I am super honoured to have the brilliant Andrew, one of my fave bloggers and human beings, on the blog today with a Christmassy post to get us all in the Christmas mood.
Andrew was one of the first bloggers I got to know when I started out blogging and he never fails to bring a smile to my face.
Andrew blogs over at thepewterwolf.blogspot.com where he reviews books within (although not exclusively) the YA and New Adult age ranges. Andrew also writes fun, random blog posts (also known as SMILE) and music-themed blog posts. And I love the fact that he states on his blog that the “blog is not only a book reviewing site but a “Smile Blog””. Andrew is basically all the awesomes so please do go check his blog and his twitter @PewterWolf out!
So today Andrew is sharing some of the books that are on his festive reading list….
*hands over to Andrew*
Ho Ho Ho Reads
This blog post came out of something completely un-Christmas related. I was emailing Michelle over Point Horror. I never read Point Horror growing up, hence my questions. But as we chatted, we got onto Christmas and I started wondering what books I was going to read over the festival season. I don’t normally make plans over what I want to read – am more a mood reader – but I realised that I do have a small list in my head of books I do want to read over Christmas, New Year and throughout December. So, I thought I would show you some of my list…
To Michelle, thank you for inspiring this post. Now, let’s get the Christmas music on and chat books!
OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon
I haven’t watched the TV show. I tried to watch the first episode but always get 15/20 minutes in and get bored so don’t continue. I know I should, but I think the book might be more my thing. It has elements that I know will hold my attention and keep me reading, even though it’s over 850 pages long.
But, due to recent book events and real life events, this might have to be put on the back burner for a few weeks. Due to… wait for it…
THE BOOK OF DUST: LA BELLE SAVUAGE by Philip Pullman
I have been waiting for this book even since I finish The Amber Spyglass over 17 years ago. 17 YEARS! And I was/am so excited to read to read! I preordered this and the special Waterstones edition, I was that excited to read this!
But, real life got in the way. I read only 3 chapters over a space of a week due to work issues, so I decided to put this on hold and save it for when I had time to sit down and immerse myself in this world. And Christmas seems like the perfect time!
THE HATE U GIVE by Angie Thomas
Confession time: I’ve had an Advance Reader Copy since just before last Christmas. When I found out I had it, I squealed so loudly, my cat wake up and give me one of the dirtiest looks in memory. So, why haven’t I read it? The main reason is because I’ve been so excited for this book since I heard it was going to get published in the UK. So, when I finally got a copy, I have mentally hyped this book up so much that I was terrified it wasn’t going to live up to it. So I have been waiting… and waiting… and waiting… it’s only now that I feel ready to go near this. I just hope it’s as awesome as I want it to be…
THE LAST MRS PARRISH by Liv Constantine
I don’t read as many thrillers as I would like, but this sounds like something I would be gripped by. A twisty thriller would be perfect reading on these dark, long nights.
THE WITCH’S TEARS by Katharine & Elizabeth Corr
I read the first book in the trilogy, Witch’s Kiss, earlier this year. And while there were some problems with it, I had a whale of a time reading it. And with how the first book ended and with the third and final book coming out early next year (March, I think? February?), I want to return to see what’s going to happen to these characters? Plus, with this cover, I feel that winter is the perfect time to read this…
A huge thank you to Andrew for such a fab guest post and here to reading some fab reads over Christmas!
What’s on your Christmas TBR? Do you rad Christmas reads in the lead up to Christmas or books you have been excited about all year and not got around to? I would love to hear from you! Why not leave a comment using the reply button at the top of the post or tweet me on twitter using @ChelleyToy !
Today I am honoured to bring to you a Q&A from awesome blogger and my lovely friend Faye Rogers PR extraordinaire!
Hi Faye
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I can certainly try! I live in London and like to think of myself as a very bubbly person. Energetic and passionate, and I absolutely love reading and writing. I currently work four different jobs and I love that they’re all different and interesting too!
How long have you been running your blog A Daydreamer’s Thoughts?
I’ve been running A Daydreamer’s Thoughts for over four years now. Seems a little crazy when I think about it but I’ve loved every minute of it and wouldn’t have it any other way!
Can you tell us a bit about your PR Business? How did it come about?
My PR business is called Faye Rogers PRand is a service I provide for authors to help with their online publicity needs. I have helped a variety of authors in lots of different ways and also help Scholastic with some of their books too. It came about after I worked for an online publishing house which sadly went bankrupt. Because I had enjoyed the work so much, I decided to branch out and start freelancing myself. I’ve been working online PR for over two years now.
What kind of services can you offer an author looking to promote their book?
I offer a multitude of services but the most popular is the blog and review tours. This is where I help the author by contacting bloggers and organising a book tour that happens online – as opposed to the author visiting schools or shops. It can consist of author posts or reviews and is a great way to get the book noticed. I also offer long-term PR help, help getting reviews of your book, help with guest posts and interviews, social media campaigns and twitter chats.
What can an author expect to pay for a particular service?
It really depends on the type of service and the book in question but the prices range from £30 to £200. You can have a look at the prices here: www.fayerogers.co.uk/prices
Can you tell us a little about your new business venture – Forever Living?
I work with Forever Living as an independent distributor. This means that I purchase the items from Forever Living and then sell them on. The range is massive – and one of the things I love about the company. All the products are Aloe Vera based and work incredibly well too. I’m so glad that I’ve found these products as I could no longer live without them!
What made you take the step into Forever Living?
Essentially because I love working for myself. With my history of PR, I felt I wanted to branch out and do something different. I love products like it and just wanted to see if it worked out for me. I’ve loved every minute of the work and don’t regret it for a second.
What kind of products do you sell?
There are thousands of products! There are products for health, fitness, beauty, skincare, daily care, house maintenance, and even pets! There’s literally something for everyone and I just love that so much!
Where can we find out more information or place an order with you?
You can find more information and have a look at all the products here: www.livingpure247.myforever.biz. You can order the products direct from the website or for special offers like free delivery and free gifts, you can contact me here: livingpure247@gmail.com or on twitter: @livingpure247!
Have you used many of the products? How have they worked?
I have used a lot of the products and I have yet to find fault with any of them! I use the moisturizing lotion every day as a make-up primer and my face has never been so moist. I use the propolis creme most nights and have yet to be attacked by winter eczema, I drink the aloe gel daily and that has helped with my energy levels and digestive system, I use our mascara daily and I am allergic to most mascaras! Honestly, there are so many products that use every day that this would become a very long post if I spoke about them all. But if you want to hear more, do contact me!
What has been your highlight with Forever Living so far?
The products. Honestly, they’ve been life-changing for me. I’ve also really enjoyed the freedom of the business and my wonderful team who are super supportive and lovely! I can’t wait to continue growing my own team. If you’d like to hear more about it, let me know!
Which product would you recommend the most?
All of the products above. But probably my favourite product at the moment is the Tooth Gel. I’ve always hated toothpaste, but I love the tooth gel. It has a spearmint taste rather than a strong mint taste, and it’s just a nicer feel on my teeth too. It keeps my teeth smooth almost all day which I love so much! I use it every morning and I will never change that!
Tell us 5 random facts about Faye Rogers!
I’m an insomniac. It comes and goes and sometimes I sleep like a baby. Most of the time, however, I either struggle to sleep or struggle to stay asleep.
I am not a morning person. Usually because I probably haven’t had enough sleep so my brain is just not ready for the day!
I am a coffee addict. I try to deny it but at the moment, coffee has become my drink of choice – ooops.
I love to binge watch television shows. – So I’m eternally grateful for Netflix and DVDs!
I struggle to sit still. I always need to be doing something. Be it just fiddling with something in my hands or swaying from side to side. I seem to be unable to just stop.
Thanks so much for answering all of my questions Faye!
A Daydreamer’s Thoughts was founded on September 15th 2011. It is a blog that consists of book reviews, film reviews, book articles, film articles, author interviews, guest posts, features, and memes. It is run by Faye who enjoys the task immensely and is always happy to communicate with her followers.
I would like to say a huge big thank you to Faye for featuring on my blog today and for answering all my questions! I am forever in awe of Faye’s amazing talent and organisation as well as being a faboulous genuine good friend also!
So all the nominations were added up and compiled into a long list and then separated into a short list!
Voting for the SHORTLIST is via Luna’s Little Library who is hosting the UKYA Book Blogger Awards this year. Just follow this link here or click on the voting button below.
The voting closes on Friday 27th May 2016.
Don’t forget to share the love! #awardukyabbloggers
Also there is some exciting news!
Join us for the #bookloverparty on the 30th May 2016!Everyone can join in!
To celebrate the second UKMG EXTRAVAGANZA which is being held at Nottingham City Library on the 17th October 2015 there is a great big blog tour celebrating the 34 super-duper authors that are attending the event!
The wonderful Emma Pass and Kerry Drewery have organised the first UKMG 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 UKMG 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 UKMG EXTRAVAGANZA blog tour posts that are being hosted by 34 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 UKYA Extravaganza and it’s authors – click here
Margi McAllister
Margi comes from Northumberland, is married to a minister, and has three grown-up children. Margi has always loved storytelling and she is the author of the award-winning animal fantasy series, The Mistmantle Chronicles. She is also the author of the Hammy the Wonder Hamster books, which she wrote as Poppy Harris. Margi loves stories, theatre, gardens, wildlife, history, woodlands and warm fires on winter nights.
Her latest novels Fawn and A Home for Teasel are perfect for fans of Michael Morpurgo and Lauren St John, heartfelt animal stories unlike any you’ve read before.
You can find out more about Margi on her website here
Teresa Flavin is an illustrator and author of critically-acclaimed fantasy novels for children and young people. Her debut novel, The Blackhope Enigma (Templar Publishing UK), was short-listed for a number of UK book awards and was a Fall 2011 Junior Library Guild selection in the USA (Candlewick Press). The sequel, The Crimson Shard, is published in the UK by Templar and in the USA by Candlewick Press. It was a Fall 2012 Junior Library Guild Selection and was nominated for the 2013 Teen Choice Book of the Year. Templar published The Shadow Lantern, the final novel in the Blackhope Enigma trilogy, in the UK in 2013 and Candlewick published it in 2014.
In 2013 British publisher Barrington Stoke published Yellow Rabbit (Illustrated by Rich Watson) for a reading age of 6 and in 2014 it brought out Teresa’s latest novel, Jet Black Heart, a supernatural time travel mystery for teens.
American-born Teresa lives in West Yorkshire, England. She maintains a studio where she not only writes, but illustrates and makes paintings for gallery exhibitions. She also speaks widely in schools, libraries and at literary festivals.
John Dougherty was born in Larne, Northern Ireland. He studied psychology at university and then tried his hand at a number of jobs including YMCA hostel worker, factory machine operator, and unsuccessful singer-songwriter, before becoming a primary school teacher (elementary school teacher if you’re in the United States, which he wasn’t).
Whilst John was teaching, his interest in children’s literature was reawakened and he soon began writing stories and pestering publishers with them. After the publication of Zeus on the Loose (2004) he left teaching and took up writing full-time, only with more tea breaks.
His books have been shortlisted for a number of prestigious awards – and one was chosen by The Times as one of the Best Children’s Books of the Year 2011 – but, more importantly, they make children giggle.
You can find more about John and his books on his website here
Check out my post here on Tales – Which Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face Character Are you? – here
HUW POWELL is a children’s author with an overactive and uncompromising imagination. He was born in Bristol in 1976 during the hottest summer on record and grew up in the village of Pill in North Somerset, where he wrote his first stories for friends and family.
At school, his best subjects were Literature and Art, which he went on to study at University.
Huw started writing while working in London, where he wrote on trains and in cafes using a pen and notepad.
He now lives in Portishead with his wife and two energetic sons. When he’s not writing, Huw enjoys watching films and spending time with his family and friends.
You can find out more about Hew on his website here
Check out Hew’s super guest post over on bookzone4boys.blogspot.co.uk run by the lovely Darren Hartwell ( @BookZone ) all about Hew’s Magnificient Seven Pirates Of Literature here
Fire Girl author Matt Ralphs has always been fascinated by witches, ghosts and anything that sent a shiver down his spine – and as a child was convinced that his Suffolk home was haunted. His favourite childhood book was Enid Blyton’s The Enchanted Wood, as it was magical, mysterious and a little bit weird – and his goal as an author is to create books that make children feel just as happy, scared and thrilled as he did when reading as a kid. If he had to choose between being a witch or being a demon he would plump for the latter, as he believes it might be fun to be evil for a while – but Shhh – don’t tell anyone!
Paula Harrison is a best-selling children’s author. Her books include the Red Moon Rising series, The Storm Dragon and The Rescue Princesses. She wanted to be a writer from a young age but spent many happy years being a primary school teacher first.
I was born in Bletchley (home of the wartime code-breakers!) and I grew up in Bedfordshire. I always said I wanted to be a writer, but I didn’t actually get round to it for quite a long time.
I trained to be a primary school teacher and spent many years teaching. Those years taught me what children like in stories and how they respond to humour and suspense. Reading to an audience of children is just amazing.
You can find out more about Paula on her website here
Originally from America, I moved to London because I wanted to live abroad but spoke no foreign languages. After a brief and unsuccessful stint as a serving wench at the Tower of London I found work as an actress and comedy performer. I’ve perfomed regularly at Edinburgh and London comedy festivals. A few years back I got a job touring around the UK as a storyteller and that’s when I discovered that kids liked, laughed at and didn’t fall asleep when I performed stuff that I wrote myself. I was hooked on writing and performing for kids. Some quotes from kids about my storytelling sessions are:
“I guess you were a bit better than the rabbits with big heads that were here last week.” “Can I rewind you and watch you again after lunch?” And “How did you know me to put me in your story?”
I still live in London, still speak no foreign languages (unless you count American) and I still have a sneaking suspicion that the rabbits with the big heads were really better than me but the kid was just being nice.
I wrote lots of stories for kids that nobody published but then I wrote “My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish” and Macmillan said that they were hooked. (couldn’t help the fish pun there, sorry).
Suggestions for fish pun titles are welcome…
You can find out more about Mo on her website here
Linda Chapman was born in Liverpool in 1969. She had many different jobs before becoming a full-time writer in 1999. She worked as a theatre stage manager, a dog trainer, a bookseller, a nanny, a teacher and a research assistant. She has written over 170 books for children, some under her own name, others under different names including the Superpowers series under the name Alex Cliff. Her books have been published in over 20 languages. Linda lives in Leicestershire with her husband, three children, three dogs and three ponies. When she is not writing she likes riding, reading, walking her dogs and visiting schools and libraries. She has written many different series including: My Secret Unicorn, Unicorn School, Stardust, Sky Horses, Not Quite a Mermaid, Skating School and Loving Spirit. She also loves to collaborate with other writers. Her most recent series are Sophie and The Shadow Woods written with Lee Weatherly and the series Dinosaur Land, Wild Friends and Angel Wings written with Michelle Misra.
You can find out more about Linda on here website here
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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 Austenone. 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!
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.
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.
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
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
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
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.
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.
I was born twenty-eight years ago. I was a baby at the time.
Between then and now, I’ve done loads of stuff – learned to use the big boy toilet by myself, got married and wrote a book.
Incidentally, all of those things happened in the last three years.
Before The Private Blog of Joe Cowley, I wrote jokes and sketches for radio. Remember that Numberwang one? Really funny wasn’t it? Yeah, I had nothing to do with that.
These dats I live in Tamworth with my wife and my dog. Sometime I put him in funny costumes. I am an awful human being.
You can find out more about Ben Davis on his website here
Helen was born in London in 1964. She showed an early leaning towards the arts, having been told off for writing stories under the desk in maths lessons at school.
Helen went on to read Classics at St. Hugh’s College, Oxford, and then worked in marketing for ten years to fund her love of travelling. Her two most memorable travelling days were the one spent exploring Damascus in Syria and the day she went to the Raj Mandir cinema in Jaipur to see the romantic blockbuster Beta.
In 2001, she and her family moved to Bad Münstereifel in Germany. It was exploring the legends of this beautiful old town that inspired her to write her first novel, The Vanishing of Katharina Linden, which is set there.
Helen now lives in Scotland with her husband, her two children and her two cats.
You can find out more about Helen on her website here
Mike Revell used to be one of those kids who didn’t like reading. He was more inclined to run home and play video games than dive into a book.
Then Harry Potter came along. The series didn’t just make him a reader, it made him want to be an author too; he wanted to give to people the same feelings of wonder and enjoyment that J.K. Rowling gave to him as a young boy.
Stonebird is Mike’s first novel and is influenced by the real experiences of seeing his grandmother suffer from dementia, as well as his love of myths.
Emma Pass has been making up stories for as long as she can remember; she reckons it’s the most fun you can have without attracting attention from the authorities. She wrote her first novel, aged 13, in maths lessons with her notebook hidden under her work. After school, she went to art college, but soon realized she wasn’t cut out to be a painter and decided to stick with writing.
By day, Emma works as a library assistant and lives with her husband and crazy greyhound G-Dog in the North East Midlands.
Emma is also one of the organisers for UKYA Extravaganza and UKMG Extravaganza!
You can find out more about Emma on her website here
I grew up in Croydon and worked in a bank for a year. But this is true of so many writers it has become a cliché. So let me tell you about some of the other stuff.
My dad, Peter, was a sheet-metal worker; my mum, Marjorie, a wages clerk. I have no brothers or sisters. We never had a foreign holiday till I was 17. They took me to Belgium for a week, to prove I hadn’t been missing anything. I loved them both. They’re dead, now, but I still love them.
I went to a big comprehensive school and enjoyed my time there so much I wrote my first adult novel about a disturbed man who takes revenge on his former teachers. Made a mess of my A-levels (too much snooker, too little effort) and had to do a re-sit to get into journalism college.
Learned my lesson, though – I spent much of the journalism course drinking, playing pool or going on protest marches. “Home” was a caravan in a field with two mates from the course. Take my advice, don’t live in a caravan. Even so, it still rates as just about the best year of my life.
For the next 15 years I worked as a news reporter, football correspondent, features writer and sub-editor on newspapers all over England (and one in Wales).
Between jobs I went backpacking in Europe, North America, Australia and Asia. I taught English in Hong Kong, despite speaking no Cantonese and being unqualified to teach English (or anything else), and returned from India with dysentery, hepatitis and pneumonia, having lost a quarter of my body weight. Happy days.
All this time, through my 20s and early 30s, I wrote fiction – short stories, a couple of abandoned novels – did creative writing classes, joined a writers’ group … until it dawned on me that I wanted to be a writer more than anything. So, I quit my job and enrolled on the Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia. That was where I began Acts of Revision.
I’ve been writing novels ever since – first for adults, now for teenagers – and when I’m not doing that, I teach creative writing (even though I still have no teaching qualifications.) Best of all, though, I have a wife, Damaris, and two daughters, Josie and Polly. And I don’t live in Croydon anymore.
YA Author of A Brighter Fear (shorlisted for the Leeds Book Award) and A Dream of Lights (nominated for the Carnegie Medal, awarded ‘Highly Commended’ at North East Teen Book Awards, and shortlisted for the Hampshire Independent Book Awards).
Kerry Drewery has always had a passion for writing. She was a finalist in a BBC script-writing competition in 2009 and is currently hugely involved with Bookstart. Kerry lives in Lincolnshire with her husband and children.
The story of A Brighter Fear was created through Kerry’s own fascination with the Iraq war. Kerry’s sensitive approach creates a beautiful, contemporary fairytale that will stay with teen readers for a lifetime.
Emma is also one of the organisers for UKYA Extravaganza and UKMG Extravaganza!
David Massey’s varied career has taken him from teaching and music journalism to presenting, producing and writing for radio.
As the Romanian revolution was ending, David led a team taking supplies to Bucharest and Timisoara. On the way home he stopped near Checkpoint Charlie to help chip holes in the Berlin Wall. Rather fittingly, David and his wife Debi now run Globehuggers Emergency Supplies – a business specializing in bespoke grab bags and emergency equipment.
In his spare time, David is an accomplished classical guitarist and has spent the last few years tapping away on his keyboard writing books for Young Adults. His debut young adult novel TORN was published on August 2012 in the UK on the Chicken House label. TORN has already been shortlisted for lots of awards and won the Lancs Book of the Year 2013. On July 30th 2013 the amazing hardcover edition was released in the USA.
David’s second book – TAKEN was released on World Book Day – 6th March 2014. He is now busy planning book three…
Teri Terry has lived in France, Canada, Australia and England at more addresses than she can count, acquiring four degrees, a selection of passports and a silly name along the way.
Moving constantly as a child, teenager and also as an adult has kept Teri on the outside looking in much of her life. It has given her an obsession with characters like Kyla in Slated and Luna in Mind Games, who don’t belong or find themselves in unfamiliar places.
Teri left her job with Buck’s libraries to write full-time and complete her research MA on the depiction of terrorism in recent young adult dystopian literature. She has also at various times and in various countries been a lawyer, an optometrist, a teaching assistant, and a science technician.
Slated has won twelve awards, including the North East Teenage Book Award, the Leeds Book Award, the Angus book award, the Portsmouth Book Award, the Rotherham book award and the Rib Valley Book Award. It was the most voted for YA title in the 2012 international Edinburgh Book Festival Anobii First Book Award.
You can find out more about Teri on her website here
Having completed his degree in sculpture back in 1985, rather than face the artist’s traditional garret Nick took the plunge into, what was then, the emerging computer games industry. For more than 21 years Nick worked as a graphic artist and creative director, helping to create over forty published titles, including many chart-topping hits.
Nick has a passion for science and astronomy, often blogging about the latest mind-blowing discoveries made in quantum physics. He once even soloed a light aircraft, an experience he’s tapping into now for Cloud Riders. Not needing any excuse to travel, he recently completed a writing research trip to the volcanic landscape of Iceland for the second book in the Cloud Riders’ trilogy, Breaking Storm.
You can find out more about Nick on his website here
Sarah Benwell lives in the picturesque city of Bath. Which is nice, but she’d much rather be off exploring deserts and jungles elsewhere. Having seen a good chunk of the world, Sarah is a keen advocate for diversity in life and on bookshelves, and she loves nothing more than acquainting herself with both.
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.
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.
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. Darkmereis her debut novel.
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.
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.
So that’s it! All 30 wonderful authors that are appearing at #ukyaextravaganza on Saturday 10/10/2015 in Nottingham and all 30 super awesome bloggers who have been part of the tour. What a fab blog tour and I cannot wait for the event!
Today I am honoured to bring to you an inspirational honest guest post from awesome blogger and friend Faye Rogers about anxiety.
It is a truthful post as Faye herself suffers from anxiety and within it there is strength and courage and I have total admiration for Faye for being so open……
Anxiety
For as long as I can remember, I have suffered with anxiety. There are times in my life that I remember, mostly as a child, when I lived a carefree life. I remember doing things without thought that I would now struggle to do without having a full blown panic attack. The problem is that these are things that other people still do without blinking, such as eating without washing their hands, eating at buffets, sharing a bag of crisps or sweets, shaking hands, high-fiving people and kissing, and getting messy and dirty without fear or worry.
What you may notice is that the above things have something in common; germs. For some reason, I feel very anxious about germs. I know that the reason for this is because it is something I cannot see or control. I do not know if I have germs on me, I do not know if those germs will cause me to be ill, or worse die and I cannot control the outcome if they do. I do not know what germs other people carry – even though I know deep down they probably don’t have any germs, I can’t stop my brain from thinking that they just might.
Knowing why my anxiety occurs, however, does not stop it from cropping up all over the place. It is helpful in some respects but not so helpful in others, especially when other people just don’t get it and because you can’t find the words to explain it, can’t get them to truly understand. The biggest problem about explaining anxiety to someone who doesn’t have anxiety problems is that they don’t realise that you already know your fears and worries are not rational.
The most common things I hear from strangers, friends and loved ones are along the lines of;
– “You really just need to get over it.”
– “But that doesn’t make any sense.”
– “Well, that’s not a rational outlook.”
– “Do you really have to ruin the fun?”
– “It’s fine, just eat it.”
– “Just stop.”
They’re not saying these things maliciously. They just don’t understand. And that’s the problem. There isn’t enough information and awareness on anxiety for people to know that anxiety is often outside of our control. It is an illness and while it can be controlled, it will never fully be cured. I will have good days and I will have bad days but my anxiety will never fully disappear. This is something that I have come to live with and accept and it has made dealing with my illness a lot easier.
The fact that very few people understand about anxiety means that I actually struggle to be forward about it. It’s gotten better in the last few years, especially since I went to therapy and did CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) for it, but it still isn’t something I outwardly talk about to new people and some people in my family still don’t know that I struggle with anxious thoughts and feelings. So I’m hoping that in a few years time I can stop hiding away because people will understand what I’m going through and be able to help due to being better informed about it.
So today I wanted to give a few pointers about some good ways to deal with people who suffer from anxiety, just in case you know someone who does.
– Be sympathetic; Tell them that you understand and allow them to take as much time as they need to, to overcome whatever is causing their anxiety at that given moment. Never rush them. The more you rush, the more pressure they’ll feel and the worse the anxious feeling/panic attack will occur.
– Don’t make their anxieties small; Avoid telling your friend that they’re “being silly” or that they should “get over it”. Because we are trying to do that but it’s not that easy. A lot of the time we don’t understand why we feel the way we do so we don’t know how to get over it and telling us we’re being silly makes us feel small and makes us believe our feelings and thoughts are not worth your time.
– Don’t be judgmental; We need to know that you’re not going to tease us for the way we feel or look down upon us, especially if our anxiety is hindering something we’re doing or need to do. These actions will make us feel alone, depressed and, incidentally more anxious because now we’ll be fearing our uncontrollable reactions around you.
– Listen to us and try to calm us down; A lot of the time talking about what is making us anxious can help to reduce it. When we’re anxious, it’s possibly that we’re waging a war in our own heads about how we’re feeling. The rational side trying to calm us down while the irrational takes full control. If you hear us and don’t belittle our thoughts but try to help in a calm, gentle and supportive manor, you may be able to help to. But please do not feel insulted if you don’t. It is not you, it is the illness.
– Understand that anxiety has physical attributes; We may have a problem in our brains but it can manifest itself into physical problems. These can be gut issues, nauseous, symptoms of heart attack (but despite thinking we’re having a heart attack, we’re not), shaking, pacing, shortness of breath, freezing up and sweating. If we tell you we feel anxious and starting getting physical attributes, just try and keep us calm but most importantly, just be there for us.
– Don’t force us to do anything; You may think that getting someone who is anxious to face their fear has the potential to help and it definitely can but only if said person is ready. By forcing us, either physically or emotionally, you may be crippling our anxieties later and making what could be passed quickly to manifest into a full blown panic attack. Would you force someone with diabetes to eat a bowl of sugar? In this case, if we say we don’t want to do something, let it slide and move on.
– Treat us like humans; Please, don’t act differently around us. We’re still us. We’re still humans but we just need some time sometimes. We may need to not walk on the cracks in the pavement, or not share that bag of crisps with you, we may need to wash our hands three times at once and at least twelve times a day but this is just our way of stopping the anxiety from crippling us completely.
– Read up about anxiety; Research it. Find out more about it. Perhaps suggest we go to therapy because it could help but remember, don’t force it on us. Therapy will only work if we’re ready to go and do it. Be informed and educated and that way, we’ll feel supported, loved and less like a burden and thus may finally have more good days to bad ones.
I’m sorry if this post feels like I’m badgering at you, I’m not trying to do that. I just know that some people don’t think before they say and do things because they just don’t know what is happening underneath it all. I also want to say that if you suffer from anxiety, you’re not alone. It’s tough and it’s hard but I am certain that we are strong and will continue to survive. Our anxiety may never fully go away, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to beat us down.
Below are some links to websites talking about anxiety and offering help and support. They’re all very helpful and most include helplines/online help within them.
A Daydreamer’s Thoughts was founded on September 15th 2011. It is a blog that consists of book reviews, film reviews, book articles, film articles, author interviews, guest posts, features, and memes. It is run by Faye who enjoys the task immensely and is always happy to communicate with her followers.
I would like to say a huge big thank you to Faye for featuring on my blog today and for being so open and honest. I really believe that the more we talk about mental health the more together we can crush the stigmas attached, become more aware of mental health and of course give people the courage they need to confide in people and get any help they may need without the fear of stigma!
“The UKYA Blogger Awards have been set up in recognition of the services given to authors and publishers by the book-blogging community.”
On the 7th March in the bottom floor basement, surrounded by books at Waterstones High Street Kensington something amazing and magical happened!
In a room full of wine, nibbles, authors, publicists, bloggers, friends and family!
The first ever UKYA Blogger Awards 2015!
The dream child of super fabulous organiser of the awards, author and all round cool guy Andy Robb laid on a huge celebration to beat all celebrations! A celebration of bloggers! The 1st in its kind and here’s hoping for many more!
I couldn’t wait to attend the awards, not because I was up for an award, but to finally meet authors, publicists and other bloggers who I have been talking to for a while and had never met! I have to say I wasn’t disappointed!
So on the tube I got from my hotel dragging my husband and my son along for the ride to! My son was only interested in one thing….to support his Mom I hear you cry….well nope…..it was meeting The Dreamsnatcher author Abi Elphinstone! Bless Him!
The night was filled with laughter, hugs and chatting and upon arriving it was great to mingle with everyone……I spent most of the night going…..Oh hello I recognise you from twitter *hugs* or OMG ITS ACTUALLY YOU *hugs* quite a few times! 🙂
Then the awards presentation started! The awesome Andy Robb did a fab job of announcing the awards, the nominees and the presenters of the awards and everyone cheered for each other! So much love and support in one room! It was amazing!
I think even if you were not there the love could be felt all over twitter on the hashtag #ukyaba – everyone supporting everyone! One big loving community!
Okay *gulps* ….something awesome and I can honestly say unexpected may have happened!
I won the award in my category! Champion Newcomer 2015!
How the you know what did that happen?!
With my legs turning to jelly at the mention of Tales Of Yesterday the lovely Jessie from Stripes Publishing read out my blogs name as the winner!
I was in complete shock and started shaking immediately upon walking up to get my award. I even forgot to put my wine glass down! Classy eh?!
With dry mouth I was asked to make a speech! A speech? On the spot! With the randomness that comes out of my mouth! and with my broad brummie accent! Oh dear! This could have had disastrous consequences especially as wine was involved! But I kept it together (phew) and said a lot of sensible for me thank you’s !
As well as this wonderful trophy, that still makes my tummy flip every time I look at it, I won a fab £50 Waterstones Voucher from Stripes Publishing and an unbelievable prize of exclusive content on all of their books for a year! Wow! Speechless is the only word I can think of to describe my feelings on this as well as pure excitement!
After the award presentations were over we got to drink, mingle, congratulate people, hug and be merry! It was awesome!
(In July 2015 I was kindly asked due to winning this award to be a speaker on a Blogging For Beginners Workshop….at YALC! – find out what it’s all about here)
Also the #ukyaba hashtag trended on twitter for 3 hours!!! Wow!
And I wouldn’t be able to sleep properly if I didn’t put a photo montage together!
Don’t forget to check out the awards from a 10 year old view a bit further down too!
As I said in my speech on the night…thank you so much to everyone for their support since I started blogging in November 2014! Only 5 months ago! You are all bloomin fantastic each and every one of you. Bloggers, publicists, authors! You know who you all are! I cannot believe that my name was up on a list with bloggers I admire and am in awe of let alone winning a trophy! *wipes tears from eyes*
Thank you to the awesome blogging community for welcoming me with open arms and making me feel all warm inside – yes all of you! I have got to know a lot of you through twitter and have had the absolute honour in meeting some of you and you are all the most kindest, genuine, enthusiastic people I have ever met and I am honoured to know you all!
Thank you to all of the authors for writing such fab awesome books that I get to write my feelings and emotions that they stir up inside me down on my blog! Thank you all for being so supportive, awesome and approachable to talk to! #UKYAFOREVER!
Thank you to all the publicists for sending me awesome books to review! My postman’s back will never be the same….I think he hates me! 🙂
Thank you to my husband Kevin, who nowadays watches TV on his own and puts up with tripping over above book post when we come home from work. Thank you to my son Corey for loving books as much as I do and being a fab ten year old! And to my family and friends for the support and reading my blog posts! 🙂
A huge thank you to Stripes Publishing for my amazing prizes also! It literally has blown my tiny mind! Thank You!
I felt very emotional the next day after the event and was very said to leave London….that’s how special the night and the awards were to me….I will forever remember it!
Well done and thank you to Andy Robb for organising and the wonderful hosts Waterstones High Street Kensington! You put on one heck of a celebration!
Also a big thank you to all publicists involved for sponsoring the awards, presenters and for Curious Fox Books for sponsoring the drinks for the evening events…hic hic hic
*chinks glass at everyone*
My highlights of the night!
There were so many highlights but some of them made me chuckle my little socks off and smile a lot – here are a few 🙂
The do we hug, do we hand shake, lets hug moment between Stephen ( @mybookishlife ) and Andrew ( @pewterwolf ) !
The ohhhhhhhh when Jonathan Stroud was announced to present and award!
Serendipity Viv’s first words on winning her award for Champion of Content – “Oh Crap!”
Andy Robb’s pronunciation of Hachette! 🙂
My son, Corey’s little face looking at me when I won my award – it melted my heart!
But most of all the main highlight was the amount of love in the room for ALL bloggers! It was truly heart warming!
The UKYA Blogger Awards from the view of a 10 Year Old!
As you may be aware my 10 year old son attended the awards with me! Now rather unexpectedly he decided to record his first ever video for Tales Of Yesterday and record nearly all of the presentation and some of the evening! *gulps*
I have put the footage together as best as I can and I will now hand over to Corey…..please bear in mind that this was unexpected and the footage is rather shaky in places with some heads cut off too….but for his first ever video I thought he did fantastic!
I think he captured the night brilliantly and hopefully will remind everyone who was there what a fab night it was and anyone who wasn’t there…it will show you how much love for bloggers there was!
But, before we leave it at that, I also want to highlight the runner ups! Some of the categories were so close so I thought it would be nice for everyone to see who came second and third (but unfortunately, I don’t have any graphics for the runners up).
If any of the winners would like their graphics, just let me (Faye) know and I’ll send you an individual image of the award! (Or if you’d like the image on the graphic changed, let me know. AND if you’re a runner up and would like a graphic, let me know and I can make one for you!
Wow! Thank you to everyone who voted for me to win Best Newcomer! This is amazing! Thank you all so much for your support and love! I feel very over whelmed and lucky ….and quite tearful at the thought but I am ever thankful! Such amazing news!
Thank you to Faye for hosting these awards! I lovely person through and through who has worked so hard putting these together *claps hands repeatedly in admiration and support*
You are all amazing! And well done to all of the winners, all of the runners up, all who were nominated and all bloggers everywhere….you are all awesome!
Right from the start Faye welcomed me to her blog with open cuddly arms and posted such a lovely post to introduce me to everyone. It brought many tears to my eyes and was so lovely.
I even got to have a cool clicky clicky click box for the month on Faye’s blog! So cool!
The pressure was on when Faye did a Q&A feature with me…I do tend to babble on a bit and those quick fire questions…..wow! *wipes sweat from brow* Only kidding….it was super awesome!
Then Faye asked me to do a guest post. I thought long and hard on what to write. Then one day my husband suggested I write a piece about becoming partially sighted and how I got through it as he was proud of me *wipes tear away*.
What I wrote really surprised me in a way I never thought it would. It actually helped me off load my feelings in a way and kind of gave me a feeling of closure if that makes any sense.
The support and comments I have had are truly amazing and have touched me so much. I really hope that the post may help others and I thank every one from the bottom of my heart for all of their over whelming support about the guest post and all of the lovely comments. It was touching and I am so thankful.
The reason for this post is really to say a huggggeeeee thank you to Faye for having me on her blog as Blogger Spotlight and for being generally just an awesome person who I am proud to call my friend!
*Gives Faye huge huge hug*
I am privileged to have gotton to get to know Faye as well as many other bloggers through blogging and can honestly say I have never met such a lovely bunch and I am so thankful to have them in my life!
I am honoured to be able to feature all of the details here on Tales Of Yesterday and today revealing the shortlist and it’s now time to vote for your winners!
The shortlist below features some fantastic bloggers and I am overwhelmed and excited that Tales Of Yesterday appears in 3 categories. I am so so thankful and nicely surprised. Thank you to everyone who voted for me! It truly is an honour to even see my name on the shortlist amongst such wonderful bloggers *hands everyone a malteaser in celebration and thanks* 🙂
So if you think Tales Of Yesterday is the best newcomer, I’m the most enthusiastic or most fun blogger then please vote for me…. 🙂
Without further ado I will pass you onto the lovely Faye!
Winners Announcement will be on the 1st March 2015
Look out for these on the hashtag #awardukyabbloggers on twitter
Happy Voting!
Hey Guys!
Today I am here with VERY exciting news! It is the shortlist of the UKYA Book Blogger Awards! This is the time for YOU to vote for your favourite from the lists!
Voting is open until 16th February. Make sure you don’t miss out!
There’s quite a lot of awards and choices so you may need a few minutes to vote on them all. You get one vote per award.
Everyone can join in!
