In celebration of pets - Furballs, Feathers and Fish

Here is my newest venture - a little self-published book in celebration of pets. Cats, dogs, goldfish, rabbits, birds, tortoises... I love them all! A collection of short stories (some of them previously published in women's magazines) and poems, including a couple of children's stories/poems - and with my beautiful cat Buster on the front cover. It's a handy A5 handbag size and costs just £3 plus £1 postage. Orders taken now. Just email me!

WINNER!

I have just been told I've won the London region prize in a love and marriage poetry competition run my Marriott Hotels, whose venues host lots of weddings. I get a romantic weekend for 2 in one of their hotels and my poem will appear with other prizewinners and shortlisted poems in a little book to be distributed to guests at their hotels nationwide. Whoopee!

The magic of picture books

I have worked as a library outreach specialist with children under 5 for more than 8 years now, introducing the very young to the magic of stories and rhymes, in libraries, nurseries and children's centres... so I was thrilled to be asked to join the book selection panel for Bookstart, the national book gifting scheme. With other professionals who all work in some way with children and books, I sat around a table for 5 hours today looking at and discussing literally hundreds of picture books, old and new, and picking out the very select few that we believe should be given free to the nation's children! A big responsibility, but also a unique and very rewarding experience.
I have been writing a lot about kids' books again lately - in recent issues of Nursery World, Practical Preschool, and EYE. Now the next step for me is to try to get a picture book text of my own accepted by a mainstream publisher, and I have a very short appointment booked with just such a publisher at the London Book Fair in April. I think I know what works when it comes to picture books, and I have written a great little rhythmic, rhyming, read-aloud story, but I am no artist, so I am very reliant on a publisher seeing the potential in my idea and words and being able to imagine the same action-packed and endearing pictures that I see in my head when I read the story, then finding the perfect illustrator to bring it all to life on the page. A big ask, but here's hoping....

Diamonds and Pearls has arrived!

The charity anthology has been launched and is now available in bookshops and on Amazon. A wonderful collection of short stories in the women's mag style, in aid of breast cancer charity www.againstbreastcancer.org.uk
Please buy one!

New Year, New Ambitions

Now we are well into January, it's time I knuckled down to some serious writing resolutions for 2011. So, this is going to be the year when I aim to double my writing income, crack at least two new markets, try to get my first children's picture book published, and make a start on the new novel that's been in my head (instead of on paper) for far too long. I need to get selling my granny books which have been sitting in their box for too long as well - and then start on my next little self-published booklet which will be a collection of stories and poems about pets. It's about half done already. With a 'proper job' to fit in as well, I think that's enough ambition to be going on with!
February will see the launch of 'Diamonds and Pearls', a wonderful anthology, from Accent Press, of short stories by some of your favourite womag writers - including me! - in aid of breast cancer. Well done to Elaine Everest for coming up with the idea and having the drive to get it done, despite being let down by the original publisher. Please do all buy a copy - Amazon are currently the cheapest I have found. None of the authors are taking any money from this, as we all want to help to put an end to this horrible disease.
And a final mention for Write Invite. The competition suffered a serious meltdown last weekend with computer problems preventing most of us from getting access to the website just as we were trying to enter the competition. Hoping all is soon mended. After two weeks of the new 2011 competitions, I am currently top of their winners' league table, having won in the very first week (with a nice £50 prize), although I don't suppose I shall stay there for long once things start hotting up again!