New American Literary Agent

By Allan | Friday, 20 September 2013 at 10:30
Category: Writing

Here’s some potentially very good news.

I have just signed with a California-based Literary Agency. This is the first time I have had representation in America, and I’m really excited about it.

It all started when my collaborator and friend, illustrator Gary Chalk started tweeting with an American blogger @BookaliciousPam. Some years back, when The Faerie Path and Warrior Princess books first came out, Pam wrote glowing reviews of both series. Gary didn’t know anything about this, and it was only when he tweeted that he would be in California for a few days this September, that Pam told him she was now a literary agent and asked if he’d like to meet up for lunch. He said he would. Now, Gary and I have been coming up with new book series ideas for some time without managing to get any UK publishers interested, so lunch with an American agent seemed like a very good idea.

They met, lunched and Gary signed up with Pam’s Agency: Foreword Literary. Meanwhile, Pam emailed me and asked if I’d like to Skype with her to talk over the possibility of me signing with her as well. I said yes.

I had to get up at 6.30am because of the time-zone difference (California is 8 hours behind the UK). It was 11pm in San Jose, and Pam was there in PJs, with a glass of wine and a black kitten called Loki God of Mischief. We had a really good talk, and I signed up with Foreword Literary the same morning. You’ll find a link to their Website on the Home Page, if you’d like to check them out.

Gary and I have already given Pam a few of our ideas, and she’s very hopeful that we’ll get something rolling very soon.

Watch this space, as they say!

I’m still reading through The Faerie Path books in order to get my creative head in the right place to plot out my proposed final short story tying up all the loose ends of Tania’s adventures. Fingers crossed that I actually get the time to write it!

New Home and Things

By Allan | Friday, 6 September 2013 at 09:59
Category: Writing

hello there
first of all, apologies for not writing anything here for a while - I got caught up with other things and kept putting it off and off. In fact it was Claudia who said - hey, you haven’t written anything for months. That spurred me on.

In my defence we have also just moved home. If any of you have moved home, you will know how much time that all takes. Claudia and I now have a very nice house in Kent, and I have a brand new study in which I can do my writing. The picture shows my desk and a few of my book shelves and book cases - there are plenty more - and I still have to sort out all my books, which got randomly shoved onto shelves shortly after the move, just to get them out of the cardboard boxes.

Anyway - most of my time has been spent recently on my new spy-boy series for the UK - Codename Quicksilver. I think the books worked really well and I’m very pleased with them.

My other series, The Six Crowns, which I co-wrote with illustrator Gary Chalk is still being published in America - book five of the series: Sargasso Skies, was released in July. Reviewers are saying the series is like Redwall meets The Lord of the Rings - which is great! That was pretty much the idea we were going for when we came up with the series.

Some of you will remember that I promised to write a short story to be posted on this blog - a Faerie Path story that would tie up all the loose ends left at the end of book 6. Well, I’m still hoping to get that done all these months later. The real problem is finding the time to write something just for love - I know a lot of you were really looking forward to this story a while back - and hopefully you still are. First of all, I’m going to re-read the entire Faerie Path series so I can get myself back into that world, then I’m really hoping to get writing  - very soon, if all goes according to plan.

I’ll keep you updated more regularly now, I promise.

My new Writing Room

My new Writing Room