Robin Stevens's Blog, page 66

Murder Most Unladylike longlisted for the Oxfordshire Book Award 2015

The longlists for the Oxfordshire Book Award 2015 were announced this morning – and amazingly, Murder Most Unladylike was one of the chosen books! It’s such a pleasure to see so many of my favourite books of this year mentioned – congratulations to all of my fellow longlistees!

Murder Most Unladylike longlisted for the Redbridge Children’s Book Award 2015

I’m delighted that Murder Most Unladylike has been longlisted for the Redbridge Children’s Book Award 2015. It’s up against very strong competition – I’m so pleased to be part of the list!

Moontrug review

“Deepdean School For Girls is brilliantly realised … Daisy and Hazel provide a fabulous detective duo ... Murder Most Unladylike is an absolutely fabulous book for 9+ years – with a fantastic setting, gorgeous characters, a gripping plot and tons of humour.”

(Abi Elphinstone at Moontrug.com)

Waterstones Cambridge author visit

This afternoon I went on an another author expedition – a visit to Cambridge Waterstones to talk about Murder Most Unladylike. I really can’t get over how brilliant it is to meet readers, and I’m actually more and more convinced that I have the best readers in the world.

With some fantastic young detectives! Picture by Sylvie

Cambridge Waterstones were wonderful hosts. I got a throne (a real author throne!), a sign and a book table.

My sign!

The lovely throne.

We created our own detective societies (Timmy the Dog and Doctor Who both featured heavily in the choice of society members, much to my delight) and we also discovered whether we were more like Daisy or Hazel (the result was mostly Hazels, as is often the case – I blame Daisy’s off-putting fondness for squashed fly biscuits). Then I read from Murder Most Unladylike and talked a bit about why I wrote the book and what’s next for my heroines.

Reliving my school days. Photo by Sylvie.

Reading from Murder Most Unladylike. Photo by Sylvie.

All in all, a very excellent afternoon!

6th November: Devonshire Prep visit and Redbridge Award longlist

First, some very exciting news: Murder Most Unladylike has been longlisted for this year’s Redbridge Children’s Book Award!

Congratulations to all of the longlistees!

It’s in brilliant company, and I’m so pleased to be on the list. Wow!

And that wasn’t even the only fantastically brilliant thing that happened to me today. The wonderful people at Waterstones Hampstead invited me to come in to the store to talk to pupils from local school Devonshire House Preparatory about Murder Most Unladylike. I still find it a bit amazing that these days I actually look forward to standing up at the front of a room full of people and chatting to them for an hour, but I absolutely do.

The kids of Devonshire Prep were amazing: they had so many interesting questions and clever ideas (my favourite was the boy who asked whether my books were for boys as well as girls, to which I answered YES!), and I really enjoyed spending time with them. And they were very generous – some of them even gave me presents!

My loom bands! A must for any detective.

Here we all are with our copies of Murder Most Unladylike. As you see, murder is extremely exciting!

A host of young detectives with the book!

Thank you to the school, for being such a great audience – and thank you to Waterstones Hampstead, for being such brilliant hosts. They’ve even given Murder Most Unladylike a great home: here it is on one of their tables!

On a wonderful table at Waterstones Hampstead!

Author events – November and December 2014

I’ve got a busy few months ahead! I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to do some really exciting events at several fantastic venues in the run-up to Christmas (yes, it’s coming…). All of the below are free and open to anyone who wants to come along, so if you are in the area I’d love to meet you. It’s incredibly exciting to be able to talk to you all about Murder Most Unladylike (I’m still quite excited that there are people out there who have actually read my book) – and if you ask very nicely I might even let you know more about what’s coming up for Daisy and Hazel in their next two adventures…

On Saturday the 8th of November, at 1pm, I’ll be visiting Cambridge Waterstones to help you design your very own top secret Detective Society. I’ll be available to sign books and chat to you about Daisy, Hazel and the Wells & Wong Mysteries – please do come along!

On Saturday the 15th of November, at 4pm, I’ll be at the Tower Hamlets WriteIdea Festival to introduce and chair Tanya Byrne’s talk about her amazing novels, and about diversity in YA. The event is free, and we’ll both be signing copies of our books afterwards – again, we’d love to see you there!

On Wednesday the 19th of November, at 3:30pm, I’ll be at Blackwell’s Oxford with fellow Carnegie nominees Sally Nicholls, Susie Day and Jo Cotterill to launch Broad Street’s annual Giving Tree, an incredible Christmas charity drive that aims to give books to children who wouldn’t normally receive them. I’m so honoured to be a part of this – it’s a fantastic scheme and I’ve bought books for the Giving Tree every year it’s been running. I hope you’ll all come along – and I also hope that you’ll support the cause this year.

On Saturday the 13th of December, at 10:30am, I’ll be at Waterstones Cheltenhamto help you get into the Christmas spirit. I’ll be there to sign copies of Murder Most Unladylike and help you find out whether you’re more like Hazel or Daisy. And, of course, to suggest the perfect stocking fillers for aspiring detectives …

The SCBWI conference – and a love-letter to libraries

This weekend, I went to the annual SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, pronounced like Shaggy’s crime-solving doggy pal) conference in Winchester. I love the support network SCBWI provides to writers and illustrators and I love the conference – it’s a chance to connect with other authors, all in different stages of their careers, share wisdom and writing tips, and generally talk about the thing we love best: children’s books. (And wine. And cake).

Because Murder Most Unladylike launched this year, I got to be part of the annual Mass Book Launch at the Saturday night party.

The Mass Book Launch – photo by Candy Gourlay

I got to see my book on a cake, which is a particularly exciting lifetime achievement in my head.

The book launch cake!

Murder Most Unladylike on the cake!

I also had the pleasure of meeting Zoe, the very first ever Murder Most Unladylike scholar: she’s using it as an example in her MA essay on lessons in children’s fiction!

With Zoe and her bookmarked copy!

As part of the Conference, I listened to incredible, inspirational talks by some of my own writer heroes: Sally Gardner, Nick Butterworth, and my newest favourite author, Cathy Cassidy. I’m ashamed to say that I’d never read any of Cathy’s books before I heard her speak on Saturday, but she was so incredible about books and writing that as soon as she was finished I leaped out of my seat and dashed to the book stall to buy Cherry Crush, the first in her Chocolate Box Girls series. I read it on the train home yesterday, and it’s brilliant. It’s smart and thoughtful and brave, just like Cathy herself – which brings me to the second (and more important) part of this post. Cathy spoke wonderfully about how she became an author, but she also talked about what books mean to her, and what they mean to all of the children who read her novels.

Books, said Cathy, give children belief. They let them see themselves as they are and imagine ways in which their lives could be different – and that’s why libraries, purveyors of free books to any child who wants them, are so crucial. Reading is not a luxury, it is essential – and because of this Cathy asked us all to join her fight to stop Mayor Anderson from closing down 11 Liverpool libraries. I absolutely support the campaign, and I want to use this blog to tell both the Mayor and the rest of the world why what she and so many other authors are already doing is so important. So, Mayor Anderson, I hope you’re listening. This is what I want to say.

I’m not a member of a library. That may seem ironic, given what I’ve just said, but that’s not the whole story. What I mean when I say that I’m not a member of a library is that I’m not a member of a library now. And that’s because I’m lucky. I’m lucky to have a job that pays well enough to give me a disposable income that I largely spend on books. I’m lucky that my job is in the book industry, so I’m surrounded by books all day and encouraged to take them home in the evening. I’m lucky because I’m a (relatively) wealthy, educated adult.

But, like all of us, I used to be a child. My disposable income used to be £2 per week, which was enough for several Refreshers bars or a very small Sylvanian but did not, obviously, cover a £5.99 paperback. Again, I was disgustingly lucky, as children go – my parents owned a large number of books, and often let me buy more. But that didn’t fill up the yawning hole inside me that needed more stories, and more, and more, all the time and every day. So I went to the library. My mother helped me get a card for the Oxford public library, and we visited at least once a week. Just stepping through those doors sent me absolutely dizzy with excitement: the whole place smelled of books, there were more books than I could ever read all around me, and they were all mine. So many of the books that made me who I am, both as a person and as a writer, I first encountered in that building: Diana Wynne Jones, Terry Pratchett, Lucy M. Boston, Noel Streatfeild, Dick King-Smith … It’s a neverending list. I read those books and suddenly saw my ambition as a real possibility: to have my book on a shelf next to them one day.

As I grew up, I kept on using libraries, for school and university, and again I was lucky to have access to them. I couldn’t have got the A-levels or the degrees I did without them. But that wasn’t when I needed libraries the most. That moment came after I had finished my MA. I was looking for a job in publishing, every single day, and getting nowhere. For the first time ever I was trying very hard and failing, which was strange and scary and utterly demoralising. I didn’t know what I should do, whether I was on the right track or not. I didn’t really have a reason to get up in the morning. And then I joined my local public library.

Suddenly, I had a nice, warm, free place to go every day. I had a reason to leave the house. I had something to aim for, something to occupy my time, a place where I could get new ideas for the writing I was still doing when I wasn’t jobhunting. It made me feel as though I had value, it made me remember what a day with structure in it was like, and it was one of the little things that kept me clinging on, even when I couldn’t see light at the end of the tunnel.

Several months later, I got a job, and now I am one of the happy, striving taxpayers that this government is so very fond of. But I don’t know if I could have got to this point without my local public library, and that is why I cannot understand why it is even thinkable to deny the millions of people still struggling with poverty and joblessness a place of refuge, a place that keeps their dreams alive, a place where they can gain the skills they need to move into work.

Libraries are not for me. They are not for the rich and the powerful. They are there because some people are not rich, or powerful. They are there because those people need to have dreams, and they need to see that those dreams could become a reality. There is always budget for what is truly important, and libraries are exactly that. They deserve to be valued. Please, please, don’t close them down.

And if you agree with me and Cathy, please contact the Mayor on his website. We may not win out, but we have to try.

A Carnegie nomination and a cover reveal!

A Carnegie bunbreak

On Monday I had some really incredible news: Murder Most Unladylike has been nominated for the 2015 CILIP Carnegie Award!

I’m absolutely over the moon, and completely amazed to be part of a list that contains so many of my own very favourite authors and books. I’m so proud of all of my fellow nominees – everyone is so deserving – and just delighted about my own nomination. Thank you so much, librarians! I’m in your debt forever.

And that’s not all! The design team at my lovely publishers, Corgi, have been hard at work, and they’ve just shared the absolutely phenomenal cover for the third Wells & Wong Mystery, First Class Murder, with me. And today, they’re letting me show it to you!

Are you ready?

Here goes!

My love for these covers grows with every new one I see. I think this is phenomenal – the dagger in the lettering! The train! The girls’ poses! – and the red is so bold and beautiful. It’s going to stand out amazingly well in its own right, and connect perfectly with the first two covers. My cover artist Nina Tara, and Laura Bird and the Corgi design team have absolutely outdone themselves, and I couldn’t be more delighted.

I can’t tell you much about First Class Murder yet – although if you want to find out a bit about my research process (ahem), visit this post here – but I do know that current plans are for it to publish some time in late summer 2015. I can’t give a more specific date, because schedules move a lot in publishing, but that’s what we’re working towards at the moment. I’m excited already!

 

October News Round-Up – Awards, Blogs and Appearances

Hello readers! I have lots of exciting news to tell you about. On Monday, Murder Most Unladylike won two Book Blogger UKYA Awards – for Best Crime/Mystery and Best Friendship.

I’ve also been blogging:

– At Mugglenet, discussing why I think that Harry Potter is a crime series.

– At Girls Heart Books, talking about why we love reading detective novels so much.

And if you’d like to see me in person, you’re in luck!

– On October 14th, I’ll be speaking at a SCBWI Professionals event, about what authors and illustrators should expect from the publishing journey – what their publishers will do for them, and what they should be doing for themselves.

– On November 8th, at 1pm, I’ll be at Waterstones Cambridge to talk about Murder Most Unladylike, sign copies of the book and help you create your very own top secret Detective Society.

– On November 15th, at 4pm, I’ll be at Tower Hamlets’ WriteIdea Festival to introduce Tanya Byrne, author of Follow Me Down and Heart-Shaped Bruise.

So please, come see me if you’re in the area! Happy October to you all.

Murder Most Unladylike is the winner of two UKYA Book Blogger Awards!

I’m absolutely delighted to announce that Murder Most Unladylike has won an incredible two UKYA Book Blogger Awards.

It has won Best Crime/Mystery and Best Friendship (for Daisy and Hazel). I am so grateful to everyone who voted, and so impressed with all of the brilliant UK bloggers who organised the awards. And I’m delighted to be in the company of so many of my own favourite authors and books. Thank you all! You’ve made me a very happy author.