Authors Electric

Well, the secret I've had to hold back on for two years is now out, as, if you follow me on Facebook, you'll already know. The modest film deal I've referred to from time to time was based on my first children's novel, THE TIME TREE, published by Walker Books in the early Nineties, and a first for them, too, as it was the first time they'd published a children's novel. The book stayed in print for ages, and seemed to grab people in a very special way. It's a time-slip story - a magical encounter, via an ancient oak tree, between two contemporary eleven year old girls, and a profoundly deaf Elizabethan girl of the same age. It's a book that grabbed a very close friend who works in the media, and who had always seen it as a film (I didn't) so she pushed me into writing a screenplay with a number of plot extensions and developments, which was challenging and exciting. Writing for the screen is SO very different from writing a novel, because the who...

It's lovely when you receive a letter from someone who's enjoyed your book. But a little more unusual when you get a letter from the characters themselves! The other day I was curious when the postman delivered a brown padded envelope, and even more curious to find a hand written letter on a kind of scroll, and something wrapped in a piece of black material and tied with a black ribbon. A cursory glance at the letter had me noticing the words Cross of Aes Dana – which, if you've read my YA time slip book, Celeste you'll know is a magical pendant that my character Megan (alias Celeste) has to guard with her life, as it possesses the power of eternal life. I instantly thought it was from one of the teenagers I'd spoken to at their school recently – until I saw the letter was signed by Megan, Freya and Jamie.  That trio of names rang a bell – my characters in the book! They explained that they'd retrieved the Cross of Aes...