It has been a good summer, work-wise. I’ve been involved in some lovely bookish events, including Marr College’s first Book Festival and The Big Book Show at the Mitchell Library.

It was a real thrill to be invited to Arran’s Wee Mac Book Festival, Falkirk High’s Literacy Celebration event, Gryffe Valley Book Festival and the Summer Reading Challenge launch event at Paisley Central Library too!  I attended some lovely bookish social events, like the Children’s Publishing Picnic, and did lots of school events, both in-person and virtual. I even did my first zoom to Australia in June!

The new term has got off to an excellent start. I’ve been doing a six-week block of creative writing sessions with a brilliant group of young writers at the Ginger Cat Bookshop.  Joyously, in September I was invited to the opening of two gorgeous new school libraries, at King’s Park Primary in Glasgow and King’s Oak Primary in Greenock.

Being a children’s author  really is the best job in the world and it has also been a lovely distraction from some tricky real-life issues. My dad is struggling now with dementia, although he’s pretty upbeat most of the time and is very happy to chat about Morrison shelters and the Clydebank Blitz. And I’ve had my own health issue, as a tiny, innocuous looking mole under my lip turned out to be another melanoma. I had a wide local excision in August and went to Birmingham  NEC two days later to sign copies of The Titanic Detective Agency at White Star Heritage’s excellent Titanic exhibition.

I was at the exhibition for the whole weekend and while I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to chat about Titanic to other enthusiasts, I felt very self-conscious about the state of my face!  Thankfully, my lip is healing nicely now, I’m crossing my fingers I won’t need more surgery and feel enormously grateful to the NHS staff for their care and kindness.

May was an exciting and slightly chaotic month!  Ice Cream Boy came out with Floris Books on the 16th. The virtual blog tour, organised by the fabulous Kelly Lacey, really added to the buzz and Ice Cream Boy got some thoughtful and detailed early reviews. Huge thanks to Kelly and to all the lovely bloggers who joined the tour.

The week before Ice Cream Boy’s launch,  I managed inadvertently to get myself in a social media spat with Matt Lucas, which got so out of hand it led to me being interviewed on Radio 5 Live and appearing in an article in the Independent newspaper.

The amount of attention it got felt a little overwhelming but I am glad my tweet started a very necessary conversation. The support from other children’s authors was amazing. Having said that, I’m not holding my breath that anything will change as a result.

A lot was said on social media during that week about writing quality and ghost writers, but I wasn’t actually complaining about the fact so many celebrities are creating children’s books. I was just feeling frustrated at the privilege of shelf space and marketing celebrity authors are offered. It isn’t a level playing field and to be honest, there have been times I’ve felt like my own books are so under the radar that maybe I should consider throwing in the towel.

But like Matt Lucas, I’ve taken time to reflect. Fame isn’t something I’d relish. Wealth would be nice, and my bills need to be paid, but most of my income as an author comes from visiting schools and libraries and that’s my favourite part of the job.  I’ve spent almost my entire working life encouraging young children to love stories and as a children’s author, inspiring kids to read and write for pleasure is still my main motivation. I know how lucky I am to be doing a job I love.

Ice Cream Boy’s launch was on the 30th and I am very grateful to everyone at Floris and to the staff at Waterstones Braehead for organising such a lovely event. There was ice cream and cake and lots of people came, which is always a big relief!

Now I just have to cross my fingers and hope that readers will enjoy Ice Cream Boy. Hopefully the weather will warm up and and an ice cream themed book will seem the perfect beach read this summer.