Ten-Minute Blog Break - 24th March

Something I love about our marvellous SCBWI bloggers is the sheer breadth of topics they cover. Where else would you get to read about virtual Easter egg hunts, performing hamsters and book chapter biscuits all in the same column?

The inspirational surprise of the week for me was this blog post by Julie Day. Talk about making lemons into lemonade - Julie only had one person turn up for her library talk on how to get discovered as an author, and yet she took the opportunity to turn it into a one-to-one coaching session :-)

Easter is almost upon us, so what better than an Easter egg hunt in aid of UKYA? Teri Terry takes to Notes from the Slushpile to explain how the "blog hop" works. There are so many SCBWI YA writers taking part that I can't list them all here, so get hopping!

I'm loving Sarah Broadley's new site design, and her post on middle grade writing is just as good. Click through for lots of useful info condensed from a Scottish Book Trust event on writing for children aged 8-12.

Hamsters! (bet that got your attention). Loretta Schauer's picture book hamsters are having something of a story crisis - read Loretta's post for Big Little Tales and see if you can help her.

The Carnegie Medal shortlist was unveiled last week, and I wasn't on it again, due to some trifling technicality*. Nicki Thornton's post for Space on the Bookshelf doesn't address that scandalous oversight, but she does cover most of the other bases as she interviews Dawn Finch - CILIP Vice President and children's author - about a life in libraries and the Carnegie process.

As a writer, one of those things you discover when you finally get published is that you have to arrange your own book launch. I was at Abbie Rushton's launch for her debut YA novel Unspeakable and it was one of the most thoughtfully organised launches I've ever attended. Her publisher Atom obviously thought so too, because they've blogged about her launch on their own site. If only all publishers could be so attentive!

Nick.

* i.e. not having actually published a book in the last year.
A SCBWI member since 2009, Nick Cross is a children's writer, Undiscovered Voices winner, occasional blogger, ex-zombie and part-time superhero for two hours every Wednesday evening (but only after putting the bins out).

He also writes children's short fiction for Stew Magazine.

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