Our Recommended Reads for August 2013

Check out the reviews section of our website for the latest recommended reads - from children's fiction to poetry and classic reads we're sure there is something for everyone. We also welcome your reviews too - email them to 'Reviews' at info@bookapoet.co.uk and we'll let you know when we use it!

Below are the titles we recommended during August 2013. (You can read our reviews and recommendations here.) If you'd like to get your book on our reading list send us an email that includes a press release and we'll get in touch!

‘The Wheels on the Bus’ By Jan Ormerod and Lindsey Gardiner Published by Oxford University Press
‘Elergy: Watersong Series Book 4’ By Amanda Hocking Published by Macmillian Children’s Books
‘Songbirds: Alphabet Game’ / ‘Songbirds: Phonic Games By Julia Donaldson Published by Oxford University Press
‘Lego Play Book’ By Dorling Kindersley Books
‘Penguin on Holiday’ By Salina Yoon Published by Bloomsbury
‘Pi-Rat’ By Maxine Lee Published by Caterpillar Books
‘The Flower Plantation’ By Nora Anne Brown Published by Alma Books
‘Abigail’ By Catherine Rayner Published by Little Tiger Press
‘Eddie and Dog’ By Alison Brown Published by Little Tiger Press
‘Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles’ By Daniel Lipkowitz Published by Dorling Kindersley
‘Deadly Factbook 4: Fish, Squid and Jellyfish’ Published by Orion Books
‘Bomber Dog’ By Megan Rix Published by Puffin
‘Sun Time Snow Time’ By Grace Nichols Published by A&C Black
School for Stars: Second Term at L’Etoile By Holly and Kelly Willoughby Published by Orion Books
‘Absolutely Winnie!’ By Laura Owen and Korky Paul Published by Oxford University Press
‘The Wolfstone Curse’ By Justin Richards Published by Templar Publishing
‘Stargirl Academy: Lily’s Shimmering Spell’ By Vivian French Published by Walker Books
‘Make Your Own Stegosaurus’ Published by Dorling Kindersley Books
'Oliver and the Seawigs' By Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre Published by Oxford University Press ‘The Deaths’ By Mark Lawson Published by Picador

September's recommended reads will start to appear on the website from this week. A selection of reviews will be published here too, as well as on our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/BookaPoet) and links from our Twitter account (@bookapoet).

Writers' Bursaries & Fellowships for International Writers

Charles Pick South Asian Fellowship

Deadline 31st January 2014 at 12:00pm GMT

Award £10,000

The Charles Pick South Asian Fellowship is a six-month residential creative writing fellowship with an award of £10,000. The fellowship began in October 2002.

The Charles Pick South Asian Fellowship seeks to encourage the spirit of writing by giving support to the work of a new and, as yet, unpublished writer of fictional or non-fictional prose based in South Asia. The writer should be from South Asia (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Burma/Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan), but does not need to be domiciled there.

Application forms must be submitted with an original typescript of 2,500 words. All applicants must provide a reference from an editor, agent or accredited teacher of creative writing.

All application forms and full details are available at:

http://www.uea.ac.uk/literature/fellowships/charles-pick-fellowships

Contact: charlespickfellowship@uea.ac.uk



The David T. K. Wong Fellowship

Deadline 13th January 2013

Award £26, 000

A year-long residential fellowship with an award of £26,000. Applications will be considered from established published as well as unpublished writers of any age and any nationality and will be awarded to a writer planning to produce a work of prose fiction in English which deals seriously with some aspect of life in the Far East.

Applicants must submit 2,500 words of unpublished work which they plan to undertake during the fellowship. Application fee is £10.00.

All application forms and full details are available at:
http://www.uea.ac.uk/lit/fellowships/david-wong-fellowship

 Contact: davidtkwongfellowship@uea.ac.uk

Please contact the organisers directly, thank you!
 

Exclusive Interview with Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre, creators of 'Oliver and the Seawigs'

What inspired your collaboration on ‘Oliver and the Seawigs’?

PR: Sarah McIntyre is one of my favourite illustrators, and also one of my favourite people. We met at the Edinburgh International Book Festival three years ago, and started talking about books and drawings and swapping ideas, and eventually we just had to start writing books together.

SM: We first wrote a four-page comic for The Phoenix Comic. We did swapsies: I wrote it and Philip drew it, but we tossed it back and forth several times and we were both able to pitch in with words or pictures when something was needed. We wanted to do something longer together, maybe a sea story, and I was talking with him about going to a meeting of the Children’s Writers & Illustrators Group (CWIG). I hate acronyms and always try to turn them into real words, and the word ‘Seawig’ set off a whole flow of ideas. 
  
Are your characters inspired by people you know?

PR: Not usually, but when I was growing up, my parents used to pack me and my sister into their camper van and go exploring all the wildest and wettest parts of Britain in the school holidays, so I can sympathise with Oliver ...

SM: And Iris the mermaid is short-sighted with a big bum, which of course is nothing like me. I wanted to be a mermaid when I was little and actually believed I could breathe underwater. So yeah, Iris is my avatar, really.

How do you create an illustrated novel – do the pictures come first or the words, or do they both play a part in creating the story as you go along?

PR: Oliver and the Seawigs isn't the usual sort of illustrated book where a writer writes something and then an illustrator illustrates it. Sarah was involved right from the start. The words are mine, but at least half of the ideas are hers.

SM: Philip was nice; if I made a mistake in the drawings, he’d tinker with the text so I wouldn’t have to redraw everything. For example, there’s one scene where an island giant emerges from the sea with a silly looking narwal on its head. And the text said the giant’s head was bare. But Philip thought, why would we want to get rid of a perfectly good narwal? And he wrote it into the story. 

If you could go back in time and explore anywhere, where would you choose and why?

SM: I’d have to get laser eye surgery first; if I went back very far in time I’d be completely blind and lost. And I think I’d also want to be a man, so I could do more things without getting burned as a witch or something. I think I’d hang out with the explorer James Cook and get a job as an artist on one of his sea voyages, drawing all the flora and fauna we discover. I once interviewed for a job as a rigger on the Cutty Sark, so I could train and get work fixing up masted ships around the world. But someone else got the job and they hired me instead as Ship’s Illustrator, and the Cutty Sark doesn’t go anywhere.

Or I’d even quite like to go just to the 1970s in Britain; it would have been fun to have been school friends with Philip and seen all these telly shows he’s always going on about. We had very different childhoods.

PR: the great thing about is having an imagination is that you don't need to go back in time and put up with all the witch-burning and lack of medicine and stuff. So I'm always exploring somewhere - Ancient Rome or Victorian London or the Gobi Desert - but I do it through books, from the comfort of my sofa. And I do still spend a lot of time in the 1970s and early '80s - those growing-up years are where most of ideas and influences still come from. It would have been fun if McIntyre had been there!

What were your favourite books as a child?

PR: Too many to list, really, but my favourites were all fantasy (like The Lord of the Rings) or historical (like The Eagle of the Ninth) or funny ones (the Asterix books, and the Molesworth books by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle (a great author/illustrator partnership!).

SM: Lots! The Twenty-one Balloons by William Pène du Bois, Watership Down by Richard Adams, The Runaway Robot by Lester del Ray, No Coins Please by Gordon Korman, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  

What are your future literary ambitions?

PR: I've really enjoyed working with Sarah on Oliver and the Seawigs. It's a real change of pace and approach after my longer, more YA-ish novels, and in many ways, it feels like a fresh start. So I hope there will be many more books like this, and that we'll build on the style we've developed and experiment with it. The next book will take us to outer space, the one after that to the frozen north (we think), and after that, who knows?

SM: I’d like to keep writing bonkers stories with my best friends, swanning around the world in awesome costumes, experimenting with new kinds of projects, and getting enough time to make silly drawings that aren’t for any project, just for me. I’d also like a full-time PA to deal with all the e-mails and things that keep me from drawing and writing stories.  

Do you have any top tips for budding writers and artists?

PR: I HATE writers' tips, and all those lists of rules for writing. Why are people so keen on rules? Writing should be about breaking rules and writing whatever you want to. The best way to learn is by reading a lot, and thinking about what makes your favourite stories work. It's quite a slow process, but if you keep reading and writing, it will come.

SM: If you particularly want to make books, don’t just study how to make pictures … make books! Make lots of books, make books quickly, don’t always be a perfectionist about them; the more books you make, the better you will get at making books. A little photocopied book makes a great business card, and making books teaches you about all the elements of book design. You can even learn about marketing your book by taking a stack of your home-made books to an indie comics fair or artist book fair where you’ve booked a table. You’ll learn how to present your work and discover what makes people stop, look and buy your books. Get a blog where you can build up an audience who like the way you work. 

Do you have a special place you write and illustrate?

PR: I have a studio in my garden which I write in; I like the peace and quiet, and there's no internet access so I don't have that distraction.  But I can write on trains or in cafés if I need to, I'm not too fussy.

SM: I can sketch anywhere, but I do most of my book drawing in my studio, the Fleece Station. It’s a room in old police station in Deptford that I share with comics artist Gary Northfield and graffiti knitter Lauren O’Farrell (aka Deadly Knitshade). When I’m writing, it helps to go to a café and tank myself up with some coffee.

Do you have any projects in the pipeline you’d like to tell us about?

PR: We're working on some follow-ups to Oliver and the Seawigs, which will be new stories featuring new characters. The first is called Cakes in Space and is about a girl on a long space voyage where all sorts of things go wrong. There are aliens, and robots, and cakes. I've finished writing it and I'm looking forward to seeing Sarah's pictures.

SM: I’m trying not to get ahead of myself and start planning the costumes already. Artwork first. Oh, and did I tell you that I’m going to be drawing much of the book on the International Space Station? I want to test how India ink flows in zero gravity. Oxford University Press are having to stretch their budget for this, but it will TOTALLY BE WORTH IT. That’s why people need to buy lots of our books, to pay for rocket fuel. I might even record a David Bowie song in space – Changes - and wear a different-coloured sparkly space suit for each verse.

Where can fans of your work find out more about you and your work?
 
PR: My website is www.philip-reeve.com, and I blog at philipreeve.blogspot.com I'm also on Twitter as @philipreeve1, and I have a Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Philip-Reeve/104518809593653

SM: I make activity sheets for every book I do, so you can download Make-Your-Own-Seawig sheets, a sheet showing you how to draw a sea monkey and several other things. I think I’m going to keep adding to it: http://www.jabberworks.co.uk.
Twitter: @jabberworks

Can you sum up ‘Oliver and the Seawigs’ in just 3 words?

PR: No I can't!

SM: BETTER THAN TUNAFISH. 

A huge thank you to Philip and Sarah for taking time to answer our questions! Please read on for Teagan Pritchard's review of 'Oliver and the Seawigs' ...

'Oliver and the Seawigs'
By Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre
Published by Oxford University Press on the 5th September 2013
RRP £8.99 (hardback)
ISBN 9780192734556
Reviewed by Teagan Pritchard, aged 9

Oliver grew up in a family of explorers but his big adventure is about to begin, along with his newly- made friends, including a short-sighted mermaid, a grumpy old albatross and a friendly island called Cliff.

Oliver goes in search of his missing parents but before he can put his plan into action to rescue them there is Stacey de Lacey to deal with and, yes she is evil! Oliver also has to deal with an army of greasy sea monkeys that keep getting in the way.

This book was very exciting and funny. The pictures and illustrations are very clear and detailed. A good read to keep you guessing ...

Highly recommended for readers aged 7+


 

Durham Book Festival announces 2013 programme

The annual book festival returns with guests including Linwood Barclay, Simon Armitage, Lucy Worsley, Alan Johnson, Mark Watson, Rachel Joyce, Jeremy Vine and Lynda La Plante plus a specially-commissioned family show adapted from Val McDermid’s My Granny is a Pirate.

This year’s festival takes place from 12th-20th October in a selection of venues around Durham. The varied programme for 2013 includes a thrilling list of internationally known crime authors, politicians, academics, poets, and writers of all genres and styles.
The programme includes many household names from literature, politics and broadcasting, including Jeremy Vine, Lynda La Plante, Alan Johnson, Lucy Worsley and Walter Mosley.

There are also several new commissions for this year, including a new piece of work by Festival Laureate, poet Paul Muldoon; Benjamin Markovits as the first ever Investec Ashes writer-in-residence; and musician and singer Kathryn Williams with a new EP of songs inspired by Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar to celebrate 50 years since its publication.

The festival will be hosting Carina Rodney's specially-commissioned musical adaptation of Val McDermid's children’s book, My Granny is a Pirate, directed by Annie Rigby. Musicians from Sage Gateshead and a team of performers will bring the acclaimed crime author's first foray into children's literature to life at Durham Town Hall on Saturday 12 October. New Writing North is also delighted to be taking the show on the road, touring to community centres, libraries and schools across County Durham as well as to Manchester and Sheffield as part of a partnership with other book festivals in the North.

The programme launch event included an appearance by acclaimed writer David Peace, author of the Red Riding Quartet and The Damned United, who read a short extract from his new novel, Red or Dead, and also announced the shortlist for the Gordon Burn Prize, which you can read more about here.

The launch also revealed a series of exciting events scheduled for young readers and writers in this year's programme, with the Durham Book Festival Schools Day on Wednesday 2 October and the Cuckoo Shop in Framwellgate where 14-25 year-olds can blog, book advice sessions with established authors, and generally take a sideways look at the festival. The Cuckoo Shop will also host exclusive masterclasses with authors Gavin Extence, Benjamin Markovits and Matt Haig and poets John Challis and Anna Woodford so aspiring writers can learn from the best. You can find out more about the Cuckoo programme for young writers at www.newwritingnorth.com/projects-cuckoo-young-writers-page-2244.html.

There are many more events – over 60 this year, including a number of free events – so have a look at the full programme and book tickets at www.durhambookfestival.com.
Durham Book Festival is produced by New Writing North for Durham County Council and supported by Durham University and Arts Council England, with sponsorship from Banks Group, Swinburne Maddison, PwC, and the University of Sunderland.

Templar Publishing's 'Paper Watch' Project - Fundraising for Breast Cancer Care

Templar Publishing 2013 Charity Initiative

 

"WATCH THIS SPACE":

Templar Publishing and top illustrators are set to doodle, design and customise Paper Watches to raise money for Breast Cancer Care ...

 

Templar Publishing needs your help! We have been challenged to raise £5000 for Breast cancer care and here is why ...

Raising money for breast cancer became particularly relevant for Templar when it was announced just before Christmas that Amanda Wood, Creative Director of Templar Publishing, was being treated for cancer. We are delighted to say that Mandy is responding well to treatment. We have done all manner of crazy things to raise money thus far from marathons and hikes to beard growing contests.

 

Our latest charity initiative brings together 8o of the country's most talented illustrators who have volunteered to design paper watches in their signature style for our Paper Watch Project auction.

Illustrators on board include:

Owen Davey, http://www.owendavey.com/

Tor Freeman, http://www.torfreeman.com/

Steven Lenton, http://www.2dscrumptious.com/

Chris Mould, http://purepirate.blogspot.co.uk/ 

Emma Yarlett, http://www.emmayarlett.com/

Gemma O’Neil,  http://gemmaoneill.co.uk/

Tim Easley, http://timeasley.com/

Edward Gibbs, http://edward-gibbs.com/eg_reviews.html

Aleksei Bitskoff, http://bitskoff.blogspot.co.uk/

Helen Hancocks  http://www.helenhancocks.com/

and many many more!

 

The Facts

The auction will take place online in late September – Date TBC

Watches will have a minimum bid of £15

All proceeds will go to Breast Cancer Care

Designs will be previewed on our social media network @templarbooks and the Templar Book Facebook page

FIND OUT MORE

Twitter - @templarbooks

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/templarpublishing

Website - http://www.templarco.co.uk/

Just Giving - http://www.justgiving.com/TemplarPublishing

Breast Cancer Care - http://www.breastcancercare.org.uk

For more information please contact – emma.odonovan@templarco.co.uk

Developing Dylan is now Online

www.developingdylan100.com

The website for Developing Dylan, Literature Wales’ new education project, is now live and ready for you to explore.

Find out about the creative writing workshops which will be available for teachers to book from 1 September, and discover the cross art-form workshops which will get young people playing with Dylan’s world through social media, music, visual art and spoken word.
Young writers from 7 to 25 will also be able to find out about Prologue to an Adventure, the Developing Dylan international writing competition.

The website offers a sneak preview into Dylan Live, the live music and bilingual spoken word show which will bring Dylan Thomas’ 1950s New York back to life through a fusion of vinyl, jazz, beat poetry, hip hop and spoken word. Poets Martin Daws, Aneirin Karadog and Zaru Jonson, hip hop artist Ed Holden, DJ Dyl Mei and academic Huw Vaughan Williams will sample, re interpret and mix music that is quintessentially New York with Dylan Thomas’ words for a unique live experience. Coming to a student union bar near you soon…

Whether through prose, verse, music or visual art, Developing Dylan will celebrate the diverse ways in which Dylan Thomas’ poetry can be appreciated, shared and enjoyed.
Developing Dylan is funded by the Welsh Government and will form part of the official Dylan Thomas 100 Festival.

The Developing Dylan website was designed and developed by Ctrl.atl.design

National Poetry Competition 2013 by The Poetry Society is now open!

The Poetry Society runs many competitions and awards, amongst them some of the most prestigious prizes for young people: the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award and SLAMbassadors UK, which closes for entries on 15th September, not to mention the many challenges set by the Young Poets Network since it launched last year.

Accepting entries from entrants aged 17+, the National Poetry Competition is one of the world’s biggest and most prestigious poetry prizes. Winners include established and emerging poets, and winning has proved an important career milestone for many poets who are now well known – Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy won back in 1983. Despite the name, the competition accepts entries from all over the world, and, wherever you are, it's easy to enter online.
Julia Copus, Matthew Sweeney and Jane Yeh are this year's judges, and the top prize is £5,000. The top three winners are also published in the Poetry Society's leading international journal, Poetry Review.
The deadline is 31st October and you can enter online now or download an entry form from the Poetry Society website.