Bath Children's Literature Festival 2019 - Lucy Strange

Lucy Strange

Writing Middle Grade with Lucy Strange

I spent a very enjoyable afternoon earlier this week getting tips on writing from author Lucy Strange at the Guildhouse, Bath as part of the Bath Children's Literature Festival 2019.

The masterclass session gave our group of twenty plus writers (at varying stages on their writing journeys) a chance to experiment with a mood board, listen to some mood music and chat with Lucy when she visited our tables during the breaks between topics.

Lucy's informative PowerPoint presentation gave advice on synopses, chapters, characters, editing and titles, amongst other things.

Useful things I learned: a synopsis doesn't have to be in chronological order; you can get grants for writing; don't let other people read your writing whilst it is trying to grow; you'll probably experience the five stages of grief (denial, anger, etc) when you receive feedback on your writing, so let it sit for a few days before you go back to it; it's not about us, the writers, but about the readers; if you can't come to the writing, let the writing come to you.

Afterwards, Lucy signed copies of her books, but there were no more copies of the one I wanted at the event, so I made a mad dash to Waterstones to buy Our Castle By The Sea and returned in time for Lucy to sign my copy (so my niece and nephews aren't the only ones to get autographed books at this festival!).

Mood board

Guildhouse

Meeting Bristol City Poet Vanessa Kisuule

Vanessa Kisuule

Today, I had the great pleasure of meeting poet Vanessa Kisuule when she held a pop up residency at Fishponds Library for the day. We chatted about poetry and writing, and Vanessa very kindly gave me a poem from one of several she had on her table.

I discovered that Vanessa is only the second person to have been given the role of Bristol City Poet, which she will hold until summer 2020, and she'll be holding more pop up residencies at other Bristol libraries over the next few months. Check out her website to see if she'll be coming to your area soon!

Begin by Brendan Kennelly

Bath Children's Literature Festival 2019 - Liz Cross and Julia Green

Julia Green and Liz Cross

My editor & Me: Liz Cross and Julia Green

Part of the Bath Children's Literature Festival 2019 is geared towards creative writing for adults, and this evening I attended a talk on the editorial process with editor Liz Cross and author Julia Green.

Their relationship has developed over several books, to the point that Julia now sends Liz the draft of her latest manuscript before she sends it to her agent. Liz also encourages Julia not to be too gentle in her plotting, but to push things further.

We also got to see a cover design sheet for one of Julia's books (which lists keywords or phrases from the book to generate ideas for a cover) and were shown the various concepts for the cover, which were narrowed down and tweaked until the publishers were satisfied with the final image.