Tagged!

Oh dear I've been tagged - by Jane Volker.

The rules of this game are:
a. Link to the person who tagged you.
b. Post the rules on your blog.
c. Write six random things about yourself.
d. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
e. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment at their blog.
f. Let your tagger know when your entry is up

I have to come up with 6 random things about myself. This is hard. Anyway here goes:

1. I was a co-scriptwriter on an awful movie made for Comic Relief in 1989 and starring Jerry Hall - we had a day to write it and 3 days to shoot it and it was called The Fastest Forward!
2. My favourite dessert is probably sherry trifle - but without custard - and my favourite drink is Irish Coffee
3. I sometimes confuse blues and greens and left and right
4. I'm a vegetarian (but like seafood and very occasionally some organic duck!)
5. I love cycling and swimming, but hate running
6. My favourite band is Muse.

The six people I am tagging are:

1. Adam Horovitz
2. Peter Smith
3. Gillian Word Junkie
4. Anita Loughrey
5. Jude Ensaff
6. Sammi

What a long time this takes. Now I got to tell everyone too...

Two stories in a new anthology

I have two stories being published in the summer in an anthology of satirical speculative fiction, Satirica.

They are Perfection and Doc Chaos the Last Laugh.

Perfection follows the story of a young man who finds the secret of success and happiness, not just for himself, but the whole country.

Doc Chaos the Last Laugh revisits the subject of my novella, Doc Chaos: The Chernobyl Effect. The great doctor is at the end of civilisation. And guess what? He wants to take all the credit for humanity's downfall. But will he, poet Arthur Rambo, or arch-Taoist Yin-Yang Bradley, all sharing the same fortified mountain retreat, be the last one standing?

Satirica is out in hard cover edition this summer. Paperback edition next summer. The publisher is US based Cowboy Logic.

Other authors include:

• Edward Morris
• Tomas L Martin
• R.J. Astruc
• Victor Giannini
• John Parke Davis
• Bill Housley
• Steven J. Dines
• Joshua Allen
• Dudgeon
• Gary Cuba
• Mike Philbin
• Kevin Spiess
• Roger Haller
• Jason K. Chapman
• Dan Kopcow
• Paul Mannering
• Lawrence R Dagstine
• Anden Sharp
• Dan Marcus

A novel for barcode readers

In the future, novels will be written for machines to read.

When they have merged with machines, some hybrids will have barcode scanners.

For their benefit here are the first few pages of Hybrids in barcode language.

This means Hybrids is the first novel to be published in barcodes. Awesome, eh?

(Now, presumably, novels will begin to be written by machines... Maybe some already are!)

At the mercy of publishers

Author Jane Volker has written a nice piece about Hybrids and HarperCollins and the plight of writers vis-a-vis some publishers on her blog, Pastures New. Thanks Jane!

Buy signed copies!

My web site has just been updated and you can now by signed copies of both my novels direct from me using PayPal.

Click here to visit it.

Also, I’ve just been contacted by the commissioning editor at Chicken House, my favourite children’s book publisher, to ask to meet me to discuss some book proposals I sent. We’ll meet next Friday. Fingers crossed!

Hybrids wins the Lewisham Schools Book Award

When I blogged last month that the winner of the presentations competition of the Lewisham Book Award was a team from Prendergast and Knight’s Academy, what I didn’t say was that they were presenting my book Hybrids.

I have just found out that also Hybrids has won the Lewisham Book Award, which is a joint event between Lewisham Secondary Schools and Lewisham Public Libraries celebrating the National Year of Reading 2008. This is wonderful news, and my thanks to them.

Below are slides from the wnning team’s presentation, as presented by: Kate Deedman & Rukshana Uddin Yr8 - Prendergast School and Alexandra Truong & Nicole Akano Yr8 - Knight’s Academy.





Each team was told that they represented a publisher who wanted a bookseller, represented by guest author, Sam Enthoven, to buy their book. They had to persuade him to buy whatever title they were allocated, from the six shortlisted books, even if it was not their favourite. They were given approximately an hour and a half to make notes and to transfer these to a five slide Powerpoint presentation.

The other books on the shortlist were:
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
The Black Tattoo - by Sam Enthoven
The Wave Runners - by Kai Meyer
The Book of Everything - by Guus Kuijer
The Outlaw Varjak Paw - by S.F. Said

My thanks also to Natalie & Michael Powell Davies Yr9 & Yr7 & Judy Burnett Yr8 – Sedgehill School who also presented Hybrids very well, and to the organisers of the event and competition Chris Sivajnanam, Sedgehill School Librarian and Joanne Moulton – Children’s and Young People’s advisor - (Public Libraries), and to the judge Sam Enthoven, plus all the other school librarians.

It’s great to see so much enthusiasm into getting kids reading.

Fingers crossed now for the Sefton Super Reads award (Liverpool) where Hybrids is also shortlisted.

Now, come on HarperCollins, commission books two and three!