Lana Lê from the Kid Can Doodle blog has interviewed me about Pug-a-Doodle-Do! here!



Her interview includes a link to free download from my website of a couple pages from Pug-a-Doodle-DO!. Feel free to draw on them, use them at home, in schools, libraries, wherever people might want to make pug comics! (Here's the direct link to my site.) Philip and I would love to see your comics, especially if you can tweet them at us with the hashtag #PugaDoodleDo!



In other news, a theatre in Brighton is putting on a play called The Ministry of Biscuits that Philip Reeve wrote at the same time he was working on Mortal Engines! Click here to find out more on his blog.

The Prince of Pants is up for a Lollies Award! You can read an interview about the book with Alan MacDonald on me on the #Lollies2017 blog tour, by Kate from her 'Along Came Poppy' blog:



(Thanks, Kate!) And if you're a parent, teacher or child, you can vote for our book, too!

Recipe for a Pug-a-Doodle-Do book launch: take one excellent co-author...


Photo by Dave Warren

And Britain's finest pug, BENNY BEAN:


Photo by Dave Warren

Add the fabulous booksellers at south London's indie children's bookshop Tales on Moon Lane, including Jo Cocadiz and Jennifer Bell:


Photo by Dave Warren

Mix with much cuddling of celebrity pug:


( Click here for lots more photos under the cut!Collapse )

Hurrah, our new book's officially out today! It's called PUG-A-DOODLE-DO!



We honestly had so much fun making this:



To come up with good material for the book, we knew we'd have to be able to bounce ideas off each other, so Philip came to London and sat right at my desk with me, and we worked like this. (We included a picture of it in the book so people could make up details.)



Putting together an activity book's more complicated than you might think! We wanted to include characters from all four storybooks we've created, and how to get the balance right. So we had a working lunch with our editor Liz Cross and our designer Jo Cameron, who came with lots of different colour pens to keep things organised! (I was very impressed with her pens.)



( Click here to read more under the cut!Collapse )

Even though I'm active on social media, I keep meeting people who say, 'Oh my goodness, I had NO IDEA you have a new book out! Why didn't you tell me?' or 'If only I'd known you were in my area, I would have come to your event!' ...So I talked with a few other writers and illustrators and worked out that the best thing would be to create a newsletter for people who really do want to know about my books and things, but sometimes miss updates on social media. (I know, I miss stuff myself.)



I'm thinking I'll include special offers and subscriber-only competitions, peek at artwork, or insights I might not want to put on wider social media, so there's an extra incentive to join. I'll aiming to put out a newsletter about four times a year (but I'll do as much as I can manage, let's see how it goes). Suggestions welcome, about what you'd like to see in the letters!

Click here to find the subscription box on my Contact page! I'm still learning how it works, so let me know if there are any strange glitches. You should get a confirmation e-mail, then my first newsletter. Check your spam box, or 'all mail' if you're in Gmail and you don't see it right away. (Hopefully most computers won't think it's spam, and you can unsubscribe any time.)