Over on the Storyblog, DFB authors and illustrators are blogging on the subject of second books.
The subject of course is most significant to me as my second novel is coming out next year. Shine has been almost three years in the making, and I think it's okay to reveal that, frankly, it's NOT the book I set out to write.
This is just a hurried photo run-down of an outstanding day. With thanks to the hardworking organizers of the IBBY World Congress 2012 for inviting me to speak. IBBY stands for International Board of Books for Young People - it's an international network committed to bringing books and children together. The congress' theme for 2012 is Translations and Migrations.
Now I know what that creature in Shaun Tan's Arrivals book is - according to Shaun it's a tadpole with legs! I always thought it was a mini walking beluga whale. Sarah McIntyre (who was given the job of introducing Shaun at his keynote today) made a tribute arrival card featuring Shaun's tadpole:
Harvested from Sarah's Tumblr Instagrams - view her IBBY photos here
I've been away, travelling, and so I missed Monday's unveiling of my own story (illustrated by the amazing amazing Deborah Allwright of Night Pirates fame) on the wonderful Story Cloud website. Tsk tsk!
NEWS! Tall Story recently won the National Children's Book Award in the Philippines! Big congrats to my illustrator Yasmin Ong and publisher Ramon Sunico and thank you to the Philippine Board on Books for Young People and the National Book Development Board. Here's the beautiful trophy - can't wait to visit the Philippines and see it for myself! Meanwhile, here is a piece I've been dying to write since I curated one of the pavilions at the Pop Up Festival.
It was an act of faith when I invited Lahing Kayumanggi to perform during my bit of the Pop Up Festival. I'd never seen them perform before, though I'd heard from other Pinoys in London that they were amazing.
Pop Up's website declares that its aim is to"inspire children, families and communities through books and stories". And I thought - what better way to tell the Filipino story than through dance!
I seem to be writing love letters this weekend ... well, not just writing. First off, here's some video love for the Theresian School of Cavite who are having a book fair today!
(If you haven't ever heard me speak Filipino English, here's your chance!)
Clare was staying the night because she was performing the next day as one of the featured authors in my Fiesta themed programme. She offered to help me with whatever I needed to do to get set for the festival but she had no idea how much we had to do!
One of the amazing things about being an author is you run into amazing people.
I met sound recordist Jon Owen when I recorded the sound for my story for the Story Cloud initiative. Jon is a musician who also works in education - he does stuff like running music programmes for autistic kids.
Just read teen author Keren David's post about her daughter's glitzy school ball for leavers. The headmaster gave some advice to the young ones that resonated in my old head:
Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it. Go read Keren's post
You see, I'm slightly overwhelmed by this coming weekend.
I was thrilled to discover this morning that Patrick Ness had won the Carnegie AND the Greenaway (with illustrator Jim Kay) for their stunning book A Monster Calls.
I met my first Jewish person during the political turmoil of the 1980s when the Philippines was suddenly inundated by scores of foreign correspondents.
I wouldn't have known that my American friend, Steve, was Jewish if it hadn't been for him constantly referring to his shoes as 'jews' and joking that his mother was checking up on whether he was 'going to temple' in Manila.
Here's a video I made with the scraps I found in my camera. Apologies for the poor focusing - I got a new camera lens for my birthday and haven't learned how to use it properly yet!
This week, I'm guest blogging on Elizabeth Stevens Omlor's Banana Peelin blog - Elizabeth's worthy mission is to name and classify every single banana peel on the road to getting published (sounds like procrastination to me, but hey).
Anyway ... the road to publication is LITTERED with banana peels. For every book published, four score and seven commissioning editors lie snoring, bored to oblivion by their slushpile. Let not their sacrifice be in vain.
I'm so excited because I'm the featured author on Dear Teen Me. It's a blog featuring authors writing to their teenage selves with all the wealth of possibility that suggests. What would you say to your spotty young self? Do you have the wisdom to face up to all those insecurities, fears, hurts that you kept bottled up in those formative years? Or maybe you just want to say it's gonna be okay.
I can't believe it! After two and a half years of gnashing my teeth, SHINE is finished! Neil Gaiman, quoting Gene Wolfe, says: "You never learn to write a novel. You only learn to write the novel you're on."
Then, I shall be eternally grateful if thus alerted to my suffering, you could please, maybe, kindly, leave a comment on the post, perhaps a kind word of encouragement, a hint of sympathy, and then, erm, well, you know, pre-order Shine.
I've made quite a few fun videos now with the cooperative children who live in my neighbourhood, but the kids - rather inconveniently - keep growing up.
And now they are no longer as willing to star in my DIY efforts without contracts, expenses, seven figure advances and personal assistants. So when the opportunity came up to make a video with children at the Guardian Open Weekend, I leapt at it!
... yup, I'm keeping my head down for a bit because I'm busy writing the final chapters of my forthcoming novel SHINE (I hope they've removed the synopsis on Amazon because boy oh boy, how the story has changed since it went up).
But ...
For some reason, life isn't just standing by waiting for me to finish writing my book.
This is a photo of me on a South Korean beach just before I almost drowned 25 years ago. Over on the DFB Blog, I've been asked to blog on a seaside theme so I thought I'd tell this delightful story.
Last week, I was one of the shortlisted authors who attended the wonderful prize giving ceremony for the Salford Children's Book Award 2011.
It was my first time in Northern parts as an author, so I asked the organizers if I could swing a school visit or two. They obliged and as a result I had a fun session with children from St Peter's CE School and Clifton Primary School in Swinton Library.
Quizmaster Wayne Mills travels the world conducting these quizzes
Wow! Yesterday, I chugged up to the North London Heat of the Kids Lit Quiz with a carful of authors - Keren David (When I Was Joe), Fiona Dunbar (Kitty Slade Mysteries) and Sita Brahmachari (Artichoke Hearts).
You win a prize, you get to cut the cake! Photo: Sue Eves
I've just come home from a most moving weekend. It was the annual conference of SCBWI British Isles* - an organization of writers and illustrators that has had a huge impact on my creative life.
This year Tall Story won the inaugural Crystal Kite Prize for Europe, the only peer-given prize for children's books. I was awarded the trophy at the conference and asked to deliver a speech.
I was also surprised to be given this year's Outstanding Contribution Award. It was particularly poignant for me because last year the prize was won by my friend Margaret Carey, whom we lost to cancer last summer.
Receiving the two awards was like getting a huge hug from an organization that has been family to me since I joined in 2002.
I am not supposed to be doing anything online at the moment, as my book deadline looms, but I just wanted to share my Crystal Kite acceptance speech. I wrote it with a lump in my throat.
Yes, dear reader, Mum of Warcraft is based on my absolutely true story as a part-time computer game fanatic. Check out my Mum of Warcraft story on the Tesco Magazine Kids' Book Club (with apologies to Zhang Ziyi from whom I borrowed this magnificent pose)
I've been deep in my cave these last few weeks, writing furiously - our recent holiday has given me fresh energy and for the first time in ages, I'm enjoying the laying down of a story.
It's been a slog, this book. Unlike Tall Story which was one of those books that wrote itself, this one has taken a long time to reveal itself to me.
Well it's back to school for us here in the UK - and I'm sure school children all over the country are gearing up to write the traditional school essay - What I Did On My Summer Holiday (or vacation as they say in other parts).
It's the summer holidays but I seem to be doing a lot of guest blogging! Come along and see what I'm wittering on about on other people's blogs!
My publisher David Fickling Books has decided to recruit their authors to post on their StoryBlog and I foolishly volunteered to go first! DFB, having just launched I Don't Believe It Archie! by Andrew Norris, asked us to write about something embarrassing.
I pressed SEND today. The manuscript of my second novel is now officially in the hands of my publisher. In the nick of time because Amazon's already got it listed! Even my lovely cover illustrator David Dean - who'd only just shown me draughts of the cover - was surprised!
In my novel Tall Story, I sewed in myths and legends from the Philippines and elsewhere to add magic to the story of Bernardo, a boy who is eight feet tall.
In the Philippines where I was born, legends were a way of ordinary people explaining the often unexplainable forces of nature around them - the volcanoes, earthquakes, the strange shapes of mountains, caves, the existence of plants and other creatures.
A lot of Filipino folk stories are handed down in the oral tradition - grown ups telling children stories, and the children growing up to tell the stories to their own children.
And every time a story is told, the teller adds his own spin to the story, so the story is always changing. It's a very exciting process!
In the video, I tell The Legend of the Bellybutton - as imagined by me and a group of children at the Hay Literary Festival after a hilarious brainstorming session.
eg. People didn't have Noses. So they couldn't smell anything. So they didn't enjoy eating because they couldn't smell food. And they thought flowers were boring because they couldn't smell how lovely they were. And they themselves smelled bad because they couldn't smell themselves.
People became very grumpy
3rdSomething happens to bring your something about!
eg. Someone tripped and grew a bump on their face. Then tripped again and got holes in the bump. And then discovered that they could smell food and flowers (they also began to wash). And everyone became so jealous they went out and accidentally on purpose tripped over too!
And that is why we have noses!
Thanks to Bazusa on Flickr (Creative Commons Attribution)
The handsome Jason Wallace and his editor Charlie Sheppard won the Branford Boase 2011 last night for their book Out of the Shadows (Andersen Press).
At the photoshoot - Charlie (left) and Damian pose with the prize's sponsor
Jacqueline Wilson
Yeah, I know, I didn't win - but please don't send commiserations - I'm just so proud to be on that strong, strong shortlist! The only reason I'm a little bit sad is that my editor, Bella Pearson, was ill and couldn't be there ... get well soon, Bella! Here's a picture of David Tennant to cheer you up:
And here are the shortlistees of the Branford Boase on the night!
Hubby took this shot of us posing for the group photo - from left: Pat Walsh, Imogen Cooper (slightly behind), Charlie Sheppard, Maurice Lyon (behind), Jacqueline Wilson, Keren David (totally obscured), Jason Wallace, Damian Kelleher, me, Simon Mason (partially hidden), Beverley Birch (trying to be hidden) and JP Buxton.
I was pleased to meet my new editor Simon Mason, who is covering for Bella and will be editing my new novel. I just read Simon's brilliant new novel Moon Pie - loved it so much, I reviewed it on Amazon!
The other truly big winners of the night were the children who won the Henrietta Branford writing prize. Here's Peter Wollweber whose entry was based on the Culloden Massacre. Well done, Peter!
I thought these two girls were best of friends but it turns out they only met on the night. Lucy Parkinson (left) and Anna Wren - who came from Edinburgh on the 5.10am bus and was planning to get back on the red-eye 11pm to 8am bus so that she could watch a movie with her sister the following morning.
Someday, I imagine these young people will themselves be on the Branford Boase shortlist and I will totter up to them with my walking stick and say, "I signed a book for you once! Now you've got to do it for me!"
After the event, Simon and Philippa Dickinson, MD of Random House Children's Books, took me and my husband out to dinner and lots of conversation about flying (Philippa flies planes!!! I suppose if you could run a massive publishing company, flying planes is easy).
What was Sarah McIntyre of Verne and Lettuce fame doing there? Where does that woman get the energy to gatecrash these things? On the left is John McLay who runs the Bath Children's Festival
I'm sneaking in this blog when I'm supposed to be hard at work finishing my second novel (deadline next week) - because this is a shortlist I really wanted to be on - you can only be a debut author once and therefore on the Branford Boase list once.
... and who should be there but Book Witch Ann Giles and her trusty
photographer Helen Witch! (this photo is my revenge for all the ones
they keep posting of me on the Book Witch blog!
Writing friends Keren David (left) and Pat Walsh (right) with Pat's editor Imogen Cooper, who won the prize last year.
I took a few pictures, as usual, but I thought the story of the evening would be best told in the words of judge Lucy Christopher, last year's winner.
Nicked this photo of Lucy from her website - resisted using the one of her with llamas which appears on the Google search.
Lucy was in transit to the Prime Minister's Literary Awards in Australia for which her second novel Flyaway is shortlisted but she sent this speech, read by Damian Kelleher (who said he was tempted to do it in Lucy's Aussie accent - but could only manage Irish or Johnny Vegas - personally I think it would have added that special something to the evening if he read it in Johnny Vegas' voice).
I am grateful to Damian for very kindly allowing me to steal Lucy's speech from him for this blog post.
Me schmoozing Damian into giving me Lucy's speech
Lucy said winning the BB last year for Stolen was 'one of the most thrilling , exciting and rewarding moments of my life'. She pointed out how the award 'celebrates new talent and catapults it onto the world stage to celebrate with the big guys ... it helps create big guys too.'
What's also really special about this award is its recognition of the author-editor relationship. Writing a novel is a collaborative process. Authors may be able to think about and create all sorts of vivivd and chaotic worlds and characters but they need editors to help organise, trim and perfect them. Authors need editors in the same way crazy people need therapists. Imagine if Margaret Mitchell's editor hadn't talked her into changing Pansy O'Hara's name to Scarlett? Imagine if I still had a talking swan in my second novel, Flyaway?
A display of the longlisted titles. Where's Tall Story?
A display of the shortlist. At the end of the evening, Anne Marley hilariously named and shamed bearded author Philip Ardagh for trying to steal last year's display.
Is this a face you can trust?
Lucy quoted E.L.Doctorow - "writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights. but you can make the whole trip that way." - a good editor is the person brave enough to be in that car with you, the one holding the road map.
The judging process was fun but highly rigorous, Lucy said:
The longlist was of high quality in itself but I think no one in this room will disagree when I say that the quality of this year's shortlist was truly exceptional. Not only the entire judging committee has remarked on this, but indeed the wider writing community - this year's shortlist could well be the strongest shortlist in Branford Boase history. At our final judging meeting, I even heard Julia Eccleshare remark that 'any of these books could be a worth winner!'
Here's what she said about each title:
By JP Buxton. Edited by Beverley Birch
We adored the evocative and skilfully created world with JP Buxton's I Am The Blade. Tog is a loveable and vividly realized character and the plotting and twists in his narrative were strong, surprising and entirely believable. It was refreshing and encouraging to see a new take on this important archetypal story.
By Keren David, Edited by Maurice Lyon
When I Was Joe by Keren David jumped up and hit us in the face, keeping us grabbed from the first moment, also keeping many of the judging committee up all hours until they finished it. Joe is a hugely realistic and identifiable teenage boy and it is easy to imagine how much teenage boys in particular would enjoy and respond to this important book.
Tall Story by Candy Gourlay. Edited by Bella Pearson
Tall Story by Candy Gourlay made us laugh and cry, often both at the same time. Its taut and emotive writing revealed so much about the importance of family and connection. This irresistible book is unique, charming and hugely enjoyable.
By Gregory Hughes. Edited by Roisin Heycock
Unhooking the Moon by Gregory Hughes is a masterpiece in gutsy, original writing. This is brave and unique YA fiction at its best, with an important message about the value of siblings, and with a flavour of Huckleberry Finn thrown in for good measure.
By Jason Wallace. Edited by Charlie Sheppard
WINNER
Jason Wallace's Out of Shadows takes us to the scary, vivid and emotional world of a 1980s Zimbabwean boarding school. The setting of this novel is extraordinary, realised in sense and sound and smell with terrifying emotional accuracy. It's an important and mind-changing book.
By Pat Walsh. Edited by Imogen Cooper
Pat Walsh's The Crowfield Curse also takes us to a vividly and emotionally realised world, and introduces us to one of the best new characters in modern young people's fiction: Brother Walter, the hob. The Crowfield Curse is beautifully written, with an extraordinary attention to detail that never feels flawed or forced.
The key sponsor of the Branford Boase is every children's writer's idol Dame Jacqueline Wilson - and here's my trophy photo with our national treasure!
Now I've got to go to work and try to stop musing on my lovely evening.
Leaving you with this slideshow of the shots I managed - I'm sure Helen over at Book Witch will have better ones (her camera was so cool).
Anne Marley
Added later:
Book Witch's report mentions the most hilarious Freudian slip of the night - Anne Marley, Branford Boase adminstrator, recalled that the WIFE of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness was shortlisted for the Branford Boase before it made the Carnegie! She also noticed Dame Jackie's nebula outfit ... such an observant woman.
I also should mention that bookselling was achieved that night by the good people from the Newham Bookshop
Over on the Storyblog, DFB authors and illustrators are blogging on the subject of second books.
So many banana peels, so little time. 
It's the summer holidays but I seem to be doing a lot of guest blogging! Come along and see what I'm wittering on about on other people's blogs!
