Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Jan 30, 2012, 3:30 am
When you see the first pictures for one of your stories, it's always an amazing moment.  One minute you have words on a page, and the next, someone else has brought them to a life in full colour.  This is the moment, for me, that a book is really born. I've been itching to talk about Captain Be...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Oct 31, 2011, 12:52 pm
On All Hallows Eve, Hallowe'en - or in the Celtic way, Samhain, I make a little compost and sow a few seeds for the soul.  Samhain is the end of the Celtic year, the beginning of winter, a time to reflect and consider, a time to slough off old, unwanted things and plant new hopes which will start t...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Oct 10, 2011, 8:13 am
Today I'm with Vivienne over on the wonderful Serendipity Reviews, talking about my perfect fantasy dinner party (with lots of literary guests and a few eccentric choices).  There's also a fantasy menu which will make your mouth water.  Do go over and visit, and tell us whether you agree with my...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Oct 6, 2011, 6:46 am
National Poetry Day is with us again, so I thought I'd give you one of my own poems to celebrate.  Enjoy! Child of Mine You and I, we lived in our enclosed world of earth-shattering cries, and lullabies sung out of love and memory. Each living inch of you was miracle, your salt-stained smile a ...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Sep 25, 2011, 9:23 am
Fellow Orion author James Dawson (Hollow Pike is coming from Indigo/Orion in Feb 2012) has an excellent post about diversity in children's books over at Tall Tales and Short Stories, which ties in nicely with my own post about the gay YA debate on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure yesterday.  Lots and ...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Sep 5, 2011, 9:56 am
I was delighted to be nominated as one of the Top 10 Children's Literature Blogs in the UK last week. I wasn't so sure about being the Number 5 Influencer of Kidlit on Twitter, though.  That particular title made me feel I should be wearing leather, and carrying a cosh to bludgeon people into r...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Aug 9, 2011, 2:25 am
This is usually a writing blog. A blog about childrens books and myths and all that.  Usually, I say. But sometimes I make statements about stuff I feel strongly about.  This is one of those.  Feel free to look away if that sort of thing upsets you. Last night I sat and watched as parts of  Lon...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Aug 4, 2011, 3:00 am
I first encountered Mary Hoffman's David back in February this year, when Mary was kind enough to send me a very early proof.  Last year I 'met' the man himself, in sculptural form, when I visited Florence. To me at that time he was, though utterly beautiful and mesmerising to look at, still only...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Aug 2, 2011, 1:50 pm
 Clementine and Mungo by Sarah Dyer (Bloomsbury 2004) You may have noticed I haven't been here much lately.  I know, I know, you've missed me and all that.  It's been a manic summer so far, what with all that ABBA Litfest shenanigans going on, and other stuff as well.  There's also been ...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Jul 19, 2011, 8:16 am
You can still win 18 fantastic books in my Awfully Big Blog Adventure Online Litfest competition! But only just, as entries close at 10pm (UK time) tomorrow, 20th July.  All you have to do is to leave the name of your favourite god, goddess, hero or heroine (from any pantheon) in the comments sect...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Jul 9, 2011, 11:33 am
ABBAlitfest opened for business this morning at 9.30am and wow! What a programme it's been so far.  Blogs on writing, videos--and some fantastic giveaways and competitions.  Even Conal MacGregor is featuring! And the equally decorative (am I allowed to say that?), but just slightly younger, Tyger...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Jul 8, 2011, 8:31 am
To kick off the fab festival weekend, here I am over at Serendipity Reviews, talking to the lovely @Serendipity_Viv from Twitter and the blogosphere about ABBAlitfest--and what I'm going to do when it's all over! Serendipity Reviews: The ABBA Online Literary Festival - Interview with Lucy Coats
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Jul 5, 2011, 12:07 pm
Gillian Philip's faery warrior, Conal MacGregor--what a treat that man is to talk to!  And today I'm sharing him with all of you, because I'm generous like that....  A little while ago, I was lucky enough to be given the very first sneak preview of Gillian's new novel, Bloodstone--the second in h...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Jun 20, 2011, 5:23 am
...RUN ENTIRELY BY CHILDREN'S AUTHORS! If you'd like to see what all the excitement is about, please click on AN AWFULLY BIG BLOG ADVENTURE.  I'll be there on 9th July with a BRAND NEW VIDEO. But that's all I'm saying for now...!
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Jun 14, 2011, 1:21 pm
I've been away for a while.  Thinking.  Dreaming. Playing with words.   But I've chosen to come back today and write about my personal reaction to a difficult and emotive subject which polarises opinion.  You'll probably know what I'm talking about.  Terry Pratchett's BBC documentary, Choosi...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Apr 29, 2011, 7:00 am
This week, with the whole country covered in bunting and Union Jacks (how kind of everyone to decorate for my birthday), I celebrate reaching my half-century.  As a change from the clangour of royal wedding bells and revelations, here's a small poetic insight into how it feels to me.... Medita...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Apr 27, 2011, 3:00 am
One thing I forgot to tell you about in yesterday's Buckingham Palace story was the Royal Loos.  No good writer or journalist-to-be could ever resist a sneaky peek into the smallest rooms in the palace--I was no exception.  They are positively...well...regal, dear readers.  Also commodi...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Apr 26, 2011, 4:00 am
I left you back in 1981, on tenterhooks to find out What Happened Next in this exclusive tale of royal revelries at Buckingham Palace, where we were about to enter the realms of Disaster Number Two.  The Curtsey to The Queen at the top of that huge curving sweep of red-carpeted stairs... Cu...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Apr 25, 2011, 4:30 am
Ooh! Is Scribble City Central going to reveal secret information about Kate's Dress? Or The Honeymoon Location? Or what happened on William's Stag Night? Well, no...not exactly. Because I'm not talking about THIS Royal Wedding.  I'm talking about the one on 29th July 1981.  The one where Wi...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Apr 19, 2011, 6:17 am
Gillian Philip writes like a dream.  Whether she's turning her hand to a fantasy Scotland where exiled Sithe faeries roam the land or, as here, a modern YA crime novel with a challenging subject, she's a winner from any reader's point of view. I knew how The Opposite of Amber was going to end fro...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Apr 6, 2011, 3:30 am
I'm delighted to be kicking off the blog tour to celebrate yesterday's launch of the submissions process for Undiscovered Voices 2012, which will be published next year.  In case you don't know about it yet, Undiscovered Voices is the very successful joint publishing project between SCBWI ...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Apr 3, 2011, 2:56 pm
Today is Mothering Sunday, so here's a small poetic tribute to my own mum.  Beacon Come walk with me. Let's breach the bridge of years, pluck each shaped stone of life to hurl at stars or hold as memory.... When I was small the smell of you was safety. The shape of your hands-- scarred with blood...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Mar 14, 2011, 4:30 am
"Please can someone start telling the truth?" That's the question I was asked by Paula Davies, chair of the Friends of Roade Library in Northamptonshire, one recent Friday afternoon. Well, yes, Paula. I will. Because I want to save Roade Library and all the other libraries under threat as much as...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Mar 11, 2011, 12:46 pm
I've whirled and twirled my magic pieces of paper in the little red Nis hat, and these are the lucky winners who emerged triumphant: .......DRUMROLL......The blog comment copies go to: pressed posies and Swan Artworks The Twitter RT copies go to: @BethKemp and @storylaura (from the good ol' USA)...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Mar 11, 2011, 4:54 am
Just a reminder that today is positively your LAST CHANCE to enter the competition to win 4 lovely copies of WEST OF THE MOON BY KATHERINE LANGRISH. CLICK HERE AND LEAVE COMMENTS ON THE ORIGINAL GIVEAWAY POST TO ENTER! You have till 5pm GMT TODAY!
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Mar 5, 2011, 10:35 am
So what's a complementary World Book Night?  Well, it all started with the ineffably Crabbit Nicola Morgan, who made the very fair point that giving away a million free books wasn't necessarily the best thing for struggling independent booksellers, and that perhaps there was Another Way which migh...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Mar 4, 2011, 3:30 am
To celebrate its Kindle publication day, those kind people at Harper Collins Children's Books have sent me 4 whole paperback copies of Katherine Langrish's wonderful WEST OF THE MOON (see my glowing review in the post below) to give away.  4 BOOKS = 4 WINNERSSo what do you have to do?  It's ve...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Mar 1, 2011, 3:30 am
I'm delighted to be reviewing Katherine Langrish's West of the Moon on the third stop of a massive blog tour to celebrate its new incarnation as one gorgeous omnibus volume.  Equally exciting, the publishers have agreed to a FANTASTIC BOOK GIVEAWAY COMPETITION this Friday (4th March), so do c...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Feb 24, 2011, 5:16 am
I don't know why, but I've had a big timelag in my reading of Marcus Sedgwick.  I started well with The Book of Dead Days and Dark Flight Down, both of which I loved, but somehow, after that, I missed out for a long while.  And then, last November, I met Marcus at the SCBWI UK conference, where h...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Feb 21, 2011, 11:57 am
I'd better come clean here.  I'm not a great fan of classic space science fiction.  It doesn't speak to my heart, somehow--maybe I just haven't tried hard enough to love it as much as I do high fantasy.  So why have I chosen to review WE, whose back cover blurb starts with the very sci-fi senten...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Feb 15, 2011, 6:51 am
I am (cautiously) delighted to tell you that Northamptonshire County Council has just announced that they have reversed their decision on library cuts, and that 'no library will close at this point'.  The Chronicle and Echo reported that all Northamptonshire Libraries (including Roade) are 'expec...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Feb 11, 2011, 3:23 pm
I'm delighted that Benedicte Page the Guardian Books editor has picked up my Awfully Big Blog Adventure Amis piece--you can read what the Graun say (and all the comments)  HERETHE DAILY TELEGRAPH, THE HUFFINGTON POST (USA) and THE INDEPENDENT have also published the story.  I'm feeling like...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Feb 9, 2011, 10:59 am
Today I'm over on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure giving literati novelist Martin Amis a b*ll*cking for his quite unnecessary onslaught on children's writing.  Lots of commenting going on from the lovely kidlit community, but no response from Amis (not that I expected one).  Please do go over and se...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Feb 5, 2011, 12:46 pm
Roade Sign copyright James Rudd www.AboutMyArea.co.uk/nn12The library at Roade was crammed as I arrived.  Simply jammed with wall-to-wall people--all ages from babies in arms to the very elderly.  They were all determined to save their library from closure, to make their voices heard, and to giv...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Feb 5, 2011, 11:38 am
Here's the link to the #savelibraries piece on BBC Radio Northampton's Drivetime.  You can find it at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p00d9bbz/Helen_Blaby_04_02_2011  You can find my interview at 51.10m  Only 6 more days to listen! 
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Feb 4, 2011, 7:19 am
Tomorrow (5th February) is a day of nationwide protests, read-ins and author events against the proposed cuts to our UK libraries (400+ under threat at the last count).  I'll be at Roade Library in Northamptonshire from 10.30 to 1.30pm, with another children's author, the lovely Julia Jarman. ...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Jan 31, 2011, 1:41 pm
Here I am on  @TabWrite's excellent bookie blog Tall Tales and Short Stories, talking about how to use all the amazing Myths and Legends there are out there to inspire your own writing.  Do go and have a read! tall tales & short stories: MYTHS AND LEGEND: Lucy Coats' Guide to Using Myths and Leg...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Jan 25, 2011, 4:00 am
The British Books Challenge 2011 is up and running--and I'm late to the January party.  So, with no further ado, here's Scribble City Central's first review of the year, together with a little 'added extra'. To be honest, when I first heard about it, I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Curtis...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Jan 7, 2011, 5:40 am
In the long-ago and far-off days when I was editor of the new and shiny Banana Books series for Heinemann, I met a tall countryman with a shock of greyish hair, a twinkly eye and a tweedy jacket.  I liked him at once, and he, being fond of anagrams, christened me the Lacy Scout, which is how he ad...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Jan 3, 2011, 9:01 am
Happy New Year, Lovely Blog Readers.  It's 2011, and I've been peering into my scrying glass and my crystal ball to bring you Scribble City Central's Predictions for the Writing Year. Some of them may be mildly eccentric--but then you wouldn't expect anything else, would you? Here goes... Writi...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Dec 23, 2010, 4:00 am
A Happy Christmas to all my Lovely Readers both old and new.  Thank you for sticking with me this year, for reading and commenting on my mad and eccentric posts in such a lively and informed way, for all the support you have given this blog by voting for it in the Author Blog Awards, and for gene...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Dec 7, 2010, 9:12 am
Some of you may already read The Bookette's blog.  If you don't I'm delighted to introduce you. Becky, meet Scribble City Central--Scribble City Central meet Becky.  See what a polite blog I run! Here are three crucial Bookette facts: She's a UK school librarian (librarians are FAB!)She's addi...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Dec 3, 2010, 11:55 am
'Who Uses Libraries?', asks Keren David in today's excellent blogpost over on Almost True.  And then she gives a hauntingly all-encompassing list which I urge you to read for yourselves.  In case you hadn't heard or noticed, the UK's libraries are under threat again from cuts.  As Keren says, '...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Dec 2, 2010, 5:16 am
This is what I said about Part 4 at the end of Part 3.... "It will involve the first of the social networking bits of the 'selling-your-books-and-your- author-self' platform. I know this will be terrifying for a lot of people—and I should warn you now, it will eat your soul if you let it! Mwahahah...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Dec 1, 2010, 9:39 am
Today I'm joining a big BlogSplash experiment and helping Talli Roland's brilliant new debut novel THE HATING GAME hit the Kindle bestseller list at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk by spreading the word to all my lovely Scribble City Central readers. Even a few sales in a short period of time on Amaz...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Nov 25, 2010, 9:02 am
Someone took a couple of tiny videos of me answering questions at the recent Bath Festival of Children's Literature.  I thought I'd do a small experimental upload to YouTube.  It seems to have worked.  So here I am talking about how long it takes me to write a book, and giving some tips on how to...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Nov 22, 2010, 4:00 am
Since I interviewed Seth MacGregor's 'Boss', Gillian Philip, on Scribble City Central back in July, Seth has taken an unsuspecting world by storm.  I described the first part of Seth's memoirs, Firebrand (published by Strident and now in its second printing), as 'rare, new and infinitely excit...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Nov 17, 2010, 1:18 pm
I promised you secret London meetings at the end of my last post (and yes, I know this is a day late and I've kept you all in horrible suspense.  Sorry.  I was busy doing Noble Things.  I might even tell you about those too later in the month). Anyway, back to those meetings.... First, there...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Nov 14, 2010, 1:26 pm
You'll naturally want to know about the canapes and fizz first, before we get down to the next part of this selling business.  Well, I have to say, the canapes were a disappointment.  There weren't any, due to a canape cock-up of major proportions.  However, there were balloons. Magnificent ball...
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Lucy C. posted an article on Scribble City Central--Dispatches From the Field of Writing - Nov 13, 2010, 1:15 pm
Scary things, panels.  They make you stand up and talk about stuff as if you're an expert.  And you have to exude some kind of zen calm while you're doing it, and try not to sound like an idiot.  Anyway, today I am at the 10th SCBWI UK conference in a dampish Winchester.  And I talked about how...
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