Authors Electric

  It’s a strange experience having a book on a longlist. It’s never happened to me before and now suddenly two of my books are awaiting a decision. The first is “Vladimir the Vampire’s Cat” a children’s book which I entered some months ago for Writing Magazine’s Chapter Book Prize. “Vladimir” is something I’ve been working on literally for decades. I began in the 1980s and it has gone through endless incarnations since then. Last year however I decided that I was going to work on the final version. Whatever shape it ended up in, whether as a short story, a picture book, or something longer that was going to be it. The decision having been made, it didn’t take long to do. Years of reading to grandchildren gave me a feel of how it should be, plus constructive feedback from Renegade Writers, and I finally could type THE END. When it was done, I had to make up my mind what to do with it. After sending off the first chapter an agent wanted to see the full ms. When that came back wit...

  Cover detail by Michael Walters Years ago I was featured in an article in “Writing Magazine” which took writers who were looking to be published and analysed the steps they were taking towards their goal. At the time I was writing a play, while simultaneously working on a novel and mulling over the idea for a children’s book. The play was to be performed at the school where I was a drama teacher, the novel would be sent out to a list of agents and in the meantime I would begin the children’s book. The feedback when it came was not encouraging. Although I was commended for working hard it seemed that if I wanted to make it in the publishing world I needed to concentrate on one thing and one genre at a time. That way I could put the maximum effort into succeeding as a playwright, novelist, or children’s author.   I probably should have taken the advice, but over the years I’ve come to accept that this is my approach to writing and that having a number of projects on the go...