A Patchwork Post

So many things to write about this week I don't know which to pick, so I'm going for them all! It's been Children's Book Week did you vote for your favourite? Champion @Words8Pictures Tweeter, @lockwoodwriter, has collected the Twittersphere's favourites in our timeline - look, just scroll down on the left...


Frankfurt Book Fair excitement included the announcement of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, a children's books Nobel, to honour the memory of the creator of Pippi Longstocking who 'combined artistic integrity with commitment to the rights of children and young people'. 238 candidates were nominated globally, the list is a wonderful who's who of Children's Books.

We have a new featured illustrator with a sparkly new banner with buttons and everything - welcome Rachel Quarry and her Patchwork World to Words & Pictures. (Look out for Bertie the Baboon in Rachel's portfolio. He has 'the finest bottom on the Savannah!')

An Interesting Combination?

I may have already let slip that I'm a bit of fabric fan too and I love little better than snipping up perfectly good swathes of the stuff and sewing the bits back together in interesting combinations.  We all live in a patchwork world where our differences are enhancing and October celebrates this diversity. I am in awe of the movers and shakers, like Verna Wilkins and Tamarind Books that work to reflect this in the stories children enjoy.

There was a great post from Bookwitch on Malorie Blackman's visit to Manchester last Friday. My quote of the week has to be 'children have the right to read rubbish' - let's hear it for #readingforpleasure. It's especially exciting that we're welcoming the Children's Laureate, who was once told by her careers teacher that "blacks don’t become teachers, and that she would not pass her English A-level" to our SCBWI British Isles conference in a few weeks time.

So until the excitement of the conference and listening to Malorie, why not catch up on what you may have missed last week?

Very quickly, because I've almost run out of Saturday and at some point, I have to finish writing a book, we've had...

• A NEW Slush Pile Challenge
• Sound advice on when to pay for editorial guidance from Sara O'Connor
• Nick's Blog Break and I'm sneaking in the post that made me all smiles and jollity this morning, HERE
• Fabulous report on the Nosy Crow Conference from Celia and Annie
• A catch up from Central North's Critique Group and more jollity from Gill
• The Delightful Rachel Quarry
• Big Hurrahs and Mouthfuls of Cake for Jo Franklin's German Deal!

 Next week we have...

• Agent Confidential with Agent#3
• A taster post for an extremely useful new series for 2014
• plus news, blogs and celebrations galore (isn't that fab word?)

Hoping you all have plenty to illustrate and write about this week,

Carry on everyone!

Jan Carr

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Jan Carr is the editor of Words & Pictures. Her fiction is older middle grade, she blogs occasionally and loves to write in magenta. You can contact her at editor@britishscbwi.org.