Book and Blog News

I meant to post about this last week, but got bogged down in a post-weekend-off work slog; still it's not too late to be relevant. The Bath Festival of Children's Literature programme is now available and amongst the literally dozens of fab events they're holding are the following which made me squeak with pleasure, then moan with despair as I don't think I'll get to any of them. The second one is the one that got me most excited and despairing:

Wednesday 26th September
F1 5.30 – 6.30pm, The Forum, £5
A brilliant performer and one of the most popular writers for young people today, Anthony Horowitz will fire up the imagination with a sneak preview of his eagerly awaited new Alex Rider novel, Snakehead, discuss his bestselling series The Power of Five and deliver a quickfire question-and-answer session covering his writing for page and screen.

Friday 28th September
H2 7 – 8pm, Guildhall, £4.50
Accompanying the current Doctor Who BBC TV Series is a successful range of tie-in novels – brand new and original adventures featuring the Doctor and Martha written by some of the best writers around. This is a rare chance to hear many of these Doctor Who experts talk about how they write for the last of the Timelords. Join Mark Michalowski, Mark Morris, Paul Magrs, Justin Richards and Steve Cole in conversation with Michael Stevens, Doctor Who Range Editor at Bath-based BBC Audiobooks, for an evening of fascinating insight into everyone’s favourite time-traveller.

Sunday 23rd September
C5 11 – 12pm, Assembly Rooms, £5
You lucky people! Come and meet award-winning fantasy author Garth Nix in his first UK appearance for more than two years! Hear him talking about his current Keys to the Kingdom series, plus the legendary Old Kingdom trilogy and Shade's Children. Don't miss your chance to hear this master of storytelling explain all.

Sunday 30th September
K16 6 – 7pm, Guildhall, £4.50
A rare chance to catch together three great fantasy authors discussing their craft. Frank Beddor is a best-selling author who has written two bold fantasies inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Catherine Fisher's past work is popular and very highly acclaimed. Her new novel, Incarceron, is her hugely enjoyable yet terrifying vision of the future. David Clement-Davies unique brand of literary, anthropomorphic animal fantasy has won him rave reviews all over the world. His new novel, Fell, is a sequel to The Sight.

The chance to hear Justin Richards and Stephen Cole, whose Doctor Who novels I've really enjoyed, is fabulous, but 8 pm talk requires an overnight stay and as things stand, I can't afford it...

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Nancy, of the Journey Woman Blog, has just celebrated her Blogiversary (it was mine last week but did I remember? Nope ! That's two years in a row I've missed it!) and she's holding a Lives in Letters Contest during July.

She says:

The prizes:

I'll award 4 prizes, each a $25 gift card. Probably Starbucks gift cards, though I might shake it up a bit and go with Target gift cards too. Plus each winner will get one mystery prize of small monetary but huge sentimental value.

The deadline:

All entries must be in by July 31, midnight. I announce winners on August 2, which just happens to be my 39th birthday.

If you want to know more about how to participate, hightail it over to Journey Woman now !