“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. ' - Rumi

Lottie wishes everyone a good weekend.

I wanted a tiny, scruffy meadow instead of a lawn, so bluebells, dandelions, speedwells and bittercress are blooming amid long grass. Hopefully other wildflowers later. (It looks like it's run wild, but actual neglect always results in waist-high green alkanet and nothing else.)

Anyone might think they'd met Frances Hardinge

DELIGHTED to share this lovely news… I’m chuffed to be working with marvellous nila aye & HarperCollins Children's Books Our first book together is called ONE IN A MILLION… I hope you will all fall in love with gorgeous Debra the Zebra!! 💗🦓💗

This is Trixie, beloved cat of Henry Wriothesley whom his wife brought to keep him company when he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. She looks pissed off about it.

Stroked my daughter's head on my way to the kitchen, giving us both a sharp static shock. I said it was because of my MRI scan the other day. 'He's constructing his superhero origin story,' she said.

There's a joker near us who keeps adding different animals to the road signs on our lane.

To copyright their look, clowns can submit their likeness to the Clowns International Group where their look will be painted onto an egg. This is then kept in the Clown Egg Register in the Dalston church where Grimaldi the Clown was buried in 1837. I did not make this up.

Happy Easter you eggcellent folk. Here’s a pic of me with an ostrich egg & my mystery about a nefarious egg thief! 🪺

To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose

Unraveller by Frances Hardinge

There were 345 ballots cast for 178 nominees. Finalists got between 33 and 56 votes.

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#Glasgow2024 #HugoFinalists #Hugos

The finalists for the Lodestar Award for Best YA Book are:

Abeni’s Song by P. Djèlí Clark

Liberty’s Daughter by Naomi Kritzer

Promises Stronger than Darkness by Charlie Jane Anders

The Sinister Booksellers of Bath by Garth Nix

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I am delighted to announce that Unraveller is one of the 2024 Lodestar finalists! Many congratulations to all the other Hugo, Lodestar and Astounding shortlistees! Hope to see lots of you at Glasgow Worldcon!
glasgow2024.org/hugo-awards/20…

Not that I'm a tired publishing person or anything but I just pointed at a cup of tea my son made me and asked 'is this non-fiction?' (I meant 'decaf')

'When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.'
- C.S. Lewis

Many congratulations to Jason!
Congratulations also to all the students who received prizes, runner-up awards or commendations for their reviews and creative projects!
Many thanks to the organisers, the students, and last year's winner Ann Sei Lin ~ REBEL FIRE 🔥 ~ for introducing all our books!

The Hay Festival programme is now live!
hayfestival.com/hay-on-wye/home
I'll be taking part in the schools programme at 1pm on Friday 24th May.
#HayFestival2024

To celebrate the release of his exciting new book, Black Hole Cinema Club, the great Christopher Edge reflects on the children's books that he reckons would make great cinema!

Discover them all here on the blog: bit.ly/3VgDhDg

March shout-out to Magnolias, among the most ancient of flowering trees: up to c.95m yrs old.
They evolved long before bees did & were chiefly pollinated by beetles––thus the tough carpels & petals of their goblet-shaped flowers.
Magnolias bloom in both spring time & deep time.

Photopoem shared 8th March 2024
A sunset haul . . .

Frances Hardinge a new french review of L'île aux mensonges on Babelio : 'J'ai adoré ma lecture, un roman passionnant et captivant. L'héroïne est fabuleuse, elle m'a fait beaucoup de peine en raison de l'indifférence dont elle fait l'objet et de la diff… ift.tt/DVSOkif