Muncle Trogg love hits Germany... And congrats to Kim for an Honorary Mention!

This week, congratulations go to Janet Foxley for the latest news on Muncle - or Munkel - Trogg who has found success in Germany. Then we celebrate Kim Lloyd who won the Honorary Mention for the Margaret Carey Scholarship.

Janet had been writing children’s books for thirty-five years and Muncle Trogg itself for about seven when it won the Times/Chicken House Prize 2010 for a children’s novel by an unpublished author. Published by Chicken House in 2011, it subsequently sold to twenty-four countries, has been optioned for a film by Sony Animation and short-listed for a number of awards. A sequel, Muncle Trogg and the Flying Donkey, was published in 2012 and a third book will be published in April 2014, but initially only in Germany, where it is called Muncle Trogg and the Long Dragon Flight. Muncle, or Munkel, has had his greatest success in Germany, where he is published by Fischer, and has just won the German Audio Book Prize, which is actually for the reader, Boris Aljinovic, not the book.

 Janet tells us: “I am particularly pleased that Muncle has done so well in Germany as I misspent several happy years of my youth in the country during and after my degree in German. As a result my German is still good enough to discuss the books with the translator and to thoroughly enjoy the audiobooks.” Barry Cunningham, Chicken House Publisher, made this comment on Twitter ‘Our own dear Muncle Trogg has won the First Prize in the German Audio Books Awards - his great smallness grows!’

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Next, please raise your glasses for Kim Lloyd, who received the Honorable Mention for the Margaret Carey Scholarship for her YA novel 'The Last Time I Cried.'

Kim tells us: "I developed the story whilst on the MA Writing for Young People at Bath Spa Uni and I loved every minute of the course. It's improved my writing immeasurably and I've made wonderful, lifelong friends. I've now graduated, with Distinction, and it's nearly time to send my book out into the big, wide world (after a few more edits!) Receiving the Honorable Mention from SCBWI has done wonders for my confidence as it was the first time I sent the story to anyone outside my Uni group and the positive feedback's been great. As a writer, you can feel isolated and question your own judgement, so it's brilliant when someone enjoys what you've written. 'The Last Time I Cried' is, on the surface, a dark tale about a damaged girl who makes some terrible choices, leading to tragedy. However, the story has an undercurrent of hope and redemption and, ultimately, it shows that you can escape the past and look to the future."

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Tania Tay is an ex-advertising copywriter and has been published in Sable LitMag. She is currently writing a YA romantic thriller, is a member of The Golden Egg Academy and is on the editorial team at Words & Pictures.