CELEBRATIONS, November 2019

Sparks fly as inspiration explodes brighter than a firework display this month. B B Taylor takes us into November with an impressive array of talent, to bring you this month's SCBWI celebrations and new releases. May your November bring you an explosion of inspiration and good news!

New Releases 

Hooray! Jenny Moore is bursting into action as her middle grade book Agent Starling: Operation Baked Beans hit the shelves on October 28th with Maverick. The timing was perfect for Jenny as it meant she got to celebrate in proper SCBWI style a few days later at the SCBWI Mass Book Launch!

Marisa Noelle's talent is burning bright this month as her book The Unadjusteds hits our shelves on November 1st and is published by Write Plan. Follow the journey of sixteen-year-old Silver Melody who lives in a world where 80% of the population has modified their DNA. 

Catherine Jacob is exploding into November with not one but two debut picture books! There’s a Troll on my Toilet illustrated by Mike Byrne is out now with Scholastic and Santa’s Special Gift  illustrated by Ag Jatkowska is out with Little Tiger. Catherine is so thrilled and says it’s all very exciting - and a bit overwhelming! She wants to thank all SCBWI members for their support and for making SCBWI such a lovely group to be part of.

Illustrator Chantal Bourgonje is delighted that the second picture book in her Horace & Nim series will come out this month and she has recently received the advance copy from the publisher Hubble & Hattie Kids. She is the illustrator of the book and the creator of the characters, written by David Hoskins. She is quite rightly feeling very proud.

Coming Soon 

After quite a long and twisty road, Sheila M Averbuch has received the fantastic good news that every writer and illustrator dreams of. Her debut, a middle grade thriller, is to be published in autumn 2020 in the US by Scholastic. The middle grade novel titled Friend Me is an exciting and dark thriller following Roisin, an Irish girl transplanted to America, and what happens when the merciless school bully suffers a gruesome accident and Roisin begins to wonder if her newest friend could be involved?

Sophie Kirtley is jumping into November with a Yippee! Her debut middle grade book - The Wild Way Home - is being published by Bloomsbury in July 2020! Hiphiphooray!  We are also super proud to announce that her poem, Mary Anning Shouts to the Sea is in the wondrous anthology about all things dinosaur - Dragons of the Prime - which published last month with The Emma Press.

Pssst! come closer... it's top secret! Zoe Armstrong is celebrating because she and the illustrator Shelly Laslo have been working on a top-secret book about spies with the fantastic team at Puffin. It’s called Find The Spy, an illustrated non-fiction and due to be published in March 2020. Find The Spy is Zoe's first book and Shelly’s second, and they finally revealed the fabulous cover, designed by Rose Lihou. Available for pre-order now!

Agents 

Have you got a new agent? Don't be shy. Let us know so we can celebrate with you too! 

Good News 

Zoe Armstrong is also celebrating winning one of the Margaret Carey Scholarship places. This means she attended the SCBWI conference for the first time this year, and she was so excited! She wanted to send a huge thank you to everyone involved 

Congratulations to all the other scholarship winners who we were so excited to welcome to our annual SCBWI conference!

*All images courtesy of authors mentioned above. 

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Have you got good news to share? New book? New agent? Award nominee or winner? Are you a new member? Say hi and let us know. Why not send an email over with your good news at celebrations@britishscbwi.org, a picture and any links so we can celebrate too :)