News and Events

Francesca Simon is the author of the phenomenally successful Horrid Henry books. She has also written many other titles including Don't Cook Cinderella, The Topsy Turvies and Helping Hercules. Tune in to Francesca's Authors Live event to hear all about her life as a writer and the wonderful anti-hero, Henry! The event is suitable for P1-P7 (age 5-12) and fans of the Horrid Henry series.

The event will be streamed live to audiences across the UK at 11am on World Book Day (Thursday, 1st March). It will then become available to watch again for free by Thursday, 8th March, for everyone worldwide!

Join tens of thousands of pupils across the UK watching the event live by following this link: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/authors-live-with-francesca-simon. If you can’t make the live broadcast the entire event can be downloaded or streamed for free from next Thursday following the same link.

Regular contributor Elen Caldecott will be appearing at the Imagine festival at the Southbank in London on 16th February. Full details from the Imagine website.

We will be hosting a slot on Michelle Lovric's latest book tour. She was a regular contributor and we're delighted to have her back for the day! You'll find the details of her tour here:

David Almond, best-selling author of the award winning novel Skellig and the extraordinary prequel My Name is Mina, is poised to bring literature to life for children all across the country when he appears in a live internet broadcast on Thursday 29 September 2011 at 11am.
The programme is the first of its kind in the UK. Anyone can watch by visiting: www.scottishbooktrust.com/authors-live-with-david-almond

There are lots of interesting things going on behind the scenes at An Awfully Big Blog Adventure which we thought you might like to know about.

The Bath Children's Literature Festival are running a very interesting blog experiement and we are taking part! A story is unfolding across the interweb, written in installments by some of the finest writers in the UK. Bath's blog began it all. Follow the links at the end of each post to read each chapter and look out for our contribution on 4th October.

We are also planning an exciting series of blogs that will bring in new voices. Those people at the heart of the buisness - booksellers! We'll be hearing from booksellers across the country in an Autumn Season of guest blogs, appearing in regular Sunday slots.

And finally, some of our ABBA contributors and our wider family within the Scattered Authors Society will be appearing at the Cheltenham Festival of Literature in October. Look out for John Dougherty doing schools events, Jenny Alexander with Peony Pinker and Katherine Langrish discussing Vikings!

Congratulations to Joan Lennon whose book, The Case of the London Dragonfish has been shortlisted for the Scottish Children's Book Awards 2011-2012, in the Younger Readers (8-11) category. It is the first in Joan Lennon's Victorian detective series, the Slightly Jones Mysteries. The winners of the awards are decided entirely by children and young people in schools and libraries across Scotland - last year over 17,000 voted for their favourite book. To find out how to get involved, visit the Scottish Book Trust website.

John Dougherty will be appearing at the LolliBop festival in Regents Park on Friday 5th and Saturday 6th August.

We've just celebrated our third birthday by hosting the very first online literary festival organised entirely by children's writers. We had thoughroughly interesting posts, fabulously amusing videos and downright marvelous giveaways (many of which are still open to enter, check the competitions page for details).

A full archive of the festival is available for you to enjoy, or click the links below:


Anne Cassidy Post: To Blog or Not To Blog?
Jo Cotterill
Anne Rooney & Mary Hoffman Video: Italian Inspiration
Celia Rees Post: Scattered Authors, the Beginning
Elen Caldecott Competition: Win ‘Operation Eiffel Tower'
Sally Nicholls Post: History
Gillian Philip Competition: Win ‘Bloodstone’ and ‘Firebrand’
Liz Kessler Competition: Win ‘A Year Without Autumn’
Sam Mills Video: Interview with Tyger Drew-Honey
Adele Geras
Jane Eagland Post: The Ups and Downs of Research
Enid Richemont
Malcolm Rose Post: Reader Gregor Kelly questions Malcolm Rose over Forbidden Island
Lucy Coats Video and Competition: Going to the Dogs–Tackling a Tricky Audience
Susan Price & Katherine Roberts Post: Kindles and Kids Books
Wendy Meddour Post: On Not Being a Famous Actress
Miriam Halahmy & Savita Kalhan Video drama and discussion about Edgy Fiction
Catherine Johnson Post: Rastamouse, the Moomins and Me
Penny Dolan
Linda Newbery & Julia Jarman


Emma Barnes: Bad Children
Dianne Hofmeyr & Miriam Moss On Picture Books
Kath Langrish Post: Magical Rooms in Children’s Fiction
Nicola Morgan Competition: Win ‘Write to be Published’ and a crabbit bag.
Julie Sykes Post and Competition: My Favourite Bears
Leila Rasheed Competition: Win a critique
Joan Lennon Post: The Flamingo and the Writer
Hilary McKay Competition: Win ‘Caddy’s World’
Fiona Dunbar & Keren David Video: In Conversation
Josh Lacey Competition: Win ‘Island of Thieves’
Marie-Louise Jensen & David Calcutt in conversation
Candy Gourlay Video: Creating a Legend
Karen Ball Competition: An Inspiring Giveaway
Linda Strachan & Cathy MacPhail Video: In Conversation
Malachy Doyle Post: The Happy Book
Michelle Lovric Competition: Win ‘The Undrowned Child’
Sue Purkiss Post: What the Dickens?
John Dougherty Competition and Composition
Lynne Garner Post: What's the Point of Twitter?
Nicky Browne Video: Finding history and herstory