What do you see here?

A humble bottle of sauce? Or what’s soon to become the most feared literary harbinger of doom since The Black Spot in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island?

For the full story of Saturday’s shenanigans (including heartrending footage of the last words of Joe Craig) click here, and also here.

I’ve been spared for now. But next time, I may not be so lucky. 😀

I think this clip’s pretty self-explanatory. 😉

Are you, reading this, anywhere near Abingdon, England on this coming Saturday June 20th? Then click here for all the details! 😀

Here’s a quick pic from today’s terrific visit to Woodbridge High School…

I gave two short talks in the morning – doing my best to answer some excellent questions – and then stuck around for something new on me, a Literary Lunch.

Myself, fifteen young writers from various year groups and Woodbridge’s Supreme Ninja Librarian Ms Clarke, all sat around a table munching delicious baguettes and discussing some of the nuts and bolts of writing. I enjoyed it enormously. But it did mean, naturally, that I not only had to think of useful things to say, but I also then had to say them without spraying the group with partially chewed food. I /think/ I got away with one of these objectives at least, and I hope for the best with the other. 😉

My thanks to Ms Clarke and to everyone I met and spoke to today for their wonderful warm welcome.

If you’ve been following this blog you’ll have seen a lot of pics of me at my events. But if you’re curious about what I actually /sound/ like… well:

It’s a clip of the talk I gave at The Crystal Palace Children’s Book Festival, on April 25th, as recorded at excellent independent bookshop The Bookseller Crow On The Hill. Click here for more of the day’s readings from other authors.

-But before you do! This post is also by way of a plug for my first public event in a while. On Tuesday June 2nd I’ll be doing my thing at Freedom Of Expression, one of the awesome evenings of entertainment arranged by impish impressario Tim Eveleigh. Click here for full details of the event and venue. Hope to see you there!

Here’s a quick pic from today’s events at South Chingford Library, where I was invited to do my thing as part of this year’s Waltham Forest Literature Festival.

I did three sessions of readings and Q&A with Year 7 students from nearby Heathcote School. There were around fifteen students in each group – smaller audiences than some events I’ve been doing lately! But that suited the space, and I think the more low-key atmosphere also led to some really terrific and unusual questions, particularly from the third group. I just had to keep remembering not to be too loud, especially in the readings!

This was my first visit to Chingford. The fact that the name of the place is so close to that of THE CHINJ in Black Tat made me grin to myself when I got off the bus. Passers-by must have thought I was quite mad. No news there, then! ;p

Here’s a great pic from one of the two talks I gave today at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, in Horncastle, near Lincoln, where I did my thing as part of the Lincoln Book Festival.

I’m normally a bit cautious about showing young people’s faces in photos on this blog, which is the main reason why so many of the pics here tend to be of me waving my arms about like a big, black-clad, bald baboon ;p [Seriously: if anyone shown above – or their parents or teachers – is uncomfortable about this being up here then drop me a line via the TIM Guestbook and I’ll take it straight down.] But I couldn’t resist posting it, because I think you can see everyone’s enjoying themselves. And that makes me happy. 🙂

My thanks to both QEGS Year 7 groups for listening to me and asking such terrific questions. Thanks, too, to Chris for looking after me.

Yesterday I did my stuff at Moat Community College, Leicester. Over four sessions I spoke to pretty much everyone in Moat’s Year 9.

As you can maybe see from the pic above, the school’s lecture theatre, while very impressive, left me feeling a bit far away from the audience! But I did my best to fill the space…

…so I hope everyone got something out of listening to me. 😉

The two sessions with smaller groups were particularly good. I understand I’m going to meet some of the students who were there for those at next month’s Leicester Teen Read Expo on June 24th. I’ve had a soft spot for Leicester ever since last year’s awesome party for The Leicester Book of the Year Award for Teenage Fiction, for which Black Tat was shortlisted. Can’t wait to go back!

Here’s a nice follow-up to my visit to Hassenbrook School a couple of weeks back…

It’s an article in local paper The Essex Enquirer. With a pic that, this time, even includes my head! 😀

Thanks to Ms Brockwell for passing this along – and congratulations again to Ellis on his phenomenal reading feat.

Here’s a quick pic from today’s visit to Cornelius Vermuyden School, in Canvey Island, Essex.

This was another cracking visit. Over three hour-long sessions (with something like ninety students per session) I spoke to what I think was most of the school’s Year 7 and Year 8 . They were terrific: attentive, enthusiastic, full of great questions – and the signing session at lunchtime was particularly awesome. A big thank you to Ms Forecast for inviting me, and to everyone I met there for giving me such a warm welcome. 😀

More touring today with the new UK edition of TIM. First up, a fantastic session at Alexandra Park School, taking a barrage of brilliant questions from Year 7 boys there. Look at all the hands…!

To my particular delight, one of the questions that I was asked in this talk was about TITLES. As with any aspect of writing, sometimes titles don’t come easily: my next book, a case in point, is currently about to try its /third/ for size.

Until this session, nobody officially knew my latest idea for the title except my UK editors (and they’d only heard yesterday!) But since the subject had come up — and since I believe in testing my ideas on the people they’re aimed at — I decided to take a chance and see what this young audience thought. I won’t say the new title here just yet. But I will say that reactions to it today were almost all extremely positive, so I think, perhaps, that I may have cracked it at last. This makes me very happy! 😀

Having spent the morning discussing another large reptile, as soon as I saw this dude (below) outside a cafe I knew immediately where I was going to have lunch…

Then it was off for another visit, to Fortismere School, Muswell Hill.

I gave two talks in Fortismere’s excellent library. The first was very short, ten minutes, more of a chat really. The second (pic above) was longer, nearly an hour. But both were excellent, and full of more great questions. Have I mentioned lately that I love my job? Well, it’s worth saying more than once! ;p

Thanks to Kelly T of RHCB and to Tim Non Monster! of The Big Green Bookshop for looking after me today. And my thanks and best wishes to everyone I met and spoke to.