Tuesday 13 June 2017

Thank you Theo...

for the wonderful picture that you did for me... and for your lovely letter. Keep up the good work - you're a star.

It was great meeting you and everyone else at St Peter's yesterday. I had a really good time and hope everyone else did too. There were lots of great ideas and lots of great questions. Have fun with your writing... I can't wait to see how the stories turn out.

Wednesday 7 June 2017

What's Goin' On?

First, a huge HELLO to everyone that's coming along the the University of Northampton this week to take part in the Literature Festival - I had a great day yesterday and am looking forward to meeting everyone that's coming along today. If yesterday was anything to go by then today should be great. 

It's hard to believe just how fat 2017 is speeding along. I've been busy working on some little stories for Franklin Watts new Reading Champions series - these will be coming out later this year and they are looking great...



While I do enjoy working on little stories like these (it's just great to see them come to life with the brilliant artwork done by the illustrators) I also love getting my teeth into bigger stories and this is just what I've been doing...

I'm currently working on a BIG BOOK - the biggest I've done so far. The story mixes fiction with fact so I've had to do a lot of research... not something I normally have to do but I want to include lots of real events in my story. It's tricky knowing which details to leave in and which to leave out, especially as the story centres on one of the most notorious pirates of all time - Bartholomew Roberts (known now as Black Bart). What do you think it would be like to go back in time and find yourself on a ship full of pirates? Don't be fooled by the movies - the life of a pirate wasn't all 'yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum'. Life was hard and often very short...

On with the work...