Bloomsbury Academic - Children’s Writers’ Artists’ Yearbook 2018

Childrens Writers & Artists

YEARBOOK

2018

Praise for the Yearbook

How to get published? 1. Write a good book. 2. Read a good book this one.

Charlie Higson

Riffle these pages and turn your dream into an ambition.

Frank Cottrell Boyce

Take the great advice thats in this Yearbook.

David Almond

... absolutely essential. If it were a person, it would be your most knowledgeable and trusted confidant.

Andy Stanton

The Childrens Writers & Artists Yearbook has two great virtues: one is the wealth of information it contains and the other is the impressive raft of advice and notes on every aspect of the business.

Quentin Blake

The Childrens Writers & Artists Yearbook is a goldmine of invaluable information.

Francesca Simon

Whenever people ask me about how to get their work for children published ... the first words to come out of my mouth are always: Childrens Writers & Artists Yearbook.

Michael Rosen

Consult the excellent Childrens Writers & Artists Yearbook and get going!

Jacqueline Wilson

Stuffed full of useful facts to help you get writing (and drawing).

Liz Pichon

Childrens Writers & Artists

YEARBOOK

2018

FOURTEENTH EDITION

The essential guide for childrens writers and artists on how to get published and who to contact

The Editor welcomes readers to this edition of the Childrens Writers & Artists Yearbook.

Are you looking for clear, coherent and impartial advice on which agent to approach with your picture book, or what to consider when self-publishing your YA thriller, or how to write a non-fiction middle grade book? You have come to the right place for help with these and numerous other similar enquiries. For the fourteenth year, the Childrens Writers & Artists Yearbook provides up-to-date information and a wide range of practical guidance from some of the most established writers and professionals in the field of childrens books. As Sally Green suggests in her Foreword on page xi (writing about the sister edition, Writers & Artists Yearbook): As soon as I started leafing through it I knew Id found a book I could trust. I devoured its advice. It became my Bible, a source of knowledge and comfort. It was my way into a different world the world of the professional writer.

New this year are articles on non-fiction from Isabel Thomas, see Writing adventures in the real world .

All the articles and listings in this Yearbook are reviewed and updated every year. We make every effort to contact all the organisations and institutions listed so that they can update their information. To the best of our knowledge the websites, emails and other details are correct at the time of going to press.

Alysoun Owen, Editor

Special offer

Visit www.writersandartists.co.uk before 30 June 2018 and enter the promotional code CWAYB18 to receive an exclusive 10% discount on our editorial services.

Contents

The Childrens Writers & Artists Yearbook is a highly regarded resource within the publishing and wider media industries. Writers & Artists website (www.writersandartists.co.uk) provides up-to-the-minute writing advice, blogs, competitions and the chance to share work with other writers.

Our editorial services offer guidance from experienced agents and editors on all stages in the development of a manuscript from proposal, through the various editing phases, up to submission to an agent. To receive our regular newsletter, you can sign up at www.writersandartists.co.uk/register.

Our listings service can be accessed at www.writersandartists.co.uk/listings. The Writers & Artists self-publishing comparison site (www.selfpubcompare.com) is aimed at writers who are interested in self-publishing their book but are not sure how to get started. We also have a free Writing Calendar (www.writersandartists.co.uk/writing_calendar), where you can see and add book-related events in your local area.

We also run courses, workshops and other events, including How to Hook an Agent lunches and one-day How to Get Published conferences (details can be found at www.writersandartists.co.uk/events).

Whatever your needs, we hope that Writers & Artists resources, whether delivered in print, online or at our events, will provide you with the information, advice and inspiration you are looking for.

Short story competition

The annual Writers & Artists Yearbook Short Story Competition offers published and aspiring writers the chance to win a place on an Arvon residential writing course (worth 1,000). In addition, the winners story will be published on the Writers & Artists website.

To enter the competition, submit a short story (for adults) of no more than 2,000 words, on any theme by 13 February 2018 to .

You can find details of competitions for childrens writing under Childrens book and illustration prizes and awards .

runs three historic writing houses in the UK, where published writers lead week-long residential courses. Covering a diverse range of genres, from poetry and fiction to screenwriting and comedy, Arvon courses have provided inspiration to thousands of people at all stages of their writing lives. You can find out more and book a course online at www.arvon.org.

Sally Green is the author of an internationally acclaimed trilogy of young adult fantasy novels, the first of which (her debut novel), Half Bad (Penguin 2014), was named Waterstones Best Book for Teenagers 2015 and was shortlisted for the Waterstones Childrens Book Prize 2015 and for the 2015 Branford Boase Award. Half Bad broke the Guinness World Record for Most Translated Book by a Debut Author, Pre-publication, with 45 different translations before its publication. The second title in the trilogy, Half Wild, was published by Penguin in March 2015, and the third and final book, Half Lost, came out in March 2016. Her new fantasy series, called The Smoke Thieves, is due to be published in the Spring of 2018.

I remember the beginning of my writing career quite clearly. It was a sunny afternoon in June 2010, I was 48 years old and doing housework and I had an idea for a story. Id never written anything before (no diary, no dabbling in short stories, no childhood dreams of being an author), but what did I have to lose other than a few hours of my time? Anything had to be more interesting than hoovering and no one would ever read the story but me, so I sat down and wrote.

At school Id learnt the basics of grammar and punctuation, but I always felt inhibited about my writing and that I lacked imagination. Now I realize that everyone has imagination, but being brave and comfortable enough to risk expressing it is the hard thing. By June 2010 schoolgirl inhibitions were a distant memory although learning wasnt, as the previous year Id begun to study Social Sciences with the Open University. Because of the OU course I had developed the habit of writing I had to produce regular assignments and I enjoyed closing the door on the outside world and immersing myself in a new topic. I loved the process of putting ideas and words together and creating something, even if it was only a rather poor essay on politics.

So that June afternoon, with no more essays to write, I repeated the procedure but instead of an essay I began a short story about a girl who didnt know that she was a witch. I didnt have much of a plan I just wrote, and I continued the next day and the next. After two weeks of this I had to admit to myself that the story wasnt that short; in fact I was probably writing a novel, and it was now taking up all my time. I was hooked. Possibly I was in love too with my characters. I was obsessed with them, thinking about what theyd do and how, and why. I carried on writing and by September 2010 my story was complete and definitely not short (136,000 words). It wasnt atrocious but there were things wrong with it, though I wasnt even sure what those things were (the narrative point of view was jumping all over the place). I was desperate to improve and so I switched my OU course to Creative Writing, studying hard and all the while working on my manuscript.