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To celebrate the second UKYA EXTRAVAGANZA which is being held at Waterstones Nottingham on the 10th October 2015 there is a great big blog tour celebrating the 30 super-duper authors that are attending the event!

Again the wonderful Emma Pass and Kerry Drewery have organised the UKYA Extravaganza and I am so excited to be attending this fab event!  It is set to be such a fun day and with such a brilliant set of UKYA authors attending the event I’m sure it will be a huge success!

In the meantime I thought I would share a bit about each author with links to their twitter and websites and links to their UKYA EXTRAVAGANZA blog tour posts that are being hosted by 29 fab bloggers!

 What a huge blog tour!

 Follow the #UKYAextravaganza on twitter – @UKYAX or check out the website www.ukyax.com

The last UKYA Extravaganza was held in Birmingham and was so much fun!  You can find out what we got up to here!

There was also a previous blog tour to celebrate the Birmingham event also – here

So here goes…. *takes big breath*

Want to know more about the upcoming UKMG Extravaganza and it’s authors – click here

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Paula Rawsthorne

Paula’s talent for writing was first noticed when she won the BBC Get Writing competition and her story was read by Bill Nighy on Radio 4.  The opening chapters of her teen thriller, The Truth About Celia Frost, led to her becoming a winner of Undiscovered Voices 2010.  She was subsequently signed up by Usborne who published The Truth About Celia Frost in 2011.  To date Celia Frost has been nominated for 11 literary awards.  It was selected as the winner of the Leeds Book Award (2012), Sefton Super Reads Award (2012), and the Nottingham Brilliant Book Award (2013).  Her second novel, Blood Tracks, was published on 1st June 2013. It has been shortlisted for several literary awards, winning ‘The Rib Valley Book Award 2014’.

Paula is proud to be a writer in residence for the national literacy charity ‘First Story’.  She is also regularly invited into secondary schools around the UK to do author talks and workshops.

Paula was born and brought up in Liverpool and now lives in Nottingham with her husband and three children.

You can find out more about Paula on her website here

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Sue Ransom

I was born in Kent and enjoyed writing stories at school. I was more interested in science though, and gave up studying English at sixteen. I ended up doing Chemistry at university, but my love of reading never went away. The next time I wrote any fiction was decades later, when I decided to write a book for my daughter’s twelfth birthday, and since then I’ve discovered a passion for storytelling.  Luckily, other people seem to like my stories too, so I’m getting to produce more of them.  I live in Surrey with my family and a very lovely chocolate Labrador.

The award winning and best-selling Small Blue Thing trilogy has been translated into German and Polish and is sold in many different countries all around the world.  I’m particularly proud that readers have also twice voted me onto the shortlist for the prestigious Queen of Teen award with some of my author heroes (John Green, anyone?). The parties are also legendary!  My new book, The Beneath, is due out in March 2015, and I’m currently busy with my next project.

I love visiting schools and libraries to talk to people about how you can find the time to write, and how I got published.

Visit Sue’s website – here

Check out Sue’s UKYA EXTRAVAGANZA post where Sue talks about Regrets and Dreams over on  liveotherwise.co.uk/makingitup run by Jax Blunt ( @liveotherwise ) – here

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Lydia Syson

Lydia Syson has worked with words and stories all her life, in her early career as a radio producer for the BBC World Service, and now as an author of critically acclaimed YA fiction which ‘brings history to life’. A World Between Us (Hot Key Books, 2012), a story of politics and passion set during the Spanish Civil War, was Highly Commended by the judges of the Branford Boase Award, and longlisted for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize and the UKLA Book Award (2014).  Her second novel,That Burning Summer (Hot Key Books, 2013), chosen by The Independent as a Children’s Book of the Year, is set on Romney Marsh in Kent during the Battle of Britain.  If you want to know what happened in Paris after the events of Les Mis, look no further than Liberty’s Fire, a Telegraph ‘Best YA Novel of 2015’, which tells the unbelievable story of the 1871 Paris Commune. Lydia is also the author of a PhD (2003) about explorers, poets and Timbuktu and Doctor of Love (2008), the biography of James Graham, an 18th century medical entrepreneur who designed an electrical, magnetic Celestial Bed for conceiving perfect babies. She is currently a Royal Literary Fund writing fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art.

Visit Lydia’s website – here

Check out Lydia’s UKYA EXTRAVAGANZA post which was featured here on Tales!

Which Lydia Syson Character Are You?

Lydia also wrote about the UKYA Extravaganza here

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Zoe Marriott

I was born and raised in Lincolnshire, where the wild North Sea meets the gentle green-gold curves of the Wold, and I’ve known that I wanted to be a writer since I finished reading my first book; ‘The Magic Faraway Tree’ by Enid Blyton. I think I was about eight, but I’ve never changed my mind in all the years since then.

I got my first publishing contract when I was twenty-two, but had to wait until I was twenty-four to see my debut novel – The Swan Kingdom – published. It went on to be shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award and the Lincolnshire Young People’s Book Award, and become a USBBY Outstanding International Book, among other honours.

Since then I’ve written many other books and have been lucky enough to win or be nominated for many other awards, including the Great Britain Sasakawa Prize and a second place in the Lancashire Book of the Year Awards. I have also recieved grants from the Royal Literary Fund and the Arts Council England.

I currently live in a little house in a town by the sea, with my two rescued cats, one called Hero after a Shakespearian character and one Echo after a nymph from a Greek myth. I also have a springer/cocker spaniel called Finbar (otherwise known as The Devil Hound). 

My favourite colour is green. My favourite food is Chinese dim sum. My favourite songs are ‘I Will Follow You Into the Dark’ by Death Cab for Cutie and ‘Spem in Alium’ by Thomas Tallis.

Visit Zoe’s website here

Check out Zoe’s UKYA EXTRAVAGANZA post where lovely Carly ( @carlybennett ) from writingfromthetub.co.uk chats to Zoe – here

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R J Morgan

R. J. Morgan was born in sunny Cardiff and has wanted to be a writer since she found out Roald Dahl grew up in Llandaff and ate a Mars Bar every day. Knowing they had so much in common, off she skipped to London with her manuscript and eleven short years later she made it to the dizzy heights of having a nervous breakdown in Euston station.

After gaining an ill-advised degree, Morgan gained a highly coveted job in advertising. Just like Don Draper, she moved into a garage in Wimbledon with slugs, rising damp, and a band of foxes that belted across the roof in the dead of night. Morgan didn’t really understand what was going on in work and left it a bit late to ask, so she started spending quality time with friends (especially season 4), travelling to exotic cake shops, and taking long walks on the internet.

Morgan decided it would be fun to be hated by one’s own government, so she became a teacher. Morgan used writing to cope with training in a school affectionately known as ‘hell’s toilet.’ She now works in a fantastic school and lives in the wonderfully triangular Crystal Palace with more foxes and fewer slugs.

Check out R J Morgan’s UKYA EXTRAVAGANZA post where the wonderful Christina Banach ( @ChristinaBanach ) from christinabanach.com chats to R J Morgan – here

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Alex Campbell

Alex Campbell announced she was going to be a writer at eight years old. But no one took much notice. After a nomadic education daydreaming in back rows across Luton, Chester, London, Sheffield and Middlesbrough – and one English degree later – Alex moved into the world of PR and copywriting. Here she worked on getting other people noticed instead.

Now, living near Bath with one husband, two children and an armful of untold stories, Alex’s eight-year-old self’s ambition has finally been realised with the publication of her debut novel, LAND. When she’s not gazing dreamily out of windows, Alex can usually be found, notebook at the ready, in dark art-house cinemas, propping up coffee bars, or worse.

Check out Alex’s UKYA EXTRAVAGANZA post where Alex talks about why she likes to write about big issues in her novels over on  pewterwolf.blogspot.co.uk run by bloggers blogger Andrew ( @PewterWolf13 ) – here

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Liz De Jager

I have probably been a writer for as long as I can remember.  I think I may have killed a forest using up all the notebooks I could get my grubby little paws on, including my sister’s workbooks for school.  I wrote in everything.  And on everything, including our walls in our house in South Africa. Even if it just was my name.  Yes, I was obsessed even back then, aged five.

I finished my first ever novel for ages 9+ and had a great time writing it.  But in retrospect I realise I was so in love with it, I put too much stuff in it, and it needs stripping down and rebuilding.  That will be for another day, I think.

I’m repped by Juliet Mushens of The Agency Group.   I’m the author of The Blackhart Legacy trilogy.  The first two books in the series – Banished / Vowed – is out now in both ebook format and paperback and can be bought from all good bookshops on the high street and online.

Check out Liz’s website here

Check out Liz’s fab Q&A over on serendipityreviews.co.uk run by the lovely Viv ( @Serendipity_Viv ) – here

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David Owen

David Owen achieved a first class honours in BA Creative Writing and an MA Writing for Children at the University of Winchester, where he went on to teach on the BA Creative Writing course for three years. He is also an awards-shortlisted games journalist, with a particular interest in the applications for video games outside of entertainment, and he has written about games being used to treat depression, dyslexia and autism. David has been published as a poet in journals including Agenda and Seam. Panther is his first novel.

Check out David’s website here

Find out all about how David felt being published for the first time over on Sofia’s ( @SofiaSTRF ) blog thereadingfangirl.wordpress.com – here

You can check out my review of Panther here

or

A Q&A with David Owen here

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Lauren James

Hello! I’m Lauren. I’m 23, and I recently graduated from the University of Nottingham with a masters in Chemistry and Physics.

I’m a YA author, and my first novel The Next Together is published by Walker Books in the UK and Australia (and soon in the USA, Turkey, Germany and Brazil!).

I have too many feelings about fictional characters, science and dogs. Things I like: intelligent women, Dylan O’Brien, and things with plants on them. My favourite chemical is acetone, my favourite monarch is Queen Elizabeth I, and my favourite drinking game is a Jane Austen one. I’m a ravenclaw.

You can find out more about Lauren on her website here

Check out Lauren’s video interview over on the lovely Lisa over at @City_Of_Ya channel below!

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Sheena Wilkinson

Sheena Wilkinson has been described as ‘one of our foremost writers for young people’ (The Irish Times). Since the publication of the multi-award-winning Taking Flight in 2010, she has published several novels for young adults, as well as one middle grade novel. Grounded, her second YA, won the CBI Book of the Year in 2013. Until now, her novels have all been contemporary, but she has had many short stories published set in the early twentieth century, the most recent being ‘Each Slow Dusk’ in Walker’s The Great War anthology (2014). Name Upon Name (Little Island) is her first historical novel, set in Belfast 1916. It follows this spring’s YA novel, Still Falling. Sheena is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow, and lives in County Down.

Check out Sheena’s UKYA EXTRAVAGANZA post where she chats to blogger Naomi ( @Frizbot ) over on TheWritesOfWoman.wordpress.com in a fab Q&A here

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Lucy Coats

Lucy Coats writes for children of all ages. Her first picture book was published in 1991, and in 2004 she was shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Prize for ‘Atticus the Storyteller’s 100 Greek Myths’. Lucy read her first book of Greek myths at the age of seven, and has been hooked on stories of all kinds ever since.

Lucy’s latest picture book, ‘Captain Beastlie’s Pirate Party’, has just been published by Nosy Crow. Coming for 2015 are: ‘Beasts of Olympus’ an exciting myth-based series for 7-9’s from Piccadilly Press (UK) and Grosset and Dunlap (Penguin) USA; ‘Cleo’ a gripping YA novel about the young Cleopatra from Orchard Books; and ‘The Little Green Drum’, an Early Reader from Orion.

Lucy lives in rural Northamptonshire and writes looking out over green fields full of sheep. She has a deskdog called Hero who generally lies between her screen and keyboard and is very good at encouraging Lucy when the writing is going slowly.

Lucy also teaches regular Masterclasses on How to Write for Children at The Guardian (see events) and writes for Publishing Talk and Mslexia magazine.

Find out more about Lucy on her website here

Check out a fab Q&A with Lucy by the awesome Darran ( @ShinraAlpha ) over on shinraalpha.com here

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Lee Weatherly

L. A. Weatherly is the author of the bestselling Angel series, as well as almost 50 other books for children and teenagers. She’s originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, and lives in Hampshire, England with her husband. Her books have been translated into over 10 different languages.

You can find out more about Lee Weatherly on her website here

Check out a fab Q&A about writing with Lee Weatherly over on pentopaperblog.com run by the lovely Dani ( @Pentopaperblog ) here

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Sangu Mandanna

Sangu Mandanna was four years old when she was chased by an elephant and wrote her first story about it and decided that this was what she wanted to do with her life. Seventeen years later, she read Frankenstein. It sent her into a writing frenzy that became THE LOST GIRL, a novel about death and love and the tie that binds the two together. Sangu now lives in Norwich, England with her husband and two young sons.

You can find out more about Sangu on her website here

Check out chouett.com run by the lovely Virginie ( @ChouettBlog ) with a fab Q&A with Sangu here

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Lisa Williamson

Lisa Williamson was born in Nottingham in 1980. She spent most of her childhood drawing, daydreaming and making up stories in my head (but never getting round to writing them down). At 19 she moved to London to study drama at university. Following graduation, she adopted the stage name of Lisa Cassidy and spent several happy and chaotic years occasionally getting paid to pretend to be other people. Between acting roles she worked as an office temp and started making up stories all over again, only this time she had a go at writing them down. One of these jobs was at The Gender Identity Development Service – a specialist NHS service for young people struggling with their gender identity. The patient stories she heard inspired her to write The Art of Being Normal.

You can find out more about Lisa on here website here

Check out Lisa’s fab guest post over on the nottinghamwritersstudio.co.uk  ( @NWStudio ) here

Check out my review of The Art Of Being Normal here

or

A Q&A with Lisa Williamson here

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Sophia Bennett

Sophia Bennett won the Times/Chicken House Fiction competition in 2009 with her first novel, Threads, set in London’s fashion world. The two sequels in the series were published in 2010 and 2011 and Threads has since been published in over a dozen languages. Sophia has also written two contemporary YA titles, The Look and You Don’t Know Me, and an adventure story for girls, called The Castle. She lives and writes in London, and you can find her on Facebook, and at sophiabennett.com and threadsthebook.com.

Check out Sophia’s fab Q&A with the lovely Faye ( @daydreamin_star ) over on daydreamersthoughts.co.uk here

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Rachel McIntyre

Rachel is from West Yorkshire and now lives in Cheshire. She has worked in the USA as well as Spain, where she taught English and wrote travel guides and features. Rachel’s passions are modern literary fiction and live music – she’s a fanatical gig and festival goer. She writes contemporary YA fiction with a highly original voice.

 Rachel’s debut, Me and Mr J, about a girl who falls in love with her teacher, is published by Egmont.

Check out this Q&A with Rachel over on snugglingonthesofa.com run by the lovely Debbie ( @Snugglingonsofa ) – here

Find out what happened at the Electric Monkey blogger day where I met Rachel here

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Ben Davis

Bali Rai

I was born in Leicester in 1971 and grew up in a multicultural, multi-racial community close to the city centre. As a child I dreamt about three things – playing football for Liverpool FC, being Bob Marley and becoming a writer. At the age of eleven I read the book that would inspire me to write. It was The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend. Other authors had inspired me to write for fun (Roald Dahl in particular) but it was Sue Townsend who became a true role model. From that point writing became an important hobby and I practiced almost every day. I read countless books, often copying an author’s style in order to find my own.

 Since those early days I have continued to write stories about teenagers and also branched into the younger market with my Soccer Squad series. I am often asked to go abroad to talk about my work and have also appeared on television and radio. In 2010 Rani & Sukh became a set-text for GCSE, something that I never thought would happen. My aim has always been to write the sort of books me and my mates (many of whom didn’t read) would have loved at school. Reading for pleasure is a passion for me and I try to instill that in everyone I talk to. I hope to continue writing for a long as I can.

I am a massive fan of reggae music and Liverpool FC. I also read every day (my favourite genre is crime fiction) although not always fiction. I believe that non-fiction, graphic novels, comics and newspapers etc…are just as valid as forms of reading. I also love to cook, to travel and to watch film.

Check out Bali’s website for more here

Check out this fab conversation with Bali over on misschapterreviews.BlogSpot.co.uk run by Ginny T ( @thecraftyreader ) – here

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C J Skuse

C.J. SKUSE is the author of the Young Adult novels PRETTY BAD THINGS, ROCKOHOLIC and DEAD ROMANTIC (Chicken House) and MONSTER (Mira Ink). She was born in 1980 in Weston-super-Mare, England. She has First Class degrees in Creative Writing and Writing for Children and, aside from writing novels, works as a freelance children’s fiction consultant and lectures in Writing for Children at Bath Spa University. C.J. is currently working on her second novel for Mira Ink.

C.J. loves Masterchef, Gummy Bears and murder sites. She hates carnivals, hard-boiled eggs and coughing. The movies Titanic, My Best Friend’s Wedding and Ruby Sparks were all probably based on her ideas; she just didn’t get to write them down in time. Before she dies, she would like to go to Japan, try clay-pigeon shooting and have Ryan Gosling present her with the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

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Helen Maslin

Helen Maslin lives in Cheltenham with her husband and two young sons. She has studied English, history and art history, which remain her chief interests. She also runs an art club at her children’s primary school.

Helen’s art club is fun but always very messy. Her favourite things are brightly-coloured hair, Peter Lorre’s voice, the smell of new books, Roy Lichtenstein’s art, niceness and cake.  Darkmere is her debut novel.

Also check out Helen’s fab blog here!

Check out a super fun Q&A between Helen and awesome blogger Sally ( @TheDarkDictator ) over on thedarkdictator.blogspot.co.uk – here

PS – I get a mention #TEAMMASLIN!

Check out my review of Darkmere here

or

A deleted scene and Darkmere Inspiration here

or

An extract from Darkmere here

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Rhian Ivory

Rhian was born in Swansea but moved to the Brecon Beacons where she went to school until 11. She then moved all the way across the border to Hereford. She returned to Wales to study English Literature at Aberystwyth. She trained as a Drama and English teacher and wrote her first novel during her first few years in teaching.

She got her first publishing deal at 26 and went on to write three more novels for Bloomsbury. She took a break to have three children and during this time taught Creative Writing and also a Children’s Literature course for the Open University. 

The Boy who drew the Future is her fifth novel and she’s recently finished writing her sixth.  

She is a National Trust writer in residence at Sudbury Hall and the Museum of Childhood.  She currently lives in Rutland, the smallest county in the country, with her family and their two very lively spaniels. 

Check out a fab Q&A with Rhian over on teensonmoonlane.co.uk run by the lovely Jim ( @yayeahyeah ) – here