How to avoid the slush piles

Many of the UK’s leading children’s writers will soon be heading to Manchester for the inaugural Manchester Children’s Book Festival, 1-4 July. As well as lots of fun activities for schools and families, there’s also a couple of events for any budding children’s authors out there…

The Children’s Pitching Competition, 30th June 2010, 1.30pm in the Great Hall of the Friends Meeting House.
This is being held as a satellite programme for the Manchester Children’s Book Festival in collaboration with Commonword and Manchester Central Library. There will be up to sixfinalists, battling it out to pitch their novels to a panel comprised of Julia Churchill, literary agent from Greenhouse Literary Agency, Emma Young, Children’s Editor from Macmillan and Sherry Ashworth, award winning children’s writer and Senior Lecturer on MMU’s Creative Writing MA. Free entry but contact marnie@cultureword.org.uk to register interest in coming.

Symposium 1, July 1st 2010, 11am-12.30pm at MMU, Geoffrey Manton Building The Children’s Trilogy: recession, technology and the killer slush pile. A panel of industry experts will each talk about the state of the children’s fiction industry today. Speakers are Clare Conville, literary agent for Conville & Walsh, Barry Cunningham, M.D. of Chicken House Publishing, Melvin Burgess, author of Junk and Billy Elliot, Sophia Bennett, author of Threads, and Robert Williams, new author on the block with experience in book retail and winner of a Faber & Faber first chapter competition. £5 or £3 concessions. Visit festival website http://www.manchesterchildrensbookfestival.co.uk/ for information on booking.