The CILIP Carnegie Longlist

The longlist for this year's Carnegie (and Kate Greenaway) medals was announced this week. I was excited to find that I have read several of the nominated titles for the Carnegie, and have several others lying around waiting for me (poor neglected books!). The ones I have read made me glad I don't have to choose, as all were great.

So, here are the ones I have read:
15 Days Without a Head by Dave Cousins (my review)
The Double Shadow by Sally Gardner (my review)
This Is Not Forgiveness by Celia Rees (my review)
Pendragon Legacy: Sword of Light by Katherine Roberts (my review)
Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick (my review)
The Sleeping Army by Francesca Simon (my review)
A Waste of Good Paper by Sean Taylor (my review)

And here are the soon-to-be-read ones:
VIII by H M Castor
Mortal Chaos by Matt Dickinson
Unrest by Michelle Harrison
The Girl in the Mask by Marie-Louise Jenson
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Guess which six books have just jumped a few places in the TBR pile? :)

More awards!

Somewhat belatedly, as I crawl out from under a pile of Self-Assessment documentation from my day job, I am happy to accept two more awards on the blog. Andrea Michaels, who blogs at Wordy Living, awarded me the Versatile Blogger Award and Jani at Life Debatable passed on the One Lovely Blog Award. How nice!


I'm taking a leaf out of Andrea's book for this and 'theming' my responses. The Versatile Blogger Award requires me to post seven random facts about myself and to pass it on to fifteen bloggers, while the One Lovely Blog Award simply asks that you pass it on to (and recommend) fifteen newly-discovered blogs.

My themed seven things will be things that I can do:

• type fast (according to my students - I don't know my wpm speed)
• read on a bus without feeling sick
• sew (not that I have time at the moment!)
• play the flute
• read a map (take that, gender stereotypes!)
• fold a terry nappy (although I haven't had to for about six years!)
• raise one eyebrow disapprovingly

Since many awards are doing the rounds currently, and given that I have already passed on the Versatile Blogger and the Liebster Blog Award fairly recently, I shall recommend just five blogs without worrying about who already has which award. All of these are relatively new to me. To all you lovely bloggers, please feel free to accept or ignore either or both of these awards without fear of offence :)

• First up, we have the very new InkRunsDry blog, a writing blog run by a very lovely former student of mine, Adam Smith. He's recently been chronicling his attempts to set up a creative writing group in college, so there are bound to be interesting times ahead for him.

• Next comes C D Meetens' blog One Little Spark, which discusses writing, words, inspiration and some fascinating everyday stuff too (I enjoyed the recent 'pet rat' post, for example). I found her through the Writers' Campaign.

• Also found through the Writers' Campaign is Candy Lynn Fite, whose blog features regular 'winks of fiction' as well as posts about writing. 

• Another Writing Campaigner is Clare Robyns, whose novel Second Guessing Fate is just out as an ebook. She posts about the writing process in broad terms as well as about her own work.

• Maria Smith's lovely blog, First Draft Cafe, is also focused mostly on writing, but also mixes it up with some other topics. Maria is also a Campaigner, but I already 'knew' her on Twitter before following her blog.  

It's Award Season, apparently

This blog's been given not one but two awards this week:

the Liebster ('beloved') Award 

and the Versatile Blogger Award.

The Liebster Award, intended to show bloggy love to blogs with fewer than 200 followers, has come from the lovely Claire Hennessy who is a very funny British writer living in California. Her blog is well worth checking out for writerly fun. I particularly enjoyed her entry for the recent 200-word writing challenge.

The Versatile Blogger Award was sent my way from the Lifebeyond blog, which belongs to M C Rogerson and features lots of lovely booky stuff. It was here I first saw the trailer for Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, which jumped onto my wishlist immediately!


Liebster Award - the rules:
1. Show your appreciation to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
2. Reveal your five picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Post the award on your blog.
4. Bask in the camaraderie of the most supportive peo­ple on the internet.
5. And best of all have bloggity fun and spread the love.

The Versatile Blogger Award - the rules:
1.) Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them in your post.
2.) Share 7 things about yourself.
3.) Pass this Award along to 15 recently discovered blogs and let them know about it.


My Seven Things:

1. I am allergic to dogs but we still have one. I had realised that I can become immune to animals I live with, so we planned to get her at the start of the summer holidays last year to allow me to (hopefully) be ok by the time I had to return to work.
2. I hate it when people ask who my favourite writer is. How am I supposed to choose?
3. I very rarely wear makeup, and am not into shoes or handbags. I was a tomboy as a kid, too. :)
4. I used to sing in folky pubs as a teenager.
5. I am fascinated by symbols and archetypes and have a small collection of tarot decks.
6. I can't drive and have never had a lesson. I don't believe it's something I could do and don't understand why the world assumes everyone drives.
7. I also can't ride a pushbike.

My selected blogs:
I have chosen four excellent blogs to recommend. With lots of networking going on due to the campaign, some people whom I would have wanted to include had already received one or both of these awards. I also think that a few recommendations are perhaps more helpful and likely to get followed up than a great long list.

I think I've managed to whittle down my list only to those who haven't. So, if I've made a mistake or you don't want to be included, please accept my apologies!

A Wanderer in Paris is Michele Helene's lovely blog, discussing her writing life and sharing memories in photographic form. I've been following Michele's blog almost as long as I've been blogging, and she always has something interesting to say.

Ramblings of a Rusty Writer is Rebecca Emin's writerly blog, on which she is currently celebrating the publication of her debut novel. I came across her blog through Rachael Harries' Writers' Campaign, and we are both in group 1: picture books, early readers, MG and YA. Expect to see a review of her novel on this blog in the next couple of months.

Helen Writes belongs to Helen Anderson. She is one of the bloggers I've met through the Writers' Platform-Building Challenge, so I've only been following her for about a month, but I'm really glad I found her blog with its well-thought out and always interesting posts about writing.

Stacy S Jensen's blog is focused on writing, sharing her personal experiences twice a week. I particularly enjoy her "Thankful Thursdays" feature, where she shares a helpful writing resource. Hers is another blog I've been fortunate enough to discover through the Writers' Campaign.