Ten-Minute Blog Break - 4th August

Logo by Melany Pietersen
It was genuinely once in a blue moon this week (last Friday to be exact), and that seems like a good opportunity to do something a bit different. So this week's Blog Break is primarily devoted to début bloggers, with a brace of SCBWI British Isles members who haven't featured in this column before.

It's not often that you get invited onto TV at short notice, to talk about one of your idols. So when Robert Paul Weston got a call from the BBC, he jumped at the chance to discuss the timeless Dr Seuss. You can read about Robert's experience on his blog and also watch the full video of his BBC Breakfast appearance.

Philip S. Davies - hurtling towards the launch of his début teen fantasy novel next month - has been distilling his artistic journey into a rather excellent series of writers' tips. So far, these cover such topics as initial story ideas, craft, characters and bloody-mindedness! Read his blog posts and also find out why "there aren’t enough medieval fantasy princesses frequenting our shopping centres these days."

Nicky Browne would dearly love to have a snappy elevator pitch for her work-in-progress, but instead she's Rambling Through the Wilderness. Luckily, the kind of rambling that would ruin a ten-word pitch is far more palatable (and relatable) when presented as a blog post!

I thought Cliff McNish was making his Blog Break début too, but the annoyingly accurate Words & Pictures site search reveals that I featured him back in 2013. Oh well, his free short story The Winter Wolf is just too damned good not to mention! You can read the whole thing here, and as a bonus, there's also a blog post by Trish Phillips on Big Little Tales that talks all about her creative process for the story's illustrations.

Finally (and breaking completely with my self-imposed theme), I couldn't leave you without mentioning Space on the Bookshelf's celebration of the work of the marvellous Chris Riddell. All hail the new Children's Laureate!

Nick.


Nick Cross is an Undiscovered Voices winner and has recently received the SCBWI Magazine Merit Award, for his short story The Last Typewriter.

Click here to read Nick's latest blog post for Notes from the Slushpile. His children's short story Hacking History can be found in issue 8 of Stew Magazine.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks, Nick! I especially enjoyed The Winter Wolf, which I have been meaning to read. The illustrations are lovely too.

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