Tales Post – Inside Stripes – Emily Hibbs

by Chelley Toy · January 19, 2016

As part of my prize for winning the UKYABA for Champion Newcomer in March 2015 I was offered exclusivity on all Stripes titles and content as well as a wonderful book voucher and of course a beautiful award!

I thought to coincide with this it would be nice to gain an insight into the team at Stripes and get to know them and their department a little better.

To do this I tasked the lovely people at Stripes with a gruelling questionnaire…..okay maybe it wasn’t gruelling and kind of fun …. *evil laugh*

And Inside Stripes was born….

Over the course of the month Inside Stripes will aim to give people a look into the Stripes world, the team, their departments and more.

Here’s a little sneak peak at the Stripes Publishing office!

Who are you?

Emily Hibbs

Which department do you work in?

Editorial

What is the departments function at Stripes?

Creating exciting and engaging fiction books for ages 6-16, and eating a LOT of biscuits.

What is your job title?

Editorial Assistant

Tell us a little about what you do or things you work on in your department.

I assist the editors on the current list, proofreading and copy-editing manuscripts, as well as handling new unsolicited submissions. I’m involved in Foreign Rights administration (I’m very precious about my filing cabinets) and so do a lot of posting to overseas publishers in the hope they’ll like our books as much as we do, and decided to publish them too!

What are you currently working on whilst you are answering this questionnaire…if you are allowed to share?

Today I’m writing the text for a puppy-themed puzzle book. My desk is coated in sparkly activity titles that I’ve been looking through for ideas!

What is the favourite part of your job?

One of the most exciting parts of my jobs is writing our non-fiction and novelty books – I now know a LOT of amazing facts about puppies and kittens! For instance, did you know that in Ancient Egypt when a pet dog died, the family would shave off their eyebrows, put mud in their hair and mourn loudly for days? I’ve not managed to slip that into one of our sweet and sparkly fact-packed lockable diaries yet, but I will one day…

Now it’s time for…..Quick-Fire Questions!

Describe yourself in 3 words

Enthusiastic, noisy, short

Favourite book?

Adult Book: Ghostwritten by David Mitchell

Children’s Book: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling (those books raised me!)

What’s your favourite place on earth?

The seaside – even if it’s a drizzly Welsh beach

What’s your favourite food?

Peanut butter

Favourite word?

I really like the German word for slug, which is Nacktschnecke. It means ‘naked snail’.

If you could time warp yourself to any point in history when would it be, who would you hang out with?

Some point in the Jurassic period, but only if I was hanging out with herbivores.

If you had a super power what would it be?

Turning everything I touch into cake

What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done?

I dressed up as an elf and went to a Tolkien convention when I was in year eight at school. I’ve told so many people now that I’ve pretty much normalised it in my head. I think there was even a quick shot of me and my friend on local TV as we swept across the bridge to Rivendell or something like that…