Nottingham Double - Feature in Evening Post

April 28th, 2008. The Nottingham Evening Post featured an article on our two youngest authors, Alanna Irving and Catherine Old.

Alanna was interviewed by Lauren Taylor of the Evening Post in mid-April, and we have just received a copy of the resulting print article which includes a photo of Alanna, the youngest winning author, who was 14 when she wrote her contributions to 'Five Green Bananas'.

Catherine Old, who previously was interviewed on BBC Five Live Radio with Simon Mayo, also gains a mention in the article. "Our English teacher got us involved with it (Scriblist) ad it's been really good to write for a purpose, for an audience. I was really excited to be selected for the book, I did not expect it at all."

To listen to extracts of Alanna and Catherine's writing, follow the audio links at the top left of this page. To read the complete article, click on the image above.

Scriblist hits the Reading Zone

ReadingZone.com has been set up to help teachers, adults and children to find out more about children's literature. It was established with Arts Council support and is now self-funding, through schools' subscriptions.

"Our primary focus on the Teachers' Zone is to support teachers and librarians in encouraging children and young people to read for pleasure."

ReadingZone.com enables readers to find out quickly and easily about books to use across the curriculum, helps them choose titles for class libraries, and suggests the best books to read aloud. They also aim to keep users up-to-date with the best new titles each month and with national reading initiatives.

"Scriblist.com is targeting young people aged 14 years plus with a writing competition to encourage new talent..."(read more at the ReadingZone.com)

Story: Celebrating the Short Story

Story, the campaign to celebrate the short story, features an article on scriblist and Book One this month. Story advocates the short story as one of the most exciting and important literary forms, and that it can and should reach the widest possible readership.

The core partners in Story are those either directing the campaign or actively involved in key elements of the campaign: The BBC, The Booktrust, the Scottish Booktrust and the Small Wonder Short Story Festival. Other supporters include the British Council, the Arts Council and various notable magazines and literary bodies.

Founded after the ‘Save our Short Story’ campaign initiated in 2002 by the writer Margaret Wilkinson, Story promotes the short story form through advocacy, innovative projects, readership development, providing an information resource and collaborating on the establishment of the largest prize for a single short story in the world. The “BBC National short story” offers £15,000 for the winning story, £3,000 for the runner-up and £500 for the three other shortlisted stories. The shortlist will be announced in June 2008, with the five stories broadcast on BBC Radio 4 each weekday before the winner is announced.

Young Writer Feature Success

Alanna Irving, the youngest winning contributor to 'Five Green Bananas - Scriblist book one, features in our first success story, in the current edition of 'Young Writer Magazine'. The magazine is published under the same umbrella as 'Writing Magazine' (Warners Group Publications). Alanna's story of how she came to scriblist and got involved, and how it lead to her two successful winning entries is covered on a full page, and includes a photograph of the book and herself.

"I chose to enter Story Two, because I love writing about dark things and the idea of Billy's obsession really appealed to me," says Alanna. "I was attracted to my favourite story overall, Story Four - Under the Acacia Tree, by the beautiful writing and dramatic plot, set in idyllic Africa."

Anthony Horowitz, author of both the Pentagram and the Alex Rider series (Stormbreaker, Snakehead), as well as many TV episodes of Midsomer murders, Poirot and Foyle's War to name just a few of his projects, is the magazine guest author in the same May edition. He gives this advice for young writers: 'Read. The more you read the better you write. Write. The more you write, the better you write. Get out and have adventures. Above all believe in yourself. (...) the only difference between a successful writer and an unsuccessful one, is that the unsuccessful writer gives up.'

That is great advice for writers, and well timed for all scriblisters and everyone interested in the Book Two competition. The competition is now open, so get reading-and-rating, and get writing. As Alanna says, "I would highly recommend Scriblist to writers who relish a challenge and the chance to have their work critiqued by a range of people. It's an excellent opportunity to develop your writing."

London Launch - Five Green Bananas

LONDON: April 14, 2008

Scriblist Book One is officially ‘launched’!
Five Green Bananas was publicly presented for the first time today, on the first day of the 2008 London Book Fair, Earls Court, London. Over 100 fresh bananas were received delightedly and devoured in under two hours by trade show-starved journalists in the press room, giving us a chance to introduce the scriblist concept and website. The biggest challenge of the day was trying to track down the UPS driver delivering the first fifty copies of ‘Five Green Bananas’ and get the books into our hands. With five minutes to go, before the Scriblist IP (intrepid publicist) had to leave the show to head back to the airport, the thick-taped cardboard box arrived, marked ‘scriblist’. Gleaming below bubble wrap, the shiny red covers were finally a reality After a quick final sprint to distribute sample copies, our IP made a mad dash for the plane, and with less controversy than the Olympic Torch, the box of remaining books made its way through various hands on the underground escalators until check-in. The day was a crazy haze of photocopying, pitching and endless walking, interspersed with meeting nice new people who loved the ideas behind scriblist and would like to know more. Someone once said, “London Book Fair is a zoo.” Let’s hope that our bananas fit right in.