Sunday 20 January 2013

Evil Editors and Storywriting Adventures

If storywriting's your thing, read on......

Last week's Branford Boase longlist announcement got me thinking. The award recognises outstanding debut novels for children and honours the team of author AND editor. I've been thinking about how reading, writing and editing all mix together. So, for the next few weeks, we're throwing something a bit different and a bit extra into our blogging mix. We're getting editors on board and exploring the writing and editing that goes into that now rapidly changing business of  publishing.

We're starting off with something big that's little! SHRUNK!

Shrunk!, written by Fleur Hitchcock and edited by Sara O'Connor (Hot Key Books) has been longlisted for the Branford Boase 2013 award. It's about a boy who can shrink things.

This is what editor, Sara O'Conner has to say about it:
"I am so delighted that Fleur's quirky SHRUNK! is longlisted alongside so many talented UK writers for such a prestigious award. We're so convinced of her bright future that we've signed up three more books with her. Working with Fleur is a dream but, if you don't believe me, ask the 1000 school children who are working with her on her third book through the one-of-a-kind online writing project http://www.thestoryadventure.com."


The Story Adventure officially starts tomorrow (Monday 21 January 2013). If I was a Key Stage 2 teacher, I'd be excited about it. It's a longitudinal interactive storywriting project that will culminate in the sequel to Fleur Hitchcock's Shrunk!, due to be published in January 2014. Contributors don't have to follow the whole year through but their ideas will affect the way the novel develops and may get a mention in the final published novel.  It's primarily aimed at readers and writers in Key Stage 2 and I think it looks really good. Little M and I have taken part in some interactive storymessing with Hot Key on Twitter, and while Sara might be the evil editor, I know that she does a lot of bouncing too.

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Watch out for February when we'll be hosting writing tips for older readers and writers.

2 comments:

  1. I'd like to say that working with Sara O'Connor and Hot Key Books is a dream from my point of view. And thank you very much for this blog, M - we want lots of children on board. We have loads - but there's room for more. The more the merrier...

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    Replies
    1. You're welcome, Fleur. I'm really interested to see how it all turns out in the end. And if only I was about 10 years old!

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