This is a general list of age categories and word counts for children’s books. I have often looked this up and got different results, which makes it very confusing. I...

Awesomely Austen: Rewriting Pride and Prejudice for today’s young readers I was twelve when I discovered Jane Austen for the first time. Andrew Davies’ superb adaptation of Pride and Prejudice,...

My first book, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, has just been published by Egmont UK, but my journey of writing it might begin somewhere you wouldn’t expect. When I...

My first book Pack Up The Moon, was published in 2006. My first screenplay was transmitted in 2008. Now in 2019 my first children’s book is currently on bookshelves across...

If ever someone tells me they have a children’s picturebook story they want to write I’ll beam enthusiastically and say ‘How fantastic. What’s your favourite picturebook you’ve recently read?’ Their...

When I create a teenage character for a fictional piece of work, my first priority is to give that young person an engaging, entertaining and fresh voice.  I surround my...

This article was originally titled ‘How to write for children’. But there are millions of ways to do that and millions of children with millions of tastes. Then it became...

If you read a lot of author interviews or FAQs you’re probably sick of seeing this bit of advice: ‘make sure you read lots of [genre/field X!] if you want...

My books have been described as “deceptively simple”, a description that I have never been fully comfortable with. Perhaps this comment is a reference to the spare text or the...

Sometimes, as a writer, introducing yourself is a terrifying thing. You mightn’t know this, but people do presume published authors are psychic, that we can instantly access the answers to...