In the last six months (post Carnegie-nom) I’ve visited a whole heap of schools. Been given lanyards, signed in, led down corridors, waited in libraries, been stared at by students. I have met many school librarians who, for my money, have to be some of the nicest people on the planet. I’ve been asked interesting, searching, ‘shit-I-never-thought-of-that’ type questions by students from year 7 to 13. I’ve plugged World Book Day, and I’ve signed lots and lots and lots of copie

Funny how things can just wallop you out of the blue when you least expect it – good and bad. And when I opened my inbox last Thursday, the last – the very last thing – I was expecting, was a Carnegie nomination for The Edge of Me. I’ve written before about going it alone, about doing things our way and looking down the list of nominees, we are almost the only truly tiny, weeny independent company among them. We’re not affiliated, we don’t have four titles in the running. But

Well, we did it and we did it large style. Consider The Edge of Me graduated! A really splendid celebration of Blowfish Books, of the two of us doing it for ourselves, and of course, of The Edge. Thank you so much to the serene and wonderful Imogen Green for letting us have the Catto Gallery for the night. The place was packed with friends, family and the delectable Nick Young from the Archer newspaper. And we sold books! Lots of books. We thought long and hard about a launc

1. This books centres on the tragedies of the Bosnian War. Did the nature of this context present any challenges in the writing process? In a way, because it is still so close, so charged, so raw in so many people’s memories – there are still over nine thousand people missing – that it was really important to be sensitive to that. This is one person’s story from one perspective, and although it wouldn’t have happened in quite this way without the war, I wanted to be careful n

I love Twitter. I love the discipline. I love the badass stuff. I love the pictures. It’s mostly original, mostly unmediated, and connects you with interesting people all over the planet. Twitter is how I stumbled on Kevin Sullivan. Kevin works for the International Commission on Missing Persons (www.ic-mp.org) They’re the only international organisation dedicated to people who have gone missing as a result of armed conflict, human rights abuses, disasters, organised crime an

For a very long time I couldn’t use the ‘w’ word. When people asked me what I did I’d always talk about my day job. I might sometimes splutter out a bashful ‘huh, trying to do a bit of writing’. You can’t say you’re a writer, you can’t get in the ring, unless you’re ready to answer the inevitable, ‘ooh, who’s your publisher?’ or, ‘who’s your agent?’ Being published meant everything. It would be a validation, my call-up papers, an anointing: all of the above. That’s why they m

A whole lot has happened since our last post. The Edge of Me is nearly ready. Lisa and I have worked our little socks off on a collaborative edit that has taken since early November. A lot of miles have been racked up across the Thames and back, a lot of coffee has been drunk (mine: Tesco instant, Lisa: Nespresso Grand Cru – she lives in Battersea). We’ve had a glorious top and tailing from the amazing Catherine Best and soon it will be winging its way to the typesetters to b

A lot has happened in 2014. Yes, I know Russia’s annexed the Crimea and there’s Ebola and the North Koreans are coming and Zoe Suggs didn’t write her bestseller. I mean with us, with Blowfish Books and our first title, The Edge of Me by Jane Brittan. We’ve learned a lot but mostly we’ve learned how little we know about publishing, about money, about distribution, about lead-times, about ‘vlogging’ and about something called ‘PR’. PR is pricey. End of. Book PR is crucifying. £