this field. They will receive a copy of each of the books shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award and be able to have their books signed.

The closing date for the competition is Saturday 21 April 2018.

Full details are available on the website:

http://www.branfordboaseaward.org.uk/HBWC/HBWC_current/henriettabranfo1.html

Philip Pullman: My Working Day

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published 23 Dec

I see I haven’t said anything yet about the central activity itself. Instead I’ve been taking up time talking about all the bits and pieces I have around me, and I haven’t even mentioned the magnifying glass or the Post-it notes or the worry beads. Wasting time, perhaps. Fiddling about and getting nowhere. But what else did you think writers do all day? Write?

>>> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/23/philip-pullman-writing-day-coloured-pencils

Chris Riddell’s Anxiety Dream

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Chris Riddell hands over the children’s laureateship to someone else mid-week. Here he explains the daily rhythm of life that he will be able to return to, and an anxiety dream that accompanies it:

In my anxiety dream, the man from the ministry knocks on my studio door and produces an official looking document. “It is time to stop this mucking about,” he informs me, “and get a real job.” In fact, on a normal day, I wake early, pad downstairs and have a cup of tea listening to the Today programme and shouting impotently at the radio. Several cups of coffee later my wife will find me reading the Guardian at the kitchen table, and suggest that I “get on with some work”. I then open the kitchen door and walk down my garden path before realising that I’m still in my dressing gown. I then go back inside, get dressed, have another cup of coffee and finish reading the Guardian. It is serious work and someone has to do it. Many emails, phone calls, tweets and Instagram posts later I walk down the garden path for a second time and disappear into the bushes. I sometimes wonder what the neighbours in the flats next door imagine I’m doing.Sign up for the Bookmarks email Read moreMy studio is a converted coach house and completely screened from view at the bottom of the garden. At the end of the day I often glimpse curtains twitching on my return and once my daughter’s friends, visiting from university, screamed as I stepped unexpectedly from the bushes. “Oh, that’s just my dad,” Katy told them insouciantly by way of an explanation. What I actually do at the bottom of my garden is sit at my desk drawing imaginary characters, making up stories and turning them into children’s books. It is so hugely enjoyable that is seldom feels like actual work, hence my anxiety dream.

via Chris Riddell: I told Tom Hiddleston that the new James Bond should be a middle-aged cartoonist | Books | The Guardian.

Where I Write: Cornelia Funke

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The table I draw and write at was made and carved in India, but I bought it Hamburg, to then bring it to Southern California. It’s a well travelled table, and as it can tell so many tales, appropriate for a storyteller. It holds many things (it’s a very big table): shells, stones, Chinese coins, dragons, a paper angel given to me by a child in New Zealand, the photo of a boy who was shot at the Elementary School of Sandy Hook, given to me by his father, to always remind me that stories should comfort and give shelter, but also have to talk about the darkness of this world.

via Where I Write: Cornelia Funke | Pushkin Press.

Roald Dahl: ‘Children only read for fun; you’ve got to hold their attention’

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From the archive: Roald Dahl speaks to the Irish Times in 1982 about writing for children, his inventions and becoming an accidental art collector

irishtimes

“The fascinating thing – and I’ve never been able to understand this about a children ‘s book , a much-loved children ‘s book – is that it doesn’t stop. Yet someone like Graham Greene or Angus Wilson or Saul Bellow can write a first-rate novel, which will get a pretty big sale in hard covers the first year, when it comes out, a reasonable sale during the next couple of years and then it will go into a steady trickle, and that is literally all. I talked to Edna O’Brien some time ago. I said ‘You have lots of books out, and she said in her funny Irish accent, ‘But it’s hard to make a living from them. ‘
“Every year probably twenty first-rate novels are written in English. I think the answer lies in the fact that during that year there are no more than one or two first-rate children’s books written. And of course children read a book they like ten times; we read a novel once. Children, once they fall in love with a book, read it again and again. “

via Roald Dahl: ‘Children only read for fun; you’ve got to hold their attention’.

Philip Pullman: Schools Are Letting Children Down

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In a splendid piece in The Guardian’s Family section on Saturday, which led on Philip Pullman’s love of comments, the author went on to speak at length, in typically trenchant terms, about the current state of education:

guardiansmallPullman believes that schools are letting children down in terms of how they express themselves imaginatively. They are not taught to draw and, worse he thinks, are not encouraged to write stories in any appealing way. “I’m filled with unhappiness for the children at school, the English stuff they have to do these days. ‘Literacy’, as they call it. It’s terrifying and wicked and monstrous. One of the things children are told to do is to make a plan first. Write your plan and then write your story. Spend 15 minutes on the plan and 45 minutes on the story.”

Pullman knows from experience as a writer that this is the wrong way to go about it. “I tried writing out a plot with the second or third novel I wrote, and it was so boring, so desperately boring.

“It’s not that I don’t write a plan, but I write the story first and then write the plan to see where I’ve gone. And I see that that bit needs to be moved there and I can do without that bit. But you need some timber before you can start doing the carpentry.”

It’s as if, Pullman suggests, pupils are being taught how to write stories or write any piece of composition in such a dull, bureaucratic way that they will be put off using imagination. That, at least, is in line with current government policy, he suggests waspishly. “[Education Secretary] Nicky Morgan said we don’t need the arts in education because you can’t make any money from them. Her point was that you can’t become a hedge fund manager if you learn to draw or write stories. It’s no good to you – that was the implication.”

What does Pullman suggest should be done? “You have to ask children to do something unnatural to them, which is to disregard what they are told by grownups. Teachers are wrong about this.

“They are not wrong because they are bad people; they are wrong because they have to do this or they’ll go to prison. They’ll get the sack and go to prison unless they do what they’re told, but it’s wrong. It’s a wrong way of writing. It’s a wrong way of reading. It doesn’t understand the meaning and purpose of these things, and in the end it’ll fail and it’ll fall and it’ll fade away.”

via Philip Pullman: Why I love comics | Life and style | The Guardian.

Bestselling author Margaret Peterson Haddix talks writing | East Tennessean

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In a recent interview with the East Tennessean, world-renowned children’s author Margaret Peterson Haddix opened up about her writing process and her opinion on what makes a good story while on the book tour for her newly released novel, “Under Their Skin.”

Best known for her award-winning books in the “Shadow Children” series and the “Missing” series, Haddix graduated from Miami University of Ohio with bachelor degrees in journalism, creative writing and history. Spending most of her time visiting schools, book stores or public libraries all over the country to meet with her readers for presentations or to sign autographs, Haddix is lucky to still find time to write. When push comes to shove, however, she has been known to meet rush deadlines against all odds.

“My ideal schedule is to write all morning and deal with other things in the afternoon,” Haddix said, “but if I am on a tight deadline — or really excited about what I am writing — sometimes I just write all day. Or, if the writing isn’t going well, sometimes I go take a walk or swim laps, and that usually recharges my brain. It varies a great deal.”

Haddix has now published over 30 novels for children and young adults.

via Bestselling author Margaret Peterson Haddix talks writing | East Tennessean.

PopSugar Interview With “I wrote a novel every two weeks” R.L. Stine

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PS: I was watching an interview where you said you used to write a book a month. That’s impressive! What was your process for that?

R.L.: Back in the height of Goosebumps in the ’90s, I did twelve Goosebumps books a year and twelve Fear Street books. I don’t know how I did it. Honestly, I don’t know how! I didn’t get out much, but I wrote a novel every two weeks. The way I could do it was to outline them all first, and I still do. Nobody wants to hear that — everybody hates to outline. Kids especially, they hate that advice. But I do a complete chapter-by-chapter outline of every book before I write it. Everything that’s going to happen in the book is in the outline. So when I sit down to write the book, I’ve done the hard part. I’ve done all the thinking, and then I can write really fast and just enjoy the writing because I’ve done all the work.

via R.L. Stine Interview About Goosebumps | POPSUGAR Entertainment.

Louis Sachar: ‘I make up the story as I go along, but a lot of it is really bad’

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What is your writing process like when working on your novels? What does your average working day look like?

I write for about two hours a day, every morning, in my office in my house. I don’t know much about the story when I start, maybe just an idea for a character, and maybe a small plot idea. I make up the storguardiansmally as I go along, but a lot of it is really bad. So after I finish the first draft, I write a second draft. It’s still pretty bad, but at least I know the story and characters better. Then I write a third draft. Then a fourth draft. Then a fifth draft. And maybe a sixth draft. The first few drafts I’m mostly concerned with characters and plot. The later drafts I’m more concerned with the art of writing.

via Louis Sachar: ‘I make up the story as I go along, but a lot of it is really bad’ | Children’s books | The Guardian.

David Almond: I never expected to become a children’s author

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from a piece written to celebrate the re-opening (aftger refurbishment) of Seven Stories: The National Centre for Children’s Books:

guardiansmallI never expected to become a children’s author. I was a grown-up educated adult and I thought my purpose was to write books for intelligent educated adults. But I’d been ambushed by a story called Skellig and my life and work had taken a totally unexpected direction. I found myself in a world where people really do believe that books and art can change people’s lives, that they can help to create a better world. I found young readers who, despite all the myths and mistruths, are active citizens, who really do read avidly and creatively, who are able to be both hilarious and deeply serious, barmy and profound. I found myself in a community of astonishingly talented and hardworking authors and illustrators. I found a literary home.

via David Almond: the tale of Seven Stories | Children’s books | The Guardian.