Ten-Minute Blog Break - 19th August

August is one of those rare times of the year when living Down South seems like a disadvantage, as the various Edinburgh festivals take centre-stage. I'm hoping this isn't the last year that this cultural smorgasbord is held in the United Kingdom!

The SCBWI South East Scotland regional team were particularly busy at the Edinburgh Book Festival, organising a panel on author events with Nicola Morgan as one of the speakers. Nicola's terrific blog post on getting and giving great author events covers everything she talked about and a lot lot more.

Maureen Lynas was also in Edinburgh last week, indulging her inner artist and soaking up as much inspiration as possible. And because she's nice like that, she's blogged all about what she learnt.

Candy Gourlay has been nominated for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize (yay!) and this week it's her turn to feature on their website. Candy's re-posted the two videos she made on her blog, one of which wasn't even supposed to be a video (but is great anyway). Hooray for quiet books!

I didn't have room last week for Marie Basting's blog response to the last Slushpile Challenge (in which Penny Holroyde infamously failed to find an entry funny enough to make her laugh). With the help of The Sooty Show(!) Marie's blog post explores how that competition result made her feel, and her thoughts on the enduring popularity of "goo and poo and stinky farts."

I'm going to end this week with four letters - TGFW. It stands for "Thank God for Writing" as Vanessa Harbour talks movingly about what writing means to her and how it helps her through some difficult life situations. #TGFW indeed.

Nick.

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A SCBWI member since 2009, Nick Cross is a former Undiscovered Voices winner who currently writes children's short fiction for Stew Magazine.

Nick's most recent blog post found him coming Out of the Cave, to consider writing, hiding and "the rent-a-gobs of children’s literature."