Getting Strangled by Darren Shan

I had great fun at the Mountains to Sea Book Festival last week - I'm only just recovering. I got strangled by Darren Shan - see the pic! I went for dinner with Cathy Cassidy and Judi Curtin - two brilliant writers that I adore, and fab women too! We had a lovely evening.
I also listened to fantastic talks by Eoin Colfer, Roddy Doyle, Derek Landy and lots of other great authors.
Have you ever been to a book festival? If you get the chance, do go! It's most inspirational. Now, back to work on Amy 5!
And don't forget to enter the Young Editor Competition before the end of October and you could be helping me with my plot dilemmas very soon!
Best, SarahXXX

My Young Editor - Kate

My lastest blog for Girls Heart Books

Back in 2008 when I started working on the book which became Ask Amy Green: Boy Trouble, I had a dilemma. My main character, Amy was and still is thirteen (it’s been a long, dramatic year for Amy!), but it had been a long time since I was a teen. Maybe things had changed, moved on. Maybe girls weren’t as boy, fashion and friend obsessed as I had been at thirteen. I decided that before I went any further I needed to find out how modern teens thought, and most importantly felt about everything. Which is where Kate came in.

Kate was in my son’s class at the time – 6th class at Glenageary/Killiney National School – and was and still is a huge reader. She is smart, funny and chatty, and I asked her to gather some friends - Emma, Sinead and Isobel - and meet me in a coffee shop to talk all things teen. It was wonderfully interesting and informative, and I came away knowing for sure that although, yes, a lot of things had changed for girls since I was a teen, a lot of things were exactly the same. A lot of the hopes, dreams, aspirations, fears and worries sounded so familiar I could almost taste them.

It was both helpful and inspirational – they are such great girls! And it made me realise how cool Irish teenagers are and how much I wanted to write for them, give them the kind of books they deserved: funny, smart, immersive books set in Dublin. Most of the books Irish teens read are set in the US or England. We are a small country of four million people (smaller than Birmingham!) and this year I’m delighted to report that this year many other new Irish authors have started to write books for teens set in Ireland.

Above is a picture of Kate and Emma and if you’d like to find out more about them check out my Amy Green Fanzine here.

Kate is now sixteen and is heading towards important exams, so I’m looking for some new young editors. She’ll always be part of the Amy Green team of course, I couldn’t do it without her!

So I’m holding a competition to find some new young editors in September – when the new Amy Green book, Love and Other Drama-Ramas is out – I’ll put the details up on the Girls Heart Books site, so watch this space!

Hot off the press - the cover of Amy Green 4: Love and Other Drama-Rama

Hot off the press - here's the cover of the brand new Ask Amy Green - out in September - hope you like it!
And don't forget you can find other Amy Green fans on Facebook - www.facebook.com/askamygreen - check it out! And stay tuned for more news in early September.

Best,
SarahXXX

The 21 Books I'm Taking On My Summer Holidays!

Summer Holiday Reading

This is the pile of books I’m taking on my summer holidays, whittled down from a much larger selection. I’ve been collecting them for months and I can’t wait to get stuck in. The best popular fiction, a Patrick Ness short story collection I’ve been meaning to read for ages, some fab sounding teen fiction that’s coming out in the autumn, some non fiction, including Moneyball, about baseball (I love good sports books and films), and a couple of research books for my next adult novel and Ask Amy Green book, which is called Dancing Daze and will be out in 2012.

The problem is, I only have three weeks to read all these books! But I love having choice. Sometimes I’m not in the mood for anything too heavy, other times I want to get my teeth into something a bit more challenging (which is when I’ll pick up one of the teen books!). Different books for different moods.

My idea of a blissful holiday is this: quiet beach, sitting in the shade, reading while my children play in the sand or sail.

What books have you packed?

Yours in writing (and reading!),

Sarah XXX

I’m off to West Cork for most of July, so see you in August. Have a great month, hope you too get some good reading time in.

New Amy Green Covers - Italian and American

These lovely covers are the Italian and American versions of the first Ask Amy Green book, Boy Trouble. There is also a Polish edition I will post a pic of soon - aren't they lovely? Very different.

And stay tuned for news on the brand new UK and Irish covers.

Best, Sarah X

The Best Things About Being a Writer Part 2

Hi everyone,

This is a blog I did for Girls Heart Books - http://girlsheartbooks.com
Hope you like it!

So far in the best things about being a writer list we’ve had:

1/ You can write in your pjs.

2/ The research – writers get to travel and meet fascinating people and elephants (along with their glittery poo!).

Number 3/ is:

Ta, da! The readers. One of the best things about being a writer is definitely having readers. Especially readers who send lovely cards, emails and letters. The other day I got my first email from an Italian reader. Unfortunately I don’t read Italian so I had to get my friend, Tanya to translate it, but it was still thrilling.

I also get to meet lots of readers at festivals (like the one I was just at in Listowel) and school events which is also brilliant. More than anything else, us writers want readers, lots and lots of them! We’re quite a needy little bunch really.

4/ You can stare into space and daydream and imagine strange and wonderful things and scribble away in a notebook and ask really odd questions and be incredibly nosey and curious and no one will think you’re mad.

5/ Best of all you get to invent characters and give them friends and families and complicated lives. You get to create a whole world for them – like your own personal soap opera or drama. And there’s nothing as much fun in the whole entire world. Especially if you love your characters (and I do love my own characters, Amy and Clover very, very muchly – I’d want to, the amount of time I spend with them!).

So if like me you’re a huge and passionate reader, there is no better or more exciting job in the world.

On the flip side – The Worst Things About Being a Writer

1/ Numb bumb – from sitting at your desk all day.

2/ It can be lonely if you are a sociable soul like me.

3/ It gives you less time to read and watch Glee and Grey’s Anatomy.

Please do add to the list if you can think of any, Girls Heart Books blogging team!

For me, that’s pretty much it – nope, can’t think of any more negatives. So in short, be a writer, it diamond rocks!

Stay tuned for the next blog – about my writing uniform – including incriminating photographs!

Yours in books,

Sarah XXX

The Best Things About Being A Writer Pt 1

This is the blog I did for www.girlsheartbooks.com - a brand new blog for girl readers - check it out! Other authors involved include Cathy Cassidy, Judi Curtin and Cathy Hopkins.
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When I visit schools there are three questions I’m always asked:
1/ How much money do you make?
2/ Where do you get your ideas?
3/ What’s the best thing about being a writer?
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So I thought I’d start with the third question first – and if you stay tuned I’ll add to it and answer the other questions in my next blog.
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So here you go – The Best Things About Being A Writer Part 1 – Ta, Da! . . .
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1/ You can work in your pyjamas, or ancient tracky bottoms or a giant pink bunny suit – whatever takes your fancy. The postman may get a shock if you answer the door a bunny suit however!
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2/ Research
Writers get to travel to interesting places to do research. It’s a great excuse to explore the world. Recently I’ve been to Paris, New York, Miami and Budapest to research locations for the Ask Amy Green books. Summer Secrets is set partly in Miami, Bridesmaid Blitz in Paris, and Budapest and New York will feature in future books.
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You also get to meet really interesting people, like ballerinas, fashion designers, surgeons and even zoo keepers.
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Last year I spent a wonderful day with one of the elephant keepers in Dublin Zoo. She showed me the industrial looking kitchen where they prepare the elephants’ food, the large beds of sand and straw where they sleep, the hidey holes where the keepers put the elephants’ food to make eating more fun for them.
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But my favourite bit was the glittery poo discovery. Did you know that in order to track the elephants’ nutrition, they have to test their poo every morning? And to do this they have to mark each elephant’s poo in some way – so they put glitter into their food. Yep, glitter! So each great big dollop of elephant poo sparkles in a very individual way – red, silver, gold, green, blue. Strange but true.
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Plus their trunks feel like coral, all rough and bone-like – I was amazed, I expected them to feel warm and leathery.
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And that’s what I love about research – you discover the most weird and wonderful things that really can make your books come alive.
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Stay tuned for more in my next blog on 5th June.
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Yours in books,

Sarah XXX