I was delighted to hear that LOB is on the long-list of eight books for this year’s Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. The shortlist will be announced in September, and the prize is to be awarded during Children’s Book Week at the beginning of October. You can read more about the prize on this page, and Julia Eccleshare introduces all eight books on this page. For the Guardian website, Michelle Pauli interviewed me about the Walking Man. The article is here.

In September I’ll be attending the IBBY Congress in Santiago de Compostela, north-west Spain, to receive a diploma. IBBY stands for International Board on Books for Young People, and the UK IBBY committee have nominated The Sandfather to the international Honour List. My book will be part of a travelling exhibition which will go to the Bologna Book Festival and to various libraries around the world. Each member country nominates three books to the Honour List, one each for writing, illustration and translation. The other UK nominees are Emily Gravett for Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears, and Fredrik Erling for Fish in the Sky.

The title of the Congress is The Strength of Minorities, and the website is www.ibbycompostela2010.org

For the Guardian’s How to Write book, I contributed the section on Writing for Children, with features by Michael Rosen, Nicola Davies, Lauren Child, Meg Rosoff, David Fickling and Michael Lawrence. Edited by Philip Oltermann, the guide also has sections on Fiction, Memoir and Biography, Journalism, Plays and Screenplays, and Comedy, as well as a style guide, and directory of publishers, agents and other useful contacts. Overall it’s a really useful guide, and I shall be recommending it on writing courses and at workshops.

At the end of September I shall be tutoring a residential course on Writing for Children at Ty Newydd, the national writers’ centre for Wales, in Gwynedd. My co-tutor will be Nick Manns (author of teenage novels Control Shift, Seed Time and Dead Negative), with guests Geraldine McCaughrean and illustrator Ian Benfold-Haywood. If you’re interested in taking part, and/or would like to find out more, go to www.tynewydd.org. Nick and I have tutored together on two courses for the Arvon Foundation, and I’m looking forward to working with him again.

Coming soon: The Truth is Dead, an anthology edited by Marcus Sedgwick and published by Walker. The idea was to write a what-if? story – what if one thing in the past had been different? The other contributors are Philip Ardagh, Frank Cottrell Boyce, Anthony McGowan, Mal Peet, Ellie Updale, Matt Wyman and Marcus himself, so I’m in great company, and looking forward to reading the other stories. Mine is called “The Blue-Eyed Boy” - and that’s all I can say about it. The book is to be published at the beginning of October.

Too Good to Miss

My friend Linda Sargent, who works as a reader for David Fickling Books and who has given me all sorts of help and encouragement with my writing over the years, has published her first novel, Paper Wings, which is available from Amazon and receiving praise and admiration from its readers.

A Kentish woodland; hot, endless days of summer; a strange and touching friendship... Ruby and Peter think of the woods as their own: a place for adventure, for plans and projects, for secrets. But when Ruby is hurt in an accident, they find that a stranger is hiding there: Gabriel, a man haunted by wartime guilt and by the loss of ideals. Soon an alliance is formed - but others are watching, and the children unwittingly provoke long-held resentments, bringing themselves and Gabriel into danger.

Atmospheric and beautifully-realised, Paper Wings is a grown-up story about childhood, bringing innocence and experience into dramatic conflict.

Finally: I’m delighted that the team from Wheatley Park School, where I was once a member of the English department, has won the UK Final of the Kids’ Lit Quiz, fending off strong opposition. Congratulations to the all-boy team, Theo, Huw, Kit and Matt, and also to librarian Gillian Hood and Kevin Heritage, their trainers and organisers. The team will go on to compete in the World Final, which this year is at the Edinburgh Book Festival. Good luck to them – regardless of whether they win, it’s a terrific achievement to have reached the final.

The Kids’ Lit Quiz will soon be starting all over again with the new school year. For more information, go to www.kidslitquiz.com The KLQ attracts more and more teams each year, and is great fun for everyone involved – including the supporting authors, who often form teams to compete in the early rounds.

This page last updated 11 August, 2010