Young Writers Awards

Scottish Book Trust is currently on the lookout for three enthusiastic writers (between the ages of 14 and 17) to participate in their Young Writers Awards. Winners could have the chance to work with award winning novelist Catherine Forde. For details of how to enter see SBT's webpage. (Closes 31st May).

Cathy Forde's first play

Author of teenage novels, Catherine Forde, has written her first play, Empty. It's part of a season of three new plays written for young people and produced by the National Theatre of Scotland. Forde describes it as black comedy, and it centres round many parents' nightmare, the party that gets out of hand when they are on holiday. Read more in today's Herald and check out Cathy Forde's books from the library.

Author news: Patrick Ness, Katherine Paterson, Catherine Forde

Patrick Ness has won the Costa Children's Book Award for his teenage novel The Ask and the Answer, the second in his Chaos Walking trilogy. He now goes forward with the other four category winners to be considered for Costa's Book of the Year, to be announced on 26th January. For more information, see:
Interviews with Ness on the BBC's coverage of the award and yaReads.com.
A review of the book from the Ultimate Book Guide.
Details of his books on our catalogue.

In the US, Katherine Paterson is to become their second National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature - similar to our Children's Laureate. Read more in the New York Times, from the Library of Congress,  in Notes from the Hornbook and find her on Facebook. Her most famous book is possibly Bridge to Terabithia, which was recently filmed - we have that and several others in stock here.

Closer to home, Catherine Forde, Scottish Booktrust's current Virtual Writer in Residence, will have her first play Empty performed by the National Theatre of Scotland at the Tron, Glasgow, in March. She's also available on Glow in February - see the Glow blog for details. And, as usual, we have a selection of her books here at Jordanhill.