My YA novel OTOLI has been chosen as the stimulus for a new writing competition created by Movellas. They are creating a high profile media campaign for the competition which is backed by the charity Bullying UK, Pneuma Springs, Childline and others so please share this link with your friends, family and schools in any way you can via social media. The competition is open today (16th May) until 8th July 2012 so you have plenty of time to get your thinking caps on. Together we can all help combat the awful thing that bullying really is, in all its forms. There are super prizes to be won and runners up will receive a signed copy of the OTOLI paperback. Enter the competition and keep an eye out for updates on the Movellas web page here: 'Both Sides Of The Story' - Movellas writing competition

A message for all YA Kindle Readers. My publisher is making my young adult novel OTOLI available to download for absolutely nothing from the Amazon Kindle Store on the12th May and 16th May to celebrate the book's inclusion in 'The People's Book Prize' Spring 2012 collection. Please do enjoy this opportunity to get the book for free on e-Book during both these periods. I hope you enjoy reading the book and it's messages too. If you like what you read please leave a review and also stop by at the 'The People's Book Prize' web site and register a vote for the book too. They all count!

Hi all,

Just a very quick post to mention that my second YA novel 'The Assembly Room' has been approved for publishing by my publisher, Pneuma Springs. Cover artwork is currently being worked on at the moment and my final manuscript proof read and edit has also been carried out so the manuscript will be off to the formatting department. Once the artwork is finalised I'll put up a cover reveal and some tasters in all my usual places. All busy, busy as ever and that's just the writing part of my life!

I recently did an interview with the lovely Megan Mcdade who is a Northern Ireland YA book blogger. Megan runs the 'Reading Away The Days' blog. You can read my interview with Megan here; Reading Away The Days author Interview . Enjoy!

I got a notification earlier this morning from my publisher that my Young Adult novel OTOLI has been entered in to The People's Book Prize children’s category for Spring 2012. This actually translates to the period 1st March to 20th May 2012, so just under 3 months for it to acquire votes from the reading public. The book is of course going to be up against many in the same category since it's a competition worthy of some note.

However, just the fact that the book is there to compete is something that really excites me as a writer. I hope that the many that have read and enjoyed OTOLI feel compelled enough to put a vote in.

The book has received some really great reviews to date and nothing would make me more proud as a writer than to see it make a short-list. If you have read OTOLI and liked it please do take a couple of minutes out to register a vote for the book at the web site page here - The People's Book Prize OTOLI page

You now have the chance to win one of three paperback copies of OTOLI that are being given away in a raffle competition by my publisher. Simply check out the competion entry web link to find out more details and enter the draw. The competition will run 1st - 31st March 2012. Good luck and if you win, HAPPY READING!

As per the competition terms, the winner for each copy of the book will be notified via e-mail or telephone by Spring Leaf Books within 14 days of the closing date.

Enter the competition here

The lovely team at YABook Reads have voted my Young Adult novel OTOLI in their current all time TOP TEN YA awareness reads. It's a great honour as a writer for anyone to give you such an accolade and I'm very happy to be included alongside other authors such as Ellen Hopkins, Laurie Halse Anderson and John Green. Many thanks to Kelly and the rest of the team at YABook Reads!

Perhaps that’s why we keep coming. We are thankful that we will not be relegated to anonymous graves when we die, that our lives can be acknowledged with a gravestone. But do we still visit out of fear? Is it the fear of leaving behind merely a name or the fear of disintegrating into nothing with no legacy for future generations? The Paupers’ Graveyard tells of cruelty and discrimination, but it also mutters of the transience and insignificance of our existence.

In history lessons at school, children learn about the Victorian way of life; the distinction between the classes, the disposability of the workers. But they take comfort in the knowledge that such harshness is in the past. That was an era in a text- book or on the internet; it does little to touch the real life of the scholars. So dedicated pupils come to the Paupers’ Graveyard to get a taste of a previous life and to pay their respects. Then comes the shock. The last burial was in 1953 – just over fifty years ago and therefore not too long ago to be ancient history. As the children realise that their grandparents may well have been around in 1953, they begin to question the compassion of our modern, civilised society.

Hope you learnt something new!

Okay so here is the first of the posts I mentioned in the previous entry on the blog. This one is definitely worth gracing the new blog. Hope you like it.

Here is something I did as part of creative writing assignment recently. Enjoy a little bit a local history from my part of the world. My Springer Spaniel, Chester, also gets to be famous here for the first time as well. I remember it being very cold and miserable that Sunday morning!

Feel free to share this with anyone you like as long as it's linked back to this post here. Thanks.

THE PAUPERS’ GRAVEYARD

On the edge of Stowmarket, in an area claimed by the Parish of Onehouse, lies a field left to defend itself against the pests of nature: the nettles, the thistles and hopelessly entwined brambles. It is enclosed at three sides by a small ditch, and on the third by conifers marking the end of an especially large garden. The ditch leads to a pool of water too ugly to be called a pond; instead the local children have named it ‘Shrek’s Swamp.’

Yet the place is rarely deserted. Other than in the dead of night, you will see someone there. They could be dog walkers, hikers, groups of older children on a dare at Hallowe’en, visitors from overseas carrying flowers. For it is not the scenery that is the pull – it is the history.

As you walk around the track, you know that less than one foot beneath you will be the remains of a woman or child buried here after dying in some horrendous manner at the ‘Poor House’, a quarter of a mile away. You wonder whether there is much left, how far will the quick lime have disintegrated those bones and whether the straw-like blankets in which the corpse was swaddled have survived longer.

There were small wooden crosses each marked with a number engraved onto a brass plaque but, over the years, these have rotted away or been taken as trophies. One remains as a memorial, with the salvaged plaques. But they stopped marking at one hundred. After that, a number was written in chalk to be washed away at the first drop of rain.