I’m staring at a contract on my desk right now. Which means, pending a couple of signatures, my new book will be on its way to be being primped and prepped for publication. Titled Slightly Burnt, it is a young adult novel and my first completely, fully non-fantasy work. There isn’t even a whiff of […]
Books
Week#24: My to-read list
I haven’t made a list in a really long time, so here goes. This is my current (priority) to-read list, in no particular order: Bartimaeus: The Ring of Solomon (Jonathan Stroud): I started reading this on my trip to Singapore, but it got left behind because it was to heavy to carry around. Our favourite […]
Week #22 Delayed: An AFCC report
Yep, I was too busy having fun (and working, of course) at the Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC) in Singapore to post Week #22 in time (there will be two posts this week to catch up). In short, the AFCC was a fantastic, fabulous experience. It was a confluence of numerous writers and illustrators, […]
Week #21: A hattrick of great reads
For every disappointing book I read, I try to tell myself that there are probably dozens of great ones out there. That was more than adequately proved by the three great reads I managed over the last week. The Magnificent Superdog Himanjali Sankar’s The Stupendous Timetelling Superdog stars Rousseau, a rather silly golden retriever who […]
Week #20: Believing the Lie, a review
When I finished reading Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George, I wondered fleetingly if this was the worst book I’d ever read. Well, by a long way, no. Because, unbelievable though it is, it did keep me reading on. All 650+ pages of the tiny type, despite my frustration with the narrative style, despite getting […]
Week #19: The AFCC Writers’ and Illustrators’ Conference
In the first week of June, I will be attending the Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC) in Singapore as a speaker. Needless to say, I’m very excited about it as the AFCC is without doubt the biggest event of its kind in Asia. It brings together creators of children’s content from across the world, […]
Week #15: The best ebook deals
There is a Kobo in the house, and while I’m now convinced that ebooks are not Terrible Things, given the choice, I’d still reach for a ‘real’ book. The only times I prefer an ebook is when I have to travel for a long period of time and when I just have to have a […]
Week #14: The Night Watch, a review
Finally, a book review: Sarah Waters’ The Night Watch, a riveting and most peculiar novel, mostly because the story is told in reverse. This is what the blurb has to say about it: Tender and tragic, set against the turbulent backdrop of wartime Britain…. Moving back through the 1940s, through air raids, blacked-out streets, illicit […]
Week #13: A report from CCLF 2014
Last week I spent a day at the Chandigarh Children’s Literature Festival 2014, hanging out with readers and schoolchildren from the city as well as hobnobbing with fellow authors and storytellers. My session was titled “Unwelcome guests: Is a ghost in your PC ever good news?” It was an interactive one-hour session, where the audience […]
Week #9: Just finished reading…
Even though I’m actually on a writing break, I’m managing to get in a good deal of reading as well. Last week I got through a couple of young adult novels: Paper Towns by John Green and Gone by Christine Kersey. John Green is likely to be familiar to readers of YA. His novel The […]