Much better to curl up indoors with a book, such as Damian Kelleher’s Life Interrupted, which was commended at this year’s Sheffield Children’s Book Award – well done Damian!

Life, Interrupted

Our first Christmas present arrived today – what fun! Can i just very subtly hint, chocolates are lovely for humans, but some herrings would also be hugely appreciated. Many thanks. x

It’s been a jubilant weekend for our Piccadilly author, Laura Summers, who has won the Literature Ability Media International Award for Desperate Measures. I’m going to hiss at pigeons later (whilst safely indoors, behind glass) to celebrate.

My little heart swelled with pride when I heard that Wayne Drew, chairman of the Ability Media Creative Board, had said that Desperate Measures is ‘destined to promote a more fair, just and inclusive society, for the benefit of us all.’

The lovely Laura Summers has said, on winning the award,
‘It is an absolute honour to have won this amazing award, although creating a fictional heroine with a learning disability didn’t seem an unusual thing for me to choose to do. I wanted to show what I have learnt over the years – that we’re all individuals and whatever our abilities or disabilities, we all want and need the same things – family, friends, to be treated decently and to reach our potential – a life basically.‘

Laura Summers at AMI Awards

Despite the recent horrors of Halloween and (shudder) fireworks night, it’s been a lovely few weeks at Piccadilly Press with our authors up to all sorts of tricks.

Ciaran Murtagh’s been on CBBC’s The Slammer flaunting his magical newspaper-modeling skills (and love of 80s pop music). You can marvel at that here.

Sheridan Winn has put up the final installments of her series of Sprite Sisters readings – there’s even a spooky Halloween one I couldn’t bring myself to watch (I listened whilst covering my eyes with my paws).

I also very much enjoyed listening to a podcast interview with Ruth Symes – author of Bella Donna and our Little Rex picture books. She shares some juicy writer’s tips and encourages one of my very favourite activities – rereading teenage diaries! Oh how far I have come as a diarist!

Ciaran Murtagh takes to the stage

And if that wasn’t enough to make all my fur stand up on end, I then went along to hear Tamsyn Murray talking about ghosts and the afterlife in a fantastic discussion with Grace Dent and our author Damien Kelleher.

My oh my, what a long day it was, I had to spend much of this week lying on my back over peoples’ keyboards whilst listening to the latest episode of Ciaran Murtagh’s Eat My Book podcast – where he talks to Simon Cheshire – to recover! You can have a listen here – but watch out for some terrifyingly bad jokes in the Joke File – spooky!

And as it’s Halloween coming up, I am trying to focus on the less scary side of witchcraft by rereading the lovely tale, Bella Donna – she’s a witch, but she’s also lovely. The review the the Daily Mail yesterday said that it’s a perfect read for little girls, i think they forgot to mention it’s also a perfect read for scaredy cats. Teehee.

To prepare myself for my venture to faraway lands – and keep myself calm – I’ve been relaxing by watching a fantastic new series of videos by Sheridan Winn, talking about and reading from The Sprite Sisters books. You can partake of these here. There’s also a fun quiz on our website to find out which of the sisters you’re most like (as I bet you’re dying to know who I’m most like, I can exclusively reveal here that I’m most like Ash due to my exceptional inner strength, purrr). Let me know who you’re most like too

The latest book in the magical series

A setting to compete with Piccadilly's offices in terms of opulence

The four friends, Lucy, Nesta, Izzie and TJ, in the Mates, Dates series are all very different – who do you think Cathy is most like?
Hello Toffee. We’ve had an after-supper chat between us and would say that most definitely, she is most like Izzie. They are both Aquarians, slightly mad, very restless (she’s always getting up just when we’ve settled on her knee) and always trying something new – even cat foods, mind you, we do like to try new recipes too.

Have you exotic felines got a mention in any of Cathy’s books? Good question! So far none! Or so we thought. We were very upset about this because in her new series, there is a black and white cat called Davev who doesn’t resemble any of us. Who the heck is he? We were all quite jealous. Anyway, one night, we all got together to confront her, Dixie even sat on her head to make sure she got the point, and she told us that she’s written an outline for whole book about cats with us all in. It’s called The Cat Whiskerer and is about a guardian angel type cat – probably based on me as I do look out for the others. So for the time being, we’re happy. Otis has read it and says it’s very good and we all have purrfect parts in it.

I hear you have recently moved from London to Bath (what a terrifying name for a town). What do you miss most about London? And what do you like best about Bath? Honestly, we don’t miss London. We did at first and we really didn’t like it when Cathy put us in a cattery for one night when the move took place. Otis was well freaked out because he thought he was going to be left there forever. I didn’t, but then I am a far more intelligent cat and knew that Cathy would come and get us. Don’t tell Otis I wrote that as he’s a bit sensitive about his lack in the brain department. It was weird too when we got to the new house because in London we lived on one floor but here in Bath, we have four floors. Freaky, I can tell you, looking down on birds instead of up at them. Otis had to go and have a good lie down for three days to get over the shock. We’ve got used to it now though and we all love nothing better than sitting on a windowsill and looking out. What do we like best about Bath? More room to roam, though it took a while to get used to the badger in the garden. He leaves a terrible pong everywhere and is a grumpy old thing but we’ve learnt to leave him be and he leaves us alone. There’s a dog too at the other end of the crescent where we live. We soon saw him off and now he knows who’s boss. Dixie can jump right over him. It’s hilarious.

And lastly, my favourite question for authors’ cats – in what way do you assist Cathy with her writing? D’er. Where do you think she gets her best ideas from? We have long conversations about plot points and story structure. Quite often when she’s gone for a cup of tea, we have a look at what she’s written and delete parts of it and write our own bits in. I have to say she is not as appreciative of this as she should be and has been known to say a rude word when she’s sees that one of us has been on the computer and deleted something. But then that’s humans for you. They can be an ungrateful lot.

Well said, I say, well said.

I've always pondered asking Saxby whether we should join forces, but I fear I may steal the show

And there are due to be a LOT more budding detectives, what with the imminent release of Saxby Smart’s Detective Handbook next month! Being a publisher’s cat I’ve been lucky enough to have already read up all about the world’s greatest detectives and most dastardly villains, as well how to investigate a crime scene and think like a detective (this comes naturally to cats). I think I know what mystery I’m going to investigate first – who is this Mr. Curiosity and why oh why did he kill that cat!?!

On a jollier note – the Queen of Teen award is on Friday – with our authors Cathy Hopkins and Joanna Nadin both on the shortlist! – and it looks set to be even more pink (my favourite colour!) and glitzy than last year – if that’s possible! Although it seems like I won’t make it to the ceremony, I feel a lot like (a manly version) of Cinderella – I would be the star guest if only I could get there!!

It’s been a great week for Tamsyn Murray’s ‘My So-Called…’ series. The first book in the series, My So-Called Afterlife, has been Highly Commended for the Booktrust Teenage Prize and My So-Called Haunting has had great reviews amidst the blogosphere! Rhiana Reads saying, ‘There’s something different about Murray’s book that make her stand out from others around at the moment and I warn you now, once you open the book you won’t want to stop until you’ve read every last bit!‘ and The Book Girl saying they, ‘can’t wait to delve back into Skye and Nico’s world‘, and The Mile-Long Bookshelf giving it a wonderful 10000/5 rating (!!!) – and they say cats don’t have a handle on math!

As you may have read in the Bookseller we’ve just aquired a sizzlin’ new series about teenage super-human, Cate Carlisle. I was as pleased as the cat who’d gotten the cream when I heard – the new series is going to be just my sort of thing – beautiful locations, life-or-death missions, saving animals – it’s almost just like my life keeping my sister Bella and I alive amongst the pigeons in elegently disheveled Camden Town . . .

Another book that has really struck a chord with me is the weird and wonderful Letters from an Alien Schoolboy, which we’re publishing next month.

LOL@ his tentacle

Flowkwee is dragged to Earth by his family to help study humans, and has to (try to) disguise himself as a schoolboy. It’s full of observations about the human race which, even though I may not be from Planet Faa, I so identify with – especially his complete and utter horror that humans don’t even have durable paws or a cosy coat of glossy fur and have to resort to feeble cloth . . .

Exclusive extract eeeee!!!

Taz's lovely furry face

You can read about Taz and her un-cat-like ways on Tamsyn’s blog. Apparently she doesn’t even turn her nose up at humans! Only joking, humans, only joking. . .

In Piccadilly news – everyone was rather chuffed to open the Observer on Sunday to find Hilary Freeman’s Lifted had been chosen as one of their Summer Reading for Teenagers – and described as ‘perceptive and fast-paced’ – they could be describing me really. . .