Authors Electric

It’s that time of year when one usually makes their New Year’s resolutions. I’ve done so in the past (and usually, to be fair, have managed to keep to them; however, I put this down to them being reasonably small steps to take). This year, however, my resolution was not to make any resolutions. Instead of planning for the year, I’m going to try and ‘pants’ it. Pretty much like I do with most of my writing, although I have been dabbling with plotting for a while with reasonable success. That’s not to say I don’t have some ideas in mind for goals I’d like to reach – There’s a couple of pieces of Bach’s music for which I have guitar transcriptions and I’d like to learn them; there’s also a couple of pieces I’d like to master on the piano as well, for example – but I don’t want to set dates on them. I’d rather enjoy the journey of discovery as I come to learn the pieces. It’s a similar story with writing. I have a few projects that I aim to finish this year. I have a new YA...

The Summer Reading Challenge, set up by the Reading Agency, has been running annually in UK libraries for over twenty years since 1999. Its purpose is to encourage primary school children to read 6 books throughout the summer holiday. For their efforts each child is rewarded with such delights as stickers and bookmarks. Finally, if the challenge is completed, they receive the ultimate prize of a medal and a certificate. This summer there is a sporty theme with the title Ready, Set, Read! Co-incidentally I found some medals in the draw recently for the Reading Planet. Reading Maze and Reading Rollercoaster. These are some of the earliest medals given out in 2002-2004 when my children were just beginning their own independent reading journeys. Visiting the library with my small children was such a delight, even when our home was already full of other books to read. The library had a copy of Chicken Licken which we didn’t have, it was probably the most frequently borrowed book for a tim...