The Mask of Aribella wins the Quality Fiction Award at the North Somerset Teachers' Book Awards

I’m beyond thrilled to announce that my debut children’s novel ‘The Mask of Aribella’ won the Quality Fiction award on Saturday. It was so unexpected, given the strength of the other books in the category.

Quality Fiction:

The Girl Who Stole an Elephant Nizrana Farook (Nosy Crow)

The Ice Bear Miracle Cerrie Burnell (OUP)

The Highland Falcon Thief M G Leonard, Steve Sedgman and Elisa Paganelli (Macmillan)

The Mask of Aribella Anna Hoghton (Chicken House)

The Strangeworld’s Travel Agency L D Lapinski (Orion)

44 Tiny Secrets Sylvia Bishop and Ashley King (Little Tiger)

I’m utterly delighted and haven’t stopped smiling since. For anyone who doesn’t know about NSTBA, they have the cutest awards ceremony too, including dogs and some fantastic young announcers.

Aribella nominated for the Sakura Medal

Sakura is the Japanese word for cherry blossoms, which are celebrated in Japan each year as a sign of Spring.

The Sakura Medal reading program brings together students from international schools across Japan each year to vote for their favourite books. www.sakuramedal.com.

Each year, librarians from various international schools meet and select 25-30 books in each of the Sakura Medal categories (Picture Books, Chapter Books, Middle School, High School, Japanese Picture Books, Japanese Chapter Books, Japanese Middle School, and Japanese High School).

​Books are chosen that are no more than two years old and that are from a variety of backgrounds and across a wide range of reading abilities.

Students who read five books (four for Middle School and three for High School books) in any category will be eligible to vote for their favourite book. Votes will then be tallied across all participating schools and the winning author in each category will receive a Sakura Medal.

Aribella has been nominated in the Chapter Books Plus category.

Aribella shortlisted for the North Somerset Teachers' Book Award!

Hello!

I’m utterly delighted to inform you that my book The Mask of Aribella has been shortlisted for the North Somerset Teachers’ Book Award.

Here’s a list of all the other titles shortlisted.

Picture Books:

Meesha Makes Friends Tom Percival (Bloomsbury)

The Best Place in the World Petr Horacek (Walker)

The Blue Giant Katie Cottle (Pavilion)

The Proudest Blue Ibtihaj Muhammad and S. K. Ali, Hatem Aly

Boundless Sky Amanda Addison and Manuela Adreani (Lantana)

Mrs Bibi’s Elephant Reza Dalvand (Flying Eye)

Dear Earth Isabel Otter and Clara Anganuzzi (Caterpillar)

Supermouse and the Big Cheese Robbery M. N. Tahl and Mark Chambers (Little Tiger)

Poetry Books:

Midnight Feasts A.F. Harrold and Katy Riddell (Bloomsbury)

Bright Bursts of Colour Matt Goodfellow and Aleksei Bitskoff (Bloomsbury)

Freedom We Sing Amyra León and Molly Mendoza (Flying Eye)

Poems from a Blue and Green Planet Sabrina Mahfouz (Hodder)

Moonstruck! Roger Stevens and Ed Boxall (Otter Barry)

A Songbird Dreams of Singing Kate Hosford and Jennifer M Potter (Puffin)

Information Books:

Respect Rachel Brian (Wren and Rook)

River Stories  Timothy Knapman, Ashling Lindsay and Irene Montano (Egmont)

Epic Tales of Triumph and Adventure Simon Cheshire and Fatti Burke (Bloomsbury)

I Ate Sunshine for Breakfast Michael Holland and Philip Giordano (Flying Eye)

Everest Alexandra Stewart and Joe Todd-Stanton (Bloomsbury)

Gut Garden Katie Brosnan (Cicada)

Quality Fiction:

The Girl Who Stole an Elephant Nizrana Farook (Nosy Crow)

The Ice Bear Miracle Cerrie Burnell (OUP)

The Highland Falcon Thief M G Leonard, Steve Sedgman and Elisa Paganelli (Macmillan)

The Mask of Aribella Anna Hoghton (Chicken House)

The Strangeworld’s Travel Agency L D Lapinski (Orion)

44 Tiny Secrets Sylvia Bishop and Ashley King (Little Tiger)

Read Aloud:

Do Not Disturb the Dragons Michelle Robinson and Sharon Davey (Bloombury)

Fire Boy J M Joseph (Hodder)

Anisha Accidental Detective Serena Patel and Emma McCann (Usborne)

Ant Clancy Games Detective Ruth Morgan (Firefly)

The Infinite Patience Agbabi (Canongate)

Milton the Mighty Emma Read (Chicken House)

Moving On:

After the War Tom Palmer (Barrington Stoke)

The House of Hidden Wonders Sharon Gosling (Little Tiger)

Voyage of the Sparrowhawk Natasha Farrant (Faber and Faber)

The Star Outside my Window Onjali Q Rauf (Orion)

Orphans of the Tide Struan Murray (Puffin)

Eating Chips With Monkey Mark Lowery (Piccadilly)

Guest Judge for afew

Afew ‘Arts for essential workers’ is a wonderful initiative that brings a new form of interactive theatre to essential workers. Afew encourages dialogue and inspire human connection between the world of the arts and those who quietly contribute so much to society. Through their diverse artistic performances, they campaign for equality in performance arts.

When founder, Nelson McMillan, contacted me to be a guest judge for their writing competition, I was delighted to be part of this wonderful project. Afew also has a podcast, which I was interviewed on, which I can best describe as a sort of Desert Island Discs but for art. It’s a wonderful idea and I can’t wait to hear all their interviews. I’ll post details of my interview as soon as it’s live.

For now, here’s the link and here are the writing competition details. If you’re entering, then good luck!

August 2020 Entry

Shortplay Entry

Theme: Teachers and Education

Genres: Comedy/Drama

This is an opportunity to have your writing performed by professional actors while giving back to the essential workers community. The performance will take place live at Arts For Essential Workers (afew) September show on 24 September 2020.

 PRIZES:

1st Place: £200.

1. Shortplay performed publicly by professional actors at afew’s next performance.

2. Shortplay published by afew publishing house.

3. Feedback from our guest judge, published writer, Anna Hoghton.

4. The winner will be invited to our virtual broadcast studio as a special guest on 24 September 2020 to receive their prize and watch their shortplay be performed live with a follow-on interactive panel with the audience.

5. Your writer profile will be promoted as we offer the winner the opportunity to feature in our podcast: afew Great People.

6. Keep full rights to your story, including receiving royalties from views and purchases of your work in the future.

7. Join afew’s alumni artist community.

2nd & 3rd Place:

1. Shortplay performed publicly by professional actors at afew’s next performance on 24 September 2020.

2. You will be invited to our virtual broadcast studio as a special guest on 24 September 2020 to receive to watch your shortplay being performed live with a follow-on interactive panel with the audience.

3. Your writer profile will be promoted in afew’s social media channels.

4. Keep full rights to your story, including receiving royalties from views and purchases of your work in the future.

5. Join afew’s alumni artist community.

How afew’s Competition Works & Benefits

• The afew shortplay competition is a contest that challenges creative artists globally to write shortplays.

• Please submit a scene you’ve written for a shortplay. Dialogue or monologues only. Minimum length 3 minutes, maximum length 6 minutes (five A4 pages maximum per shortplay entry) based on our ‘Teachers & Education’ theme for August and comedy/drama assignment.

• You don’t have to be a professional writer to enter. All levels of experience are welcome.

• Each writer submits at least one short play by the deadline below.

• Each script entered will be read and feedback provided.

• The top 3 scripts will be decided by our guest judge, Anna Hoghton.

Key Dates For the Competition

• 10th August, at 0001 British Summer Time (BST) - Competition open to entries.

• 23rd August, at 2359 BST - Competition closes.

• 24th August to 6th September - Judging period.

• 7th September at 0800 BST - Winner is announced.

• 24th September at 7pm BST - The top 3 plays are professionally performed.

A Brief Update

Hello,

I've had my head down this year working on my second novel, which is going to be a new stand-alone middle-grade .

This time, I’m leaving Venice’s canals behind and heading over to the wild coastlines of Ireland. My Irish Grandmother passed away this year, in January, and I’ve been thinking about her a lot. She was one of my best friends so it was a big loss.

I can see why this novel has appeared. It’s about her and also about grief in general, as well as about the dark Irish fairytale creatures, such as the Pooka, the Wild Hunt, the Giants and the Banshee… I wanted to write something a bit dark and magical, which still had all that lightness, love, humour and heart that I so love in middle-grad fiction.

This story is about Orla, her younger brother, Apollo, and sister, Skye, who all go stay with their Granny Ireland over the summer holidays only to be thrown into a world of untrustworthy fairies who steal their Gran away. It is left to Orla, Apollo and Skye to get Gran back… provided they can get on with each other first.

I’m really proud of this new story and I hope you’re going to love it too.

More coming soon.

Lockdown Poetry Competition Winner

From the 17th of April to the 18th of May 2020, during the height of lockdown, B&NES Libraries ran two creative, online competitions. Working in partnership with Bath Spa University and Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, they asked adult members of LibrariesWest to submit poems or short stories based on the theme of ‘Lockdown’.

The judges awarded my entry first prize, commenting:

This was the poem that wouldn’t go away. It remained with us throughout our readings. We particularly liked the pace of it, the way that it moves in space, time and scale, from the first stanza, which casts a spell, a magical recollection of both a particular time and a more specific childhood, a bit like magic, like childhood, to the more mundane, domestic and current concerns of the final stanza. It encapsulates the spirit of lockdown in both a personal and universal spirit. 'It’s nice/Right here, isn’t it? Better than any café.'

This poem is read by Chris Beale, a performance poet who runs the event series Bristol Tonic. He is a writer, producer and a real supporter of libraries.

I’m over the moon to have won. I hope you enjoy the poem, which you can listen to below.

Feature on Halen Mon

I met Jess while I was volunteering at the 2019 Do Lectures in Wales. Jess is awesome and, as we hit it off, we realised we’d met before - while I was working as ‘Visual Storyteller’ for the digital-content production company Pixillion. My boss, Remco Merbis, and I were making a series of films about celebrity chefs for the Soil Association’s ‘Organic September’ campaign. One of the chefs was Anna Jones. Jess was working for Anna.

The poem was written while I was in California struggling with homesickness. Last week, after being prompted by another volunteer, I shared it with the Do Whatsapp group, which is one of the most lovely, supportive networks I’ve ever had access to. Jess asked to share the poem on Halen Mon blog.

It’s an honour, so I’m sharing it here too.

Every time I see the sea,

I am taken back to all the times

I saw the sea before.

The deep blue

Soothes, washes away

Petty thought

Releases, purifies, cleans

Never refuses to hold

or baptize me,

a reminder

to         let

go,

to place trust

in things

That cannot be fully known

I see,

  as

I float,

That all        spaces

between

                    bodies

   are

   just

               sea

Deep, dark and free

Slippery boundaries

that                separate

you’s

from

me’s.

https://www.halenmon.com/every-time-i-see-the-sea-by-anna-hoghton/