Teresa Flavin's Blog, page 3

Buy Local and Support Your Indie Bookseller!

I think this cool poster fromTotally Locallysays it all. When you venture out to make seasonal purchases, I hope you’ll support the retailers in your neighbourhood, your village, your town. They are your neighbours and their presence helps keep your area thriving, vibrant and diverse! And why not put books at the top of your shopping list? (Hint, hint.)

Happy shopping, everyone!

Spooky Halloween Reads: The Shadow Lantern and Jet Black Heart

I’ve been loving having two spooky books published recently! The Shadow Lantern, the final story in The Blackhope Enigma trilogy, is out in the USA and Canada, and my stand-alone teen book, Jet Black Heart, is out in the UK.

I’ve done a bit of speaking and guest posting about The Shadow Lantern. It was a lot of fun writing for these awesome US book bloggers,Candace’s Book Blog,Novel NoviceandUnleashing Readers. There may be one or two more posts in store and I’ll put them up here when they’re...

Art Exhibition at Fountains Hall

A few months ago I joined forces with four fellow artists to explore the idea of making new artwork in response to historic locations around Yorkshire. This was a bold experiment for me but I couldn’t resist because Lorna Barrowclough, Hondartza Fraga, Carla Moss, Valerie Zwart and I have so many cross-over interests – and we are now good friends as well. I have been looking at ways to link my writing and personal art-making more closely and working with these talented artists has helped me f...

JET BLACK HEART is here!

Last week I had a busy and fabulous week touring around Scotland, culminating in the launch of my new teen book, Jet Black Heart, from Barrington Stoke.

I started the week in the Inverclyde area, leading book-making workshops for children aged 5-12 in Port Glasgow, Gourock and Greenock libraries. We had loads of fun and the kids made some really clever and cute books to take home. There’s something very satisfying about creating little books using all kinds of colourful papers, stickers and ri...

Welcome to the Writing Process: An Author/Illustrator Blog Tour

My talented friend and former art school classmate, Maryann Cocca-Leffler, invited me to share a bit about my writing and illustrating process as part of the ‘Welcome to the Writing Process: An Author/Illustrator Blog Tour’ (thanks, Maryann!). We are also part of a vibrant online community of children’s book illustrators and I’ve been in awe of Maryann’s accomplishments over the years. Not only has she written and illustrated many books, but she’s also created a musical play and now has begun...

Maze and labyrinth hunting!

If you know my stories in the Blackhope Enigma trilogy, you know that I have a thing about mazes and labyrinths. Because I live in England, there are plenty of ancient and new ones to visit. I like to hunt them down, walk them, figure them out and point people towards them. There’s one particular location that I’ve been salivating over for quite some time and this past weekend I finally got there. The beautiful Essex market town of Saffron Walden boasts both an ancient turf maze on its Common...

Inspiration and Aspiration 2014

Happy Second Half of January! By now we’ve all had plenty of time to assess 2013 and make wishes for 2014. Here are a few things I’ve been thinking about.

Top creative experiences in 2013:

Launching two new books for children and young people.In May Templar publishedThe Shadow Lanternin the UK and brought my Blackhope Enigma middle grade fantasy trilogy to a close. I am immensely thrilled that the books are out there in the world and finding their tribe o...

Open Studios 2013 at East Street Arts

I had all my creative hats on during a variety of ESA Open Studios events over the past four days: artist, illustrator, writer, workshop leader and even ‘advisor’. It all kicked off on Thursday night with the launch party for ‘Cache’, a small exhibition with four other artists curated by Mexico at Union 105, a studio building not far from my own building. I was really pleased to have had a painting selected and it has helped me feel more like a ‘local’ Yorkshire-based artist. I also met quite...

Revisiting FLY HIGH! The Story of Bessie Coleman

I spent yesterday introducing three groups of Edinburgh schoolchildren to the wonderful role model, Bessie Coleman, whose story I illustrated years ago. Since I began writing and illustrating my own books, I have spoken less about the picture books I illustrated, so I was really pleased to be asked to talk about Bessie for Black History Month (which is celebrated in October here in the UK). Fly High! The Story of Bessie Coleman by Louise Borden and Mar...

Excess Baggage

Jill Maden (Photo by Teresa Flavin)

A rollicking ride around Australia with motorcyclist Jill Maden.

I’ll remember the summer of 2013 as one of the more hectic in my adult life. Not only have I been busy talking about my new book, The Shadow Lantern, to audiences from Inverness to Yorkshire, but I moved to a new home and studio. With so much going on, reading became a fantastic escape from the giant list of things I had to do. If I had to choose my ultimate grown-up ‘escape’ book of this summer...