London Book Fair and the Author Blog Awards Party

It's been a busy couple of days for me at the London Book Fair, what with the Author Blog Awards party, meeting lovely SCBWIs and SASSIEs, signing with a new agent--oh, and doing a little volcanosquatting (more of that later). 

First, the Awards report, as promised.  Despite all your lovely votes, I didn't win.  The honours went to The Shopgirl Diaries written by Emily Benet.  I've had a look, and it's a really good blog, so I'm not feeling too bad about it!  I'll be getting a nice shiny blogbadge for being shortlisted, anyway. Here I am at the party,

where I met all sorts of twitterites and literary folk, including:

Emily Benet, winner!

and Jon Reed of Publishing Talk along with Anna Lewis and Jon Stark of Completely Novel and lots of other nice bookie people too numerous to mention. The wine flowed and the chat was chatty and I even wore my eBay Jimmy Choos (which I'd promised Sam Missingham of The Bookseller I'd bring to the party in a rash moment on Twitter). 

Here I am with one of the Jimmys in an empty LBF stand--which brings me to the matter of 'volcanosquatting'.  I'm not sure if any of you have noticed, but Iceland seems to hate us because of all that banking malarkey. So a special plume of volcanic ash was organised by the Norse Gods so that none of the foreign publishers or agents could fly through it to LBF.  This created a certain amount of empty space at the fair, (and a certain amount of Facebook and Twitter conspiracy chat among those children's authors who were going). All I will say here (for fear of being arrested after the event) is that we took the opportunity to brighten up a sad, lonely and deserted space by putting our books, posters and leaflets up in an entrepreneurial sort of way.  People liked it.  We even met some lovely student illustrators who joined us in our anarchic public-spirited activities.  Here are some of us posing in our newly acquired premises....

Culprits Entrepreneurs Kathryn Evans, Candy Gourlay and Tabitha Suzuma (and me).  Other culprits entrepreneurs (like Anne Rooney and Jackie Marchant) cleverly avoided photographic evidence of their crime clandestine activities.  

Other News from the Fair: At the end of last year I was very sad to find that Rosemary Sandberg,  my lovely agent of 10 years was retiring. However, after a long and fruitful meeting in the (scarily empty and bereft of foreign agents) International Rights Centre, I am delighted to make an Official Announcement!  Sophie Hicks of Ed Victor Ltd is going to be my new agent, and I couldn't be more delighted. She's lovely--and she immediately won huge brownie points from me by introducing me to Eoin Colfer, creator of Artemis Fowl and an extremely nice and funny man (who is obviously James Bond in disguise despite his protestations that he is 'too short' to be a glamorous international spy).

I'm going away to have a lie down now, after all that excitement.  I'll be back on Friday, bringing you a Mythic Interview from no less a luminary than Michelle Paver.  I AM lucky to be keeping such starry company these days!

Why Countdown for Another Author's Book?

Yes. I have a countdown for Eoin Colfer's new book, And Another Thing on my blog (look to right of page). It has absolutely nothing to do with my own writing, Not a thing. So why would I do this? Well, the truth (the whole truth and nothing but the interplanetary truth) is, I've been a Douglas Adams/Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy fan for what seems like most of my life. That may not make much sense in the current context until you know that the wonderful Eoin, (pronounced Owen if you didn't know that already), was commissioned by Penguin Books some time ago to write Part 6 of 3 ie the next Hitchhiker's Guide book, which arrives in a solar system near you in October. Personally, having read the half which arrived on my doorstep via the Vogon Postal Service (Punishment for Mail Tampering:Disintegration), I can't wait for the next installment. It's brilliant--no word to use lightly, but it is. Eoin has captured the madness and the mayhem of the original books without compromising his own inimitable style. I've been an avid reader of Eoin's Artemis Fowl books since their first appearance, and so, for this new venture, though I'm sure he doesn't need it, I'd like to show my support by putting up a widget thingy for him. And anyway, it means that I can get away with writing stuff like: 'Brain the size of a planet, and all I do is mess about with a blog,' along with 'Don't Panic, Froods--and keep your towel handy in case of Vogons'.

A Sequel by Someone Else?

There's a sequel by someone else to one of your favourite children's books. It's sitting there on the shelf, calling to you with a siren whisper. "Now you can find out WHAT HAPPENED NEXT. C'mon, you KNOW you want to." But do you? Do you really? Just published is Hilary McKay's answer to Frances Hodgson Burnett's 'A Little Princess', called 'Wishing For Tomorrow'. I've ordered it, but deep in my heart I know I probably shouldn't have done. Sara Crewe's story was one of the great loves of my childhood, its riches to rags to riches story somehow deeply satisfying to my soul. It was, I felt, what a really good story should be. It has sat in my head, complete and entire since I first read it. I may. fleetingly, have wondered how Sara Crewe's life evolved after her rescue by the Indian Gentleman, but hey, my imagination could provide the details of that. So why do I want to read a book by someone else, written 104 years after the publication of the original? Because I am like the Elephant's Child--full of "'satiable curtiosity". And because now that I know it's out there, I can't resist it. If I'm horrified and disappointed, it will be my own fault, after all. I have not read any reviews (deliberately), since I'd like to make my own mind up without any prejudice.

Also coming this autumn is Eoin Colfer's sequel to Douglas Adams' 'Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy' series, entitled 'And Another Thing'. I am the lucky possessor of a Limited Edition Proof (42 of 238) of the first half of the book. It arrived (naturally) by the Vogon Postal Service (Punishment for mail tampering: Disintegration) and has a helpful and friendly rainbow-hued DON'T PANIC! on the front cover. I yield to no one in my admiration of Eoin as a writer of children's books (have loved Artemis Fowl since his first appearance), but I did approach this offering with trepidation. 'Hitchhiker's', its insane landscape, and quotes from it have been part of my life since the first radio-broadcasts. I have lost count of the times I have muttered 'Brain the size of a planet, and all I am asked to do is....". I am delighted to report that Eoin (once again) does not disappoint. He has captured Adams's voice and madness perfectly (at least in this first half), and I look forward to reading the whole thing on 12th October.

So have I ever been disappointed? Yes. Most certainly. Many times. To pick out a couple at random: I've hated every sequel to Pride and Prejudice I've ever read--even Emma Tennant couldn't make me love her version of 'Pemberley'. I couldn't love Geraldine McCaughrean's 'Peter Pan in Scarlet' either--though it was a well-written book. There are very often extremely good reasons why an author doesn't write a sequel to a much loved work. Robin McKinley (one of my very favourite fantasy authors) is always being pestered (and I do use the word advisedly) for sequels to her Damar books and others. She says that while it is always theoretically possible that one will arrive from what she calls 'The Story Council', she has to write what she is given--it's not something that a writer can force. I know that were I ever to be in the same position, by the unpteenth complaining and plaintive request I would positively not WANT to write another word on the subject. However, if in 104 years someone wants to write a sequel to something of mine, then I say good luck to them. But I'm quite glad I won't be around to read it.