Sanjida Kay's Blog, page 16
March 13, 2016
Bone by Bone Party!
Bone by Bone was published on March 3 and we had a celebration at Waterstones, Bristol. It was a wonderful night, and a huge thank you to those of you who were able to come! My editor, Louise Cullen, at Corvus Books, introduced me and read a statement from Kidscape, the anti-bullying charity I’m supporting. I read the prologue to Bone by Bone, and Laura Soper, an actor training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, read an extract from Autumn Wild’s point of view, the nine-year-old girl in my thriller. And then we ate cake and drank fizz!
Statement from Kidscape:
‘We are really sorry not to be with you in person tonight for the launch of Bone by Bone. We are hugely grateful to Sanjida for working so closely with us and donating a portion of the profits of the book to Kidscape.
Bullying is an issue which can affect anybody, regardless of family background, location or economic circumstance, and Bone by Bone handles these issues in an incredibly thoughtful and incisive manner, as well as being an incredibly exciting read. Kidscape has spent 30 years supporting families through the torment of bullying and educating teachers and other professionals about the damage bullying can do, and what they can do to prevent it occurring.
All the money raised through sales of Bone by Bone will help Kidscape to continue its highly-effective early intervention work in schools throughout the country. We hope that Bone by Bone is the tremendous success it deserves to be, and wish Sanjida and everybody here tonight a wonderful evening’
Kidscape
February 28, 2016
Bone by Bone Book Launch!
Just a few days to go until my book launch! It’s at 7pm Waterstones Bristol 4 March. My friend Ingrid, from Dunleavy Vineyards, is bringing along a couple of bottles of her delicious pinot for us to sample, cake artist Tam from AhhToots is making a ‘Bone by Bone’ alcohol-fuelled and caffeine-laden cake, and our local winter, Grape & Grind, is helping us out with prosecco and Wiper and True Brewing Co. beer!
It’s going to be an awesome party! Hope you can join us!
February 21, 2016
I’m Just a Kid
Last week I mentioned that I was donating a percentage of my profits from Bone by Bone to Kidscape, the anti-bullying charity. I gave five tips for parents who want to help prevent their child from being bullied. This week I’m giving some more of the charity’s tips – this time, five things that kids can do.
Top 5 tips for young people
Report it. Unless you report bullying to an adult, it’s very unlikely that it will stop. Talk to someone you trust about what has been happening. This could be a parent, a family friend or a teacher.
Protect yourself online. If you have been experiencing cyber bullying, as well as telling a trusted adult, you should also report abusive messages or phone calls to website administrators and/or service providers. It’s also important to use privacy settings on social media, and to block bullies from being able to contact you. You should not respond to bullying remarks, as this will only make the situation worse.
Remember that you are not to blame. Bullies will often target others based on ‘difference’, which can sometimes make their targets feel like they are the ones to blame. But you are not. Bullies will use any difference, even tiny ones, as an excuse. Never try to change for a bully, as they will often just find something else to pick on.
Build up your confidence. Bullies will often pick on people who they think won’t stand up for themselves, as it means they can get away with it. Learning how to say ‘no’ and hold assertive body language with confidence is a really effective way to tackle bullying. Visit the Kidscape website for practical examples of how you can do this.
Choose friends wisely. Bullying can be very subtle, and can even come from the people who are meant to be your friends. This type of bullying can be hard to spot, as it often happens little by little over a long period of time. Good friends support you, make you feel good about yourself and encourage you to behave in positive ways. If you think your friends don’t have your best interest at heart, you may wish to consider making new ones.
For more information about how to protect yourself from bullying and cyber bullying, make new friends and build confidence, visit the young people’s advice section on our website: www.kidscape.org.uk/advice.
February 14, 2016
Let’s Stop the Bullies
I’m delighted to announce that I’m donating a percentage of the profits from my thriller, Bone by Bone, to the anti-bullying charity, Kidscape.
‘This is a terrific novel which really brings to life the desperate situations families find themselves in when bullying occurs. It shows an extraordinary grasp of the issues and is handled in an extremely perceptive manner’
Kidscape, anti-bullying charity
Bone by Bone is about a mother, Laura, who discovers that her daughter, Autumn, is being bullied. The bullying has devastating consequences for Laura and Autumn. Sadly, bullying is horribly common: the NSPCC says that almost half of all children are bullied. Three-quarters of those bullied were physically attacked and 62 per cent were cyber-bullied in 2015 according to a report carried out for Ditch the Label. Nearly half of those children who were bullied, didn’t tell anyone about it, but suffered in silence.
Kidscape has some fantastic resources for schools, carers, parents, children and young people, which is why I want to support them. I was bullied as a child and although none of the things that happened to me, ended up in my novel, my experience shaped the story I told. You can read about my experiences and what prompted me to write Bone by Bone on the Kidscape website. Below are fives tips for parents provided by Kidscape to help deal with bullying.
Speak to your child. Find a quiet time when you won’t be interrupted to talk to your child about bullying. Be patient, calm and understanding, and do not make assumptions or interrupt. Put your feelings aside and really listen to what your child is telling you so you can fully understand the situation.
Give reassurance. Make it clear that the bullying is not their fault and praise them for being brave enough to confide in you. Assure them that now you know what is happening, the issues can be resolved.
Report to the school. Schedule a meeting with the school immediately. For primary schools this is likely to be with your child’s classroom teacher, and for secondary schools, the head of year. Give specific examples of bullying incidents and how your child has been affected. Keep a log of incidents to facilitate this. Ensure a course of action is agreed upon regarding how the school will work to resolve the situation.
Stay informed. Continue having open conversations with your child about their experiences with bullying, and report each incident to the school. If you are unhappy with how your child’s bullying is being dealt with, schedule a meeting with the school’s head teacher. If appropriate action is still not taken, it is within your rights to make a complaint to the school governors.
Build confidence. Bullies often ‘test’ potential targets to see how they respond, and while the target is never to blame, those who appear the most vulnerable usually continue to be bullied. It is for this reason that alongside reporting incidents to the school, building your child’s confidence and self-esteem can be one of the most effective ways to help them. Kidscape runs free ZAP anti-bullying and assertiveness training workshops for young people and their parents/carers, which teach practical and effective skills .Please visit Kidscape’s website for more details about ZAP.
For more information about bullying, supporting your child and working effectively with the school, please visit the parental advice section on the Kidscape website: www.kidscape.org.uk/advice.
February 7, 2016
Bone by Bone Book Launch
It’s less than a month until Bone by Bone is published! And if you’re in Bristol, do come to the book launch.
It’s going to be at Waterstones, The Galleries at 7pm, Friday 4 March. I’m delighted we’re going to serve prosecco and Wiper and True beer provided by our local vintner, Grape and Grind, plus a Bone by Bone inspired cake by cake artist Tamarind Galliford of Ahh Toots! based in St Nicholas’ Market. My friend, Ingrid Bates, is donating a couple of bottles of her delicious rosé from her own vineyard (how cool is that!) Dunleavy Vineyards, for a lucky few to sample!
Hope to see you there!
January 13, 2016
Bone by Bone Book Trailer
BONE BY BONE BOOK TRAILER – Happy New Year! And welcome to my shiny new website!
I’ve had a brilliant week – the first, finished copies of Bone by Bone arrived, with sparkly bits on the cover! If you’d like a free copy of the prologue and a chance to win one of three free copies, please sign up to my mailing list (on the right hand side of this website).
I’ve also been shooting a book trailer and author Q&A with Laura Pride of OMGrenegade, who makes videos for social media.
My daughter, Lil J, plays the part of Autumn, one of the main characters in Bone by Bone. We filmed in Narrowways Nature Reserve, Bristol, where some of the key scenes are set.
I hope you enjoy the trailer when it’s released!
January 12, 2016
November 27, 2015
Christmas Thrillers
CHRISTMAS THRILLERS – If you’re looking for brilliant thrillers to thrill you over the Christmas holidays, here are my recommendations!
The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson
‘Hello there.’I looked at the pale, freckled hand on the back of the empty bar seat next to me in the business class lounge of Heathrow airport, then up 
into the stranger’s face.’Do I know you?
Ted Severson is having a martini in Heathrow airport when he meets Lily Kintner. Over drinks and during the long flight back to the states, he tells Lily that his wife is cheating on him. He confesses that he’d like to kill her. It’s a casual, throw-away remark; the kind of thing an angry man might say after one too many gins. But Lily takes him seriously, and by the time the plane lands, the two of them have agreed to murder Ted’s beautiful, adulterous wife.
This is a wonderfully written thriller, set against the chill sweep of Maine in winter, with compelling, ice-cold characters and plot twists that will take your breath away.
The Drowning Lesson by Jane Shemilt
The shadows in our bedroom flicker differently: it takes me a moment to see that the curtains are torn, and moving in the slight wind. A glittering pile of glass lies in front of the window, a few jagged shards still lodged in the frame.
The cot is empty.
When Adam Jordan takes a research post in Botswana, his wife, Emma, reluctantly agrees to go along with their two girls and newly born son, Sam. While the family are in Africa, the unthinkable happens: Sam is snatched from his cot.
Emma is not an instantly likeable character: she’s ambitious, competitive, not particularly maternal.
‘I always thought happiness belonged to children or the faintly stupid that it was pointless to strive for something so illusory.’
Yet she, like Adam, are realistically portrayed; the story is compelling and beautifully written.
‘Inside me the tiny heart was the size of a poppy seed; it would be beating twice as fast as mine. At this stage her skin would be as translucent as a petal.’
The twists and turns of the plot and the wonderful prose kept me gripped from the novel’s portrayal of London, to Africa and back.
Burnt Paper Sky by Gilly MacMillan
‘Ben!’ I shouted. ‘Are you sure you know the way?’
‘Yes!’ he shouted with the assurance of a kid who almost certainly hasn’t bothered to listen to what you said, because they have something more exciting to be getting on with. He didn’t stop, or look back at me.
And that was the last I saw of him.
Rachel Jenner and her son Ben are walking in Leigh Woods, just outside Bristol. Rachel is thinking, as she often does, of Katrina, her ex-husband John’s new wife. Ben and their dog run on ahead of her to a swing he loves. When Rachel catches up, Ben has disappeared. A short while later, the police discover the dog, whose leg has been broken, and Ben’s clothes.
Rachel makes a media appeal but the public turn against her, convinced she’s killed her own son.
This is a heart-breaking, edge-of-your-seat thriller, narrated by Rachel and Jim, the detective in charge of the case, as both he and Rachel try and find her son before it’s too late. Burnt Paper Sky is beautifully written and has captured my home city, Bristol, wonderfully well.
‘I didn’t know that this city was built on sea trade that docked there for hundreds of years: sugar, tobacco, paper, slaves. She told me how a lot of human suffering made the wealth that built Bristol, and a lot of men gambled lives and fortunes on that.’ Jim
This book would appeal to you if you liked Jane Shemilt’s Daughter and The Drowning Lesson.
‘We swung around the Bear Pit roundabout, the swift curve of it making my stomach quail, dirty shop windows advertising bridal wear and discount trainers blurring in front of my eyes.’ Rachel
Pretty Is by Maggie Mitchell
Lois and Carly-May are just twelve years old when they’re abducted, driven across the country, and imprisoned in a remote, isolated hunting lodge for two months. Once the girls are discovered, their parents decide that, for their own good, they should not see each other again.
Decades later, both Lois and Carly-May have built fragile new lives. Lois has developed a double identity. Now a professor of literature, she’s written a best-selling novel under a pseudonym, loosely based on her own experience as an abductee. The book is about to be made into a movie. As she prepares to join the film crew on location in Canada, one of her students starts taken an unhealthy interest in her and her past life.
Out in LA, Carly-May is drinking too much and watching her beauty-queen looks fade, clinging to the last remnants of a once-promising career as an actress. When she reads a shockingly familiar screenplay, she warily takes a role she knows is based on events from her own life, knowing that the truth of their abduction is finally going to be revealed.
This is a wonderfully complex, brilliantly written thriller, interwoven with themes from Gothic literature, our obsessions with female beauty and sexuality and the psychological damage adults can inflict upon children.
This book will appeal to you if you liked Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places.
Forget Me Not by Luana Lewis
When Rose’s daughter, Vivien, is unexpectedly found dead, the police are unsure whether it’s suicide or murder. Vivien is beautiful, philanthropic, wealthy – and mysterious. She has one daughter, Alex, who is only seven and is struggling to understand where her mother has gone. Rose starts to piece together what took place the night her daughter died – but to uncover what really happened, she needs to face some uncomfortable truths from her own past.
A beautifully written tense page-turner; this will appeal to fans of Sabine Durrant’s, Under Your Skin, and Daughter by Jane Shemilt.
Other suggestions…
The Lie by CL Taylor
This is for you if you love fast-paced, easy-to-read thrillers. Even better that CL Taylor’s thriller debut, The Accident, The Lie is about toxic female friendships and the seductive power of spiritual cults.
The Ice Twins by SK Tremayne
This is for you if you love psychological thrillers, with a supernatural twist. Set in the hauntingly beautiful Scottish Highlands, The Ice Twins begins 14 months after the death of one of Sarah and Angus’s twin daughters.
Just as the family are about to start their new life on an island off Skye, the surviving twin claims her parents have mistaken her identify. For fans of The Girl on the The Train by Paula Hawkins and Sabine Durrant’s, Remember Me This Way.
And I’m currently reading Black-Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin – and loving it!
How about you? What are you planning to read over Christmas?
October 18, 2015
The Bristol Short Story Prize
THE BRISTOL SHORT STORY PRIZE – We’ve just had the award ceremony for the Bristol Short Story prize where the winning entrants were announced! The winner was Canadian writer, Brent vanStaalduinen for A Week on the Water, second place was J.R.McConvey, also from Canada, for a wonderful political satire, Between the Pickles. Australian writer, Magdalena McGuire won 3rd prize for her story Birthday Bones, which has a brilliant opening line: ‘It was the day before castration day.’ The Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology Volume 8, featuring the 3 winning stories, plus the 17 other shortlisted stories, is available to order here.
This was my second and final year judging and I’m sad not to have the excuse to meet up with my fellow judges, radio producer, Sara Davies, literary agent, Rowan Lawton, and writer, Nikesh Shukla, and chat about writing for hours! What was noticeable about the winning entries this year were how dark the stories were, yet, as Rowan pointed out, the writers used such, ‘a light touch, they were even more impactful.’
A Week on the Water is brilliant. As Sara said, ‘On the surface it’s about fishing, but as it unfolds in measured, controlled prose, its real, horribly dark subject emerges.’ Brent had not had any luck placing his story and was about to give up on it, when he asked a couple of writers for feedback. He rewrote it and thought he’d give it one last shot, before he ‘mothballed it.’ So never give up! After all, Marlon James, who’s just won the Booker Prize with ‘A Brief History of Seven Killings,’ received 78 rejections before his novel was published!
My other favourites for their wonderful, evocative prose are Magpie by Gina Challen and Flowers by Emma Timpany. Of course, being a zoologist, I also loved the references to the animal kingdom in Zoo by Jeremy Charles Yang.
And I made a cake to celebrate Joe Melia, director of the Bristol Short Story Prize, who is untiringly supportive of writers – with the front cover of the anthology in icing!!
If you’d like to enter next year, do have a look at my tips for writing short stories. There are also some You Tube clips of the judges and our brilliant speaker, Courttia Newland.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL4djbXGawc
October 5, 2015
Ten tips for cutting out sugar
TEN TIPS FOR CUTTING OUT SUGAR – You know how when you really want some chocolate, or a stack of biscuits, the lifestyle columnists’ advice is to, ‘go for a walk,’ ‘drink a glass of water’ or ‘distract yourself’? Frankly, if you want a piece of chocolate, or maybe the whole bar, that kind of notion just isn’t going to cut it. So I thought I’d share with you my top ten tips for cutting down on eating sugar.
It’s more than a decade since I first started researching sugar for my book, ‘Sugar: The Grass that Changed the World’. I realised back then that I needed to eat less sugar – but it’s an uphill task (‘give it 20 min, then see if you still want that chocolate.’ Er, yes.). What’s going to work longterm is retraining your tastebuds so I’m going to share with you some of the things that worked for me.
Believe it or not, when my book was published, most people weren’t worried about sugar consumption and I had to argue strongly that sugar really, truly, honestly could make you fat! Now we’re much more aware that sugar can lead to dental caries, obesity and diseases like diabetes. Sugar is in almost everything processed, not just fizzy drinks, but also in foods like curry or breakfast cereals.
Cutting out sugar can be really hard – especially as sugar is pretty addictive and you’ll miss it and quite probably crave it. I have a sweet tooth, so I know how hard it can be. I do eat sugar – but I do so mindfully. I know when I’m eating sugar and I’ve made the decision to eat it and not feel guilty about having a treat when, 90 per cent of the time, my diet is pretty healthy.
1.Cut it out. if you’re the kind of person who is all or nothing, you could go ‘cold turkey’ and stop eating sugar completely overnight. You may end up with headaches and mood swings, but then your body will adjust. For the rest of us, cutting down gradually is easier. From my own experience, it takes at least three weeks for your 
taste buds to start to adjust and for food that isn’t sweetened to begin to taste palatable.
2. Ditch the junk food. Don’t keep any junk food in the house – even savoury foods can have sugar in. If you’ve got a stack of biscuits hidden somewhere, you will eat them at some point when your will power is low. I hide things in the garage and the freezer. But then I find them again.
3. Stop buying processed foods. This won’t happen overnight, but you can slowly start replacing bought meals with homecooked food. I plan what we’re going to eat as a family over the course of the week and then make a few things at the weekend, like a big pot of soup, a Quorn or bean stew, a healthy treat and sugar-free granola. It’s less expensive too. Of course, we also have stand-bys like baked beans that frankly, taste disgusting if you buy the no-sugar version.
4. Don’t drink sweetened drinks. There’s a huge amount of sugar (sometimes in other forms, such as high fructose corn syrup) in fizzy drinks. A standard can of coke has the equivalent of ten teaspoons of sugar. Government guidelines suggest we should eat no more than five teaspoons per day. Even drinks with low calorie sweeteners should be avoided: your body still thinks you’ve eaten sugar and you’ll end up with the same sugar rush followed by a craving to eat more (see my nutrition chapter in my ‘Sugar’ book for how this works and the evidence to 
back it up!).
5. Replace sugary drinks with healthy substitutes: sparkling water with lemon, lime and cucumber; freeze blueberries and raspberries in ice cubes and add to water with slices of orange; make a posh drink for the weekend with a blend of fruit, herbs, such as watermelon and mint, stewed pears with ginger, ice, mint and whole limes; blend and sieve, then dilute to taste with water.
6. Replace sugar with healthy substitutes. There are a number of healthy alternatives you can add to anything from porridge, to yogurt, to smoothies, to cold drinks or your cup of chai. Fruit, obviously, is a great source of natural sugar and is packed with vitamins, antioxidants and fibre. A compote of blueberries and apple on top of porridge, a banana and a handful of raspberries in a smoothie, chopped kiwi in freshly 
squeezed orange juice with homemade granola and yogurt, are all delicious options.
Other healthy sweeteners are coconut sugar, honey, coconut nectar, date syrup and stevia. To begin with even fruit with full-fat yogurt is not going to taste sweet initially so you may need to add a drizzle of honey. Stevia is an amazing product as it’s natural (it’s made from the stevia leaf) and it’s much sweeter than sugar. It’s also virtually calorie and carb-free. One to five drops in a cup of tea or a smoothie will make it taste really sweet but it does have a slight liquorice after-taste if you add too much.
7. Replace sugary snacks with healthy snacks. I have a couple of squares of dark chocolate every day with a cup of coffee. It takes the edge off my sugar craving, it’s not too sweet and it’s pretty hard to eat a lot of dark chocolate. Initially dark chocolate won’t taste brilliant, but you could try chocolate with a low per centage of cacoa solids and then gradually increase to at least 70 per cent cacao solids. If you need a chocolate hit, you could always make a milk shake or a smoothie using raw cacao and adding honey, dates or a banana for the sweetness.
8. Have a couple of healthy treats a week. There are now so many delicious biscuits, cookies, raw fudge and cake recipes out there that don’t use 
refined sugar, but instead rely on honey, dates or coconut sugar for sweetness (have a look at my blogs on Sweet Teeth, and Sweet Teeth Two). These forms of sugar have a lower glycemic index than sugar, so won’t cause a spike in insulin production as swiftly as refined sugar does; they also contain fibre (in the case of coconut sugar and dates) and antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. However, they are potent sources of natural sugars and will still lead to insulin production and weight gain (if you don’t exercise too). So refined sugar-free cake or ice cream should still viewed as a treat, not eaten every day!
9. Up the bitterness. Adding more bitter or sour foods to your diet can help your tastebuds adjust – so stick a handful of spinach or rocket in your salad; blend parsley, celery, lettuce, beetroot or spinach with your daily smoothie! The more whole fruit you blend with your vegetables, the better they’ll taste – and then you can gradually reduce the amount of fruit.
10. Eat less fruit. Fruit is delicious and so good for you – and it’s way better to be eating fruit than a Twix – but fruit is still high in a type of sugar called fructose. I used to use fruit as a crutch to replace sweet treats – snacking on apples, pears, bananas and dates throughout the day and eating fruit as a pudding after every meal. Now I try and keep fruit as a treat – in a refined-sugar 
free crumble, cake or ice cream once or twice a week. I have fruit in the mornings for breakfast too, but I try and stick (mostly!) to fruit that’s low in sugar, such as berries.
And one bonus tip!
11. If you want to eat sugar, do. There’s nothing quite like a big slice of pie or cake. If it’s a treat, or someone’s birthday, eat it, enjoy it and don’t feel guilty. Then go right back to where you were the day before on your journey to cut down on sugar.
Let me know how it goes!
