Stepping in and Stepping Up

Our lovely W&P Editor Jan is on a well-earned break, so I offered to step in for this week's editorial. 

First up, if you haven't already noticed our sparkly new banner, we have another amazingly talented featured illustrator Heather Dickinson, inspired as many of us are in our creative pursuits, by her children. You can find more of her beautiful illustrations at her website.

If you missed any of our packed Indie-inspired week, on Monday we had the first in a two-part installment from Nicky Schmidt, who further explored a discussion on the SCBWI-BI's Facebook page, stemming from an article she posted, about whether or not there is a third way of publishing.

On Tuesday, Nick brought us another jam-packed Ten-Minute Blog Break (although I think we might need to change his weekly features to Procrastination Station, as I spend a good hour reading through all of the fab blog posts when I should really be writing!) filled with video games, viruses and vampires.

Wednesday saw part two of Nicky's feature with some interesting points about the ever-changing publishing industry and what it means to be a successful author.

Colleen gave us a fantastic write-up on Thursday about her experience of this year's SCBWI-BI retreat, and on Saturday we all gave an extra loud HURRAH! to Candy Gourlay's well-deserved and hard-earned second win of the SCBWI's Crystal Kite Award in an honest post that showed that the hard work never stops even after being discovered.

Coming up this week :

• Monday - Elizabeth Wein is guest blogging about her experience of stock signing.
• Tuesday - Another Ten-Minute Blog Break from Nick.
• Wednesday - More proofreading tips from Catriona Tippin focussing on fonts.
• Thursday - Gill James brings us more Network News from the North East, featuring an online pitching session from Hot Key's Sara O'Connor.

Also, announced today, our next Chalkface Challenge! This time our judges from Sparsholt Primary School in Hampshire, are looking for the first 500 words of your novel for 7 - 9 year olds.

That's it from me. I'm off to enjoy the sunshine?? that's supposed to appear at some point during this Bank Holiday weekend, and to get back to my writing . . . once I've finished reading through Nick's Blog Break...

Katrina 

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Katrina Charman
@katrina_ charman

Katrina is Joint Features Editor for W&P, and has been a member of the SCBWI since 2008 in both the UK and in the US, where she rediscovered her love of writing for children while living in the sunshine state of Florida.

She was one of the winners of Undiscovered Voices 2014 with her YA novel, Phoenix, and is represented by Gemma Cooper at The Bent Agency.