Karen Upper asked Philippa Dowding:

OMG You have Three books for 2018?? How did you choose the name of your middle-grade dystopian tale? What does it mean? thank you!

Philippa Dowding Hi Karen! Haha! Yes, three books coming in 2018, two books in the Weird Stories Gone Wrong series, Alex and The Other and Blackwells and the Briny Deep, and the middle-grade dystopia, Oculum. OMG for sure!

But I should point out that books are usually written long before the year they are published, so this year has mostly been about editing and polishing the three titles, I didn't write all three books from scratch this year. That would be really difficult for me, although some writers do have amazing output like that, I am much slower.

What does "Oculum" mean? It is from the latin word "oculus" which means "eye" or in this case, "to see" or "to be seen" and is a reference to the oculus eye in Roman domed architecture (most notably the Pantheon), since part of the story takes place under a dome.

Hope this answers your question!

Philippa

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