I adored Roald Dahl's books when I was younger. I also had most them on audio tape, too. I had to fastforward the musical introduction to 'The Witches' because it freaked me out too much; I used to wish I was called Matilda; I kept an eye out for friendly giants walking the streets at night; and I loved the version of Ian Holmes reading 'Boy.' Magical stuff. Happy birthday, Roald!
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In other news:
Yesterday my editor sent me a preliminary sketch for the front cover of 'Weird Things.' It's looking pretty damn good. Obviously, I can't show it to you yet, so you're going to have to take my word for it. ;) Booksellers, you still have until the 30th September to send in your very own 'Weird things customer say...' - info on that is over here.
I've had some very lovely bookshop visits from blog/twitter people over the past week - from not only the lovely people of London [including John, who was running away from his fiancee for entering them for 'Don't Tell The Bride,' and who bought a load of Biggles books, Dickon, who came for nostalgia in with the Puffins, and Catherine who brought cookies], but also from further afield: two lovely blog readers from Georgia, USA, Mindy's husband over from Australia, and Mavis_Cruel from Northern Ireland, who made me blush to the extreme by bringing me a bunch of flowers. Thanks,guys!
I'm also considering hiring Mark Billingham as my PR person: he appears to be acting out some of my 'Weird Things' on his current book tour.
Re. other writing: I'm editing the second half of my short story collection 'The Aeroplane Girl', which is most fun, and I got the proof through for 'Fringe', a short story of mine that has been illustrated and is to be published in this year's edition of Short FICTION, out in November.
So, for now, I will bid you all farewell. I'll be back soon with more illustration news etc, and some more author interviews, too [a list of the forthcoming ones are over on the left hand column. You've also still got time to win a copy of Andrew Kaufman's book, 'The Tiny Wife' by clicking here].
In the mean time, I leave you with this:
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Thank you for allowing me to live my life vicariously through you. I used to live in London and work in bookselling - these days I am living on the other side of the world, on working the dark side (PR). Look forward to the book; love your tweets. :-)
ReplyDeleteI love Roald Dahl and I'm so glad you reminded me that's it's his "day."
ReplyDeleteI too used to have all the Roald Dahl book on tape - the most memorable being revolting rhymes: “The small girl smiles, one eyelid flickers. She draws a pistol from her knickers. She aims it at the creature’s head, and BANG! BANG! BANG! She shoots him… dead.” Pure brilliance - as a kid I was captivated.
ReplyDeleteHuge congratulations again on having Weird Things published - I will most definitely be ordering a copy and have a feeling I may be buying it for friends and family as a Christmas present! Best of luck with your short stories too Jen xx