Category Archives: Blog
The Double Life of Daisy Hemmings (and other film stars)
All writers hope for film or TV deal. If any of us say we don’t, we’re lying. Aside from the (often actually quite small) financial boost, it’s a massive pat on the back, and a kick to see characters you’ve … Continue reading
Posted in 1980s, Blog, creative writing, Fiction, love, romance, women's fiction
Tagged Ben Wishaw, Cornwall, Dominic West, du Maurier, Fowey, Joanna Nadin
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World Book Day is going to be LITERALLY brilliant!
Last February, I had the kind of email a writer dreams of; the kind that comes from their lovely editor and begins with ‘CONFIDENTIAL’ in shouty capitals. It was telling me that Rikin and I had been chosen to be … Continue reading
Posted in Blog, creative writing, Events, Fiction, middle grade, Reading, Uncategorized
Tagged Joanna Nadin, Matt Lucas, MG, Michael Morpurgo, middle grade, Nadia Shireen, Simon Farnaby, WBD, World Book Day, Worst Class
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Head in all the books
I read a lot. A LOT. About sixty so far this year though it feels more like eleventy billion. Some for work, some for pleasure, some for both. Some I’ve put down after two pages because CLUNKY. Some because the … Continue reading
Posted in 1970s, 1980s, Blog, creative writing, Fiction, women's fiction, YA
Tagged Cormoran Strike, Eimear McBride, Emma Glass, Jess Kidd, Sarah Crossan, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Tracey Thorn, William Sutcliffe
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(Pigeon) seeds of a story
It began with a name, as it so often does for me: The Audacious Birdy Jones. But who she was, what she looked like, what her story was were blurry and inchoate, still lost somewhere in the soup of story … Continue reading
Posted in Blog, creative writing, Fiction, middle grade, Reading
Tagged Billy Bremner, Edinburgh, Leeds, Leeds United, pigeons
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CBBC’s Joe All Alone and the truth about child poverty
Joe All Alone is a book (and, now, BBC TV series) about friendship. It’s a book about family, and what constitutes that today. It’s a book about bullying. It’s a book about difference and acceptance. But beneath all that, it’s … Continue reading
Posted in Blog, Fiction, middle grade, Teen, Uncategorized, YA
Tagged CBBC, child poverty, Daniel Frogson, Home Alone, Joanna Nadin, Joe All Alone, Joe Sims, Vas Blackwood
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A face for radio
Many years ago, when I still thought I’d lead a glamorous life in the meejah, I read radio news for a living. And it’s a medium I adore – the focus on words, the invisibility of it, so that, when … Continue reading
Posted in Blog, Fiction, Uncategorized
Tagged BBC London, Essex, Joanna Nadin, Mantle Books, Pan Macmillan, Radio 1, Saffron Walden, swearing, The Queen of Bloody Everything
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The Queen of Bloody Everything (including the Indy’s and Red’s Top 10)
I know the rule: don’t read reviews, good or bad. That way you don’t risk heartbreak, or ranting mintily on Twitter. But that way you don’t get the ridiculous overexcitement that comes with this: making both Red magazine’s and the … Continue reading
Posted in Blog, Fiction
Tagged daughters, Joanna Nadin, mothers, Saffron Walden, The Queen of Bloody Everything, women's fiction
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Joe in the post
In the run-up to Christmas, opening the post is always accompanied by a little frisson of anticipation, invariably dampened when I find it is only catalogues or credit statements or a card from someone I have never met addressed to … Continue reading
Posted in Blog, middle grade, Reading, Teen, YA
Tagged Banijay, CBBC, Daniel Frogson, Joe All Alone, Joe Sims, tv drama, Vas Blackwood, Zodiak
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The Carnegie Feeling
I have never been one of life’s winners when it comes to sport, barely even scraping third in the 1979 St Mary’s Primary sports day yoghurt-pot-and-umbrella race (actual race, involving running wildly around the field with an empty Ski pot … Continue reading
Posted in Blog, YA
Tagged Anthony McGowan, Atom Books, Carnegie Medal, Everybody Hurts, Hachette, Joanna Nadin, Leeds, Little Brown, love, teen romance, YA
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Joanna Nadin 