Sarah Webb's Blog, page 9

Derek Landy Wins Irish Book of Decade Award – Hell Yeah!

Derek Landy Wins Irish Book of the Decade Award – Hell Yeah!
You may hear some grumblings in the press over the next few days. 'What's this? A children's book winning Irish Book of the Decade? Surely some mistake.' 'The best book of the decade is clearly . . .' – insert the title of one [...:]

Beats and how to spice up your dialogue – yes, back to editing again!

I'm just taking a short breaking from working through the line edits for Amy Green, Bridesmaid Blitz which will be out in October. The timing's pretty tight so I'm trying to devote as many hours to them as I possibly can, day and night.
Line edits come after the structural edit (sometimes there can be more [...:]

How to Get a Quick Insight into the Mind of a 7 Year Old

Quick one today as I'm supposed to be writing my new Ask Amy Green book – book 4 – Party Drama-rama.
I was flicking through my daughter's school workbook this morning – Window on the World Activity Book B. She's in Senior Infants and she's just 7.
The book is fun, colourful and relevant. But the writer [...:]

Children's Books Ireland Summer School 2010 – not a dud among them

I was at Fighting Words all day – Roddy Doyle's creative writing centre in Dublin – enjoying myself with Griffeen Valley Educate Together in the morning, and Presentation Warrenmount in the afternoon. Spending a day with children and teenagers, all creating their own work, their own way, is a joy, especially after the hectic, hot [...:]

More on Writer's Stamina, and Women Writers

More on Writer's Stamina
In yesterday's Irish Times, Frank McNally wrote about Michael Collins, the Limerick writer who now lives in America. I met Michael two years ago at the West Cork Literary Festival and he's a most interesting man to talk to.
Anyway, according to Frank, Michael writes between 3am – AM! – and 6 [...:]

Creating a Series Bible – What's that, you ask? Read on!

As some of you will know I am currently working on book 4 of my Ask Amy Green series for young teens. My series was called Amy Green: Teen Agony Queen, which although it sounded pretty zippy, apparently means some parents, teachers and librarians weren't buying it for age 10/11+ which it is aimed at. [...:]

Here's to the New Irish Children's Laureate – Siobhan Parkinson

I had the great pleasure of attending the welcoming ceremony for Laureate na N-Og, the new Irish Children's Laureate. Exciting stuff.
The first ever Laureate is Siobhan Parkinson. Siobhan has written many excellent books for children of all ages, and has won many awards. She has also edited two children's books magazines, has a PHD in [...:]

Colum McCann, Claudia Carroll's Launch and Writer's Stamina

I was watching the Arts Lives documentary featuring Colum McCann and his life in New York the other night, a most interesting insight into another writer's life.
What really struck a cord with me was this. He said if you give him two students, one a brilliant writer, the other a pretty good writer with a [...:]

Back from UK tour – and the truth about book pr and events

That's the funny thing about doing events and publicity for books – publication and all it entails: launches, radio interviews; writing columns; getting pics to go with the columns taken at odd times like 5pm (kids' tea time in our house and always a zoo!), Sat morning just before you have to get the kids [...:]

New Inkwell Courses for 2010

I just got my hands on the new Inkwell flyer (thank you, Vanessa) and it's full of interesting courses and stuff for writers.
Writing for Children with me and Oisin McGann – Sat 20th March – will be fab of course
But also Getting Published with Sheila Crowley, agent at Curtis Brown, UK and Paula Campbell [...:]