Welcome to my site!

I write books for all ages, for young children to teenage and adults. I have also written a book on writing - Writing for Children - for both aspiring and newly published authors.

While I spend quite a lot of time visiting libraries, schools and festivals talking about my books and running creative writing workshops, I do manage to find time to write, too!

Latest News:

January 2010

As the new year gets underway I am back at my desk looking at my diary for the year. I am looking forward to quite a few things and you can find out more details on events I am booked for on my events page.

SPIDER is on the shortlist for the RED BOOK AWARDS which are awarded at end of January . The RED stands for Read Enjoy Debate. Find out more about this and about the other great books on the shortlist on my Teens and Young Adult page. Spider is also on the longlist for the Catalyst Book Award and the Lancashire book award.

DEAD BOY TALKING is my latest book for the same readership. It is due for publication in May 2010 – not too long now. Come back soon for more on this.

I am especially looking forward to tutoring one of the Arvon Foundation residential writing courses in Inverness-shire at Moniack Mhor writing for children in late June 2010, with my good friend Cathy MacPhail.

New Year – new blog

I have a new blog about writing and books and things, so do drop by. It is called BOOKWORDS at writingthebookwords.blogspot.com

Wishing you a Happy New Year in 2010

I am looking forward to the New Year and I have all sorts of exciting things planned. I will be updating the information on my EVENTS page in the next few days and my picture gallery will also be getting a facelift with lots of new photos and a chance to see work done by children in some of the schools I ha cover -writing ve visited.

In the meantime you might like to have a look at my guest blog on farmlanebooks blog where there is also a GIVEAWAY of 2 copies of my book Writing For Children. but you have to leave a comment before 5th January to be entered into the draw.

And why not drop into an Awfully Big Blog Adventure varied thoughts each day from the SAS (Scattered Authors Society) members. I will be blogging every couple of weeks, but here is my latest pre-Christmas blog. – Ghosts on the Street.