NETWORK NEWS Central North
This month, Network News Editor, Anne Boyere, highlights the Central North Network. Follow Buffy Randall's Erik the Viking, down the cobbled streets of Lincoln!
From Hull to Lincoln, Nottingham, Crowle, Sheffield, Barnsley, Mansfield, Newark, and Beverley, there is plenty to inspire our SCBWI members in Central North. Network Organisers, Addy Farmer and Liz Miller, introduce Words & Pictures to their area and tells us where the inspiration to share their love for children's books took them.
Key Contacts: Addy Farmer and Liz Miller are the Network Organisers for Central North. They can be contacted through centralnorth@britishscbwi.org or via the Central North Facebook group
How active is the network? Central North has monthly critiques in Lincoln for all ages and genres of children's writing and illustrating. In Nottingham, the members have a monthly brunch with a bit of informal goal setting to keep us going.
The network will have its first Sketch and Scribble event in Lincoln on Saturday 25th April. Liz and Addy are hoping more of their illustrator members would like to come and join them for this.
The setting for Helen Cresswell's Moondial is based on the real Belton House in Lincolnshire.
Liz and Addy chose to focus on one amazing member, Linda Nicklin.
The Central North network is looking to develop its illustrator programme, so if any of the members would like to be involved with this, please give Liz and Addy a shout.
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| Celebrating SCBWI's 20th birthday! |
2019 Event Highlights
In addition to their regular events, in 2019 Central North had a fantastic workshop on Writing for Educational Markets with Anita Loughrey.
Liz Miller told Words & Pictures:
We are also lucky to have links with the annual Newark Book Festival which is held every summer. Our sessions there have included panel events on the Carnegie and Greenaway Awards and fun family storytelling sessions with Chitra Soundar and our very own Addy Farmer!
Central North Members News
Central North has been delighted to welcome new members to the meetings in Lincoln and Newark!
And there has been more good news to share. Fiona Spence-Arnold was offered a highly contested Writing East Midlands mentorship! Linda Nicklin has signed a contract with Fantastic Books for her YA novel, Stormgirl (more of that below). Margaret Connor continues to have stories accepted in magazines - her latest Kate and the Kiss-Me Biscuit was recently published in People's Friend. Addy Farmer was shortlisted for the Hachette Debut Novel award with her middle-grade novel The Dangerous Dead. Addy has also just been long-listed in the Write Mentor Children's Novel Award 2020, receiving a Reader's favourite mention as well.
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| The Lincoln critique group |
And there has been more good news to share. Fiona Spence-Arnold was offered a highly contested Writing East Midlands mentorship! Linda Nicklin has signed a contract with Fantastic Books for her YA novel, Stormgirl (more of that below). Margaret Connor continues to have stories accepted in magazines - her latest Kate and the Kiss-Me Biscuit was recently published in People's Friend. Addy Farmer was shortlisted for the Hachette Debut Novel award with her middle-grade novel The Dangerous Dead. Addy has also just been long-listed in the Write Mentor Children's Novel Award 2020, receiving a Reader's favourite mention as well.
Members of Central North are a mixture of published and pre-published wonderful works-in-progress!
A notable literary location
Minty, who has always had a sixth sense for ghosts, immediately begins to feel the prickle of something mysterious in the air surrounding the house. This feeling is especially apparent in the gardens, where she finds a sundial.
Minty stopped in front of the statue, with icy tides washing her from head to foot. There were an old man and a young boy, both winged like angels, though she was certain that they were not. They seemed to be wrestling, struggling for possession of a bowl above their heads and, catching a glimpse of a metal beak, Minty suddenly realised what it was. “A sundial!” she exclaimed softly, and then, almost immediately and without knowing why – “Moondial!”
Highlighting a Central North member
Liz and Addy chose to focus on one amazing member, Linda Nicklin.
Linda says:
A colleague once told me that ‘one day you will wake up and the mantle of work will have slipped from your shoulders.’ And one day, after over 30 years of working as an Occupational Therapist I woke up and found that it had. And so, I hatched a plan. I made a list of 111 fun things to do and volunteered for redundancy. My list isn’t a bucket list, that’s about preparing for death after all what do you do when it’s finished? Mine is about living, for every fun thing I do I find more to add. One thing on my list was to ‘find my voice’. So, I joined a rock choir, completed a Masters in Creative Writing and joined SCBWI. I’ve sung at Abbey Road, flash mobbed the BBC Proms in the park and this year I hope to be chosen to sing at the Edinburgh Festival. I’ve had a couple of plays get through to rehearsed readings, and my book- Storm Girl has just been accepted for publication with Fantastic Books. I plan to celebrate in style.
Volunteers update
The Central North network is looking to develop its illustrator programme, so if any of the members would like to be involved with this, please give Liz and Addy a shout.
They would also love to know what kinds of things the Central North members would like to see happening in the region.
The header artwork is by artist Buffy Randall. Buffy is an author and illustrator based in Lincoln. Before she became a full-time artist, Buffy worked as a scientist and she has a PhD in chemistry. She has built on this experience and likes to work a little bit of science into her artwork and picture books – drawing from the natural world and celebrating inquisitive minds. Buffy’s first picture book, Poppy’s Big Idea was self-published in 2017 and is about communicating difficult ideas and working together to achieve brilliant things. You can see Buffy's work here or follow her on Twitter.
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The header artwork is by artist Buffy Randall. Buffy is an author and illustrator based in Lincoln. Before she became a full-time artist, Buffy worked as a scientist and she has a PhD in chemistry. She has built on this experience and likes to work a little bit of science into her artwork and picture books – drawing from the natural world and celebrating inquisitive minds. Buffy’s first picture book, Poppy’s Big Idea was self-published in 2017 and is about communicating difficult ideas and working together to achieve brilliant things. You can see Buffy's work here or follow her on Twitter.
Anne is a writer and a breastfeeding counsellor. She is fluent in English and French but, please, don't ask her to do maths in English or her brain will fry. You can ask her about her four children, husband and cat and she will happily tell you all about them until you beg for mercy. She won the 2018 Winchester's Writers' Festival prize in Funny Fiction for her story about a grandmother were-cow and was shortlisted in the Writers & Artists' Writing for Children and YA competition.
In her spare time, she murders violin pieces or dreams about being invited to Desert Island Discs (spoiler: her book of choice would be Eloise).
Twitter: @AmusedNonQueen
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