ABOUT ME

I have always been an avid reader of children's books, devouring favourites like Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series and Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth again and again. This passion led me to write an undergraduate thesis at Reed College on the Victorian author George MacDonald, considered by many to be the creator of the fantasy genre. From there I moved to working in children's publishing, spending seven years at three publishers in the United States. After that, I moved into the academic area, coming to England to complete an MA in children's literature, and have since embarked on PhD research. I am particularly interested in several areas, including multicultural children's literature, looking at the author/editor relationship, teaching creative writing for young people, and the study of the children's publishing industry. I feel that some of the most innovative literature produced today comes from the books published for young readers, and love being involved in this exciting area.

The following information describes my various experiences in the area of children's literature, which has involved my work in publishing, my academic experience (including teaching, giving presentations, and my publications), work running children's literature conferences, and my other general work and activities. You can also link to internet features and interviews I have written or been involved with. If you are short on time, you can simply look at my full CV - while it's drier than the narrative below, you'll get most of the same information in shorthand form. Finally, for a lighter read, you can visit my blog.

PUBLISHING

My first four years were with Children's Book Press in San Francisco as an Assistant Production Editor. Children's Book Press is a nonprofit publisher which publishes primarily multicultural and bilingual picture books for children. Some of the books I worked on include i see the rhythm, winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, In My Family, winner of the Américas Award, and From the Bellybutton of the Moon, winner of the Pura Belpré Award. I worked with the Publisher on the complete process of acquiring and developing books, including book design and production. It was here that I began to develop a sense of some of the joys and challenges that come with working on multicultural children's books created by authors and artists from diverse backgrounds.

After four years in the wonderful San Francisco publishing world, which is as eclectic and off-beat as you might expect, I decided I wanted to go further in children's publishing. New York City beckoned - the heart of children's publishing in the United States. On excellent advice, I started off with informational interviews, talking to around twenty very generous people including Janet Shulman (editor of Dr. Suess), Susan Hirschman, (fabulous editor from Greenwillow), and Simon Boughton, then working at Random House and now at Roaring Brook Press. An interview with Judy Wilson, Publisher of Orchard Books (since sadly passed away), led to my job as Assistant Editor. I spent a year there, supporting Judy on many imports from the UK, including my first editorial acquisition, Sammy and the Dinosaurs, a Children's Book of the Month Club selection.

I then moved to Lee & Low Books as an editor. Lee & Low is a family-run publisher which specialises in multicultural picture books. I was lucky to be able to manage the New Voices Award in its first year, which is an award for a picture book manuscript written by an author of colour (non-white author) who has not previously published for children. After a very active campaign to spread the word, we were overwhelmed to receive over 300 submissions. This flies in the face of some people's view that there aren't many talented non-white authors who can write for children. I was lucky to work with the first winner, Linda Boyden, to develop her story, The Blue Roses. I also acquired and edited several books of which I am very proud, including DeShawn Days, a Choice from the Cooperative Children's Book Center, Love to Langston, an NCTE Notable book, and The Pot that Juan Built, an ALA Notable book.

ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE

After two years at Lee & Low, I found I was ready for change. My overall passion for children's books, which had led me to found a still-strong reading group of children's book editors in NYC, felt stifled by working for one children's publisher, with all the politics that can entail. I was also interested in stepping back from the children's publishing world and looking at it from a broader perspective. Going back for a Masters in Children's Literature seemed like the perfect route, and through internet research I found the course offered by Roehampton University in London (then called the University of Surrey Roehampton). This seemed like an excellent opportunity to live abroad and study at a renowned programme, which is home to the National Centre for Research in Children's Literature (NCRCL).

I relocated from New York to London to complete the full-time MA in one year, and had the great fortune to study with NCRCL tutors Gillian Lathey, Kim Reynolds and Lisa Sainsbury, as well as visiting lecturers Michael Newton, Nicholas Tucker, and Irene Wise. After completing the five required modules, I wrote my dissertation on graphic novels based on the memories of the authors and set around WWII. The title was 'Graphic Depictions: The Representation of History and Memory in Three Graphic Novels', and the discussion focused on Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa, The Maus books by Art Spiegelman, and Ethel & Ernest by Raymond Briggs. I find the comic book format to be especially exciting, offering innovative ways to tell stories which combine text and image. I graduated with distinction in September 2002.

I then decided to pursue PhD research, this time focusing on the juvenile publishing world, supervised by Professor Kim Reynolds and based at the University of Newcastle. My research focuses on how the editorial process has affected books written by non-white authors in the UK since the 1970s. This has involved interviewing several authors and editors who have worked over this period, including Petronella Breinburg, author of the first picture book featuring a black character to be published in London; Aidan Chambers, creator of the Topliners series; Jamila Gavin, author of the Whitbread Award-winning Coram Boy; Malorie Blackman, the only black author to be in the children's best-sellers list; and Miriam Hodgson, the now sadly-passed away editor and winner of the Eleanor Farjeon Award. You can find a full list of people I have interviewed here. The interviews have brought out various individuals' experiences with the editorial process, and their thoughts on the publishing world in general, revealing some of the challenges and successes that have been faced by an array of authors and editors from a variety of backgrounds. While my PhD has gone onto semi-permanent hold, I hope to do something with these interviews as they provide an important oral history.

TEACHING

I have taught many courses at both undergraduate and MA-level, including the undergraduate Writing for Young People course at Roehampton University, the undergraduate Introduction to Children's Literature course at Queens University, the undergraduate Boundaries of Children's Literature course at the University of Newcastle, and the MA course, 'British children's Literature from 1900-1960, at Roehampton University (of the Roehampton MA modules, I have also contributed to the teaching of   'Critical and Theoretical Perspectives', 'Children's Literature of Migration', and 'British Children's Literature 1960 to the Present Day'). I have also offered visiting lectures, such as the 'Introduction to British Picture Books' session I taught at the University of Antwerp for an undergraduate course run by Vanessa Joosen. I really enjoy teaching, and my approach draws heavily on group participation and discussion. I feel that a class has been successful if I leave feeling challenged by my students to consider a text in new ways. For a full list of courses taught, please see my CV. I also teach creative workshops for children. Please see that section of the website for more information.

LECTURES AND PRESENTATIONS

I have also given a variety of lectures, presentations and appeared on panels, such as being a presenter on the panel, 'Multicultural Children's Literature and Publishing', held at the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education as part of the Multicultural Book Festival in 2004. I presented the paper, 'The Role of the Editor: Selection or Censorship?' at the 2005 International Research Society for Children's Literature 17th Biennial Congress held at Trinity College, Dublin; and gave the paper, 'Editorial Reflections: How the Juvenile Publication Process Affects Books Produced by Non-White Authors' at the 2005 Child and the Book Postgraduate Conference held at the University of Antwerp. I also gave a presentation titled ‘Editorial Reflections: Cultural Expression and Children’s Publishing’ at the Oxford Brookes University International Centre for Publishing Studies in October 2006. You can hear a podcast of that lecture here. For a full list of presentations, please see my CV.

PUBLICATIONS

I have published in essay collections and reference, on subjects including examining the children's publication process based on my own experiences as an editor, looking at the role of the children in the films The Sixth Sense and The Others, and providing biographical entries for several authors. I am currently co-editing the forthcoming papers from the 2006 Child and the Book conference, to be published by Pied Piper Publishing. Here is a list of current publications:

'Editorial Reflections: Cultural Expression and the Children’s Publication Process in the USA', Expectations and Experiences: Children, Childhood & Children's Literature, edited by Clare Bradford and Valerie Coghlan, Pied Piper Publishing, 2007

'A Publisher's Dilemma: The Place of the Child in the Publication of Children's Books', New Voices in Children's Literature Criticism, edited by Sebastien Chapleu, Pied Piper Publishing, April 2004

'Creepy Kids: The Use of the Child's Perspective in Films of the Uncanny', Children's Literature and Childhood in Performance, edited by Kim Reynolds, Pied Piper Publishing, 2003

'Malorie Blackman', 'Petronella Breinburg', 'Joseph Bruchac', 'Farrukh Dhondy', 'Jamila Gavin', 'Francisco Jimenez', 'Julius Lester', 'An Na', 'Bali Rai', 'Cynthia Leitich Smith', 'Rita Williams-Garcia', 'Jacqueline Woodson', 'Laurence Yep', and 'Benjamin Zephaniah', in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature published by Oxford University Press and edited by Jack Zipes, 2006

CHILDREN'S LITERATURE CONFERENCES AND EVENTS

I have extensive experience running children's literature conferences and events.

In a freelance capacity, I am Festival Director of The Brighton Children's Book Festival, in partnership with THE SOUTH and the University of Brighton. We ran a successful event in April 2007 on the theme, Children of the South. You can find the full programme for that event in the news section of this website. And we are now planning for the 2008 event, to take place the weekend of April 19-20th. The theme is 'Leaping from the Page', which will showcase ways in which children's books are adapted (such as through film, radio or TV), as well as look at ways that children's books literally leap from page (pop-ups), or are translated (into cover illustrations, etc.). There will be lectures and interactive workshops for adults and children, and I will post further information as it becomes available.

For the last four years I have been running conferences at the National Centre for Research in Children's Literature at Roehampton University where I am the Conference Manager. This has involved shaping programmes, hiring speakers, processing bookings, and overseeing all aspects necessary for conferences.

One of the main events I manage is the annual British IBBY/NCRCL MA conference, which has run on the themes such as Time Everlasting: Representing Past, Present and Future in Children's Literature; No Child Is an Island: The Case for Children's Literature in Translation; and East Meets West in Children's Literature, where I moderated a panel discussion. These events have included speakers such as authors Farrukh Dhondy, Beverley Naidoo, Linda Newbery, Bali Rai, Celia Rees, and Philip Reeve; and academics such as Peter Hollindale, Uli Knopflemacher, Victor Watson, Jack Zipes, and translator Sarah Adams.

I also oversee and teach on the Children's Literature International Summer School (CLISS), which I have run in 2003, 2005, and 2007. This involves bringing international tutors to Roehampton University to teach for five days on various strands, giving lectures and seminars to delegates from all over the world. Tutors involved in the past include Clare Bradford, Dan Hade, Peter Hunt, Rod McGillis, Emer O'Sullivan, Lissa Paul, Karen Sands-O'Connor, John Stephens, and Lynne Vallone. I have taught on the Creative Writing strand, led the Multiculturalism in Children's Literature strand, and was strand leader on the Children's Publishing strand in 2007.

In addition to these regular events at the NCRCL, I managed the Children's Literature and War conference, co-sponsored by Action for Children's Arts.

I have also founded and been involved in other conferences. I co-founded and am a member of the Arts Council England steering committee that organised the conference, Diversity Matters: Growing Markets in Children's Publishing, which was held in June 2006 in London. This is the first of a series of events and initiatives this committee will organise to work to improve the representation of diversity in books published for children. I have written a report on the first conference, available on the PaperTigers website.

I also founded and have co-run The Child and the Book postgraduate conference for its inaugural event and the most recent conference. This is an annual event which brings together graduate and postgraduate students from around the world whose research focuses on children's literature. It has been held at Roehampton University in London (2004), the University of Antwerp in Belgium (2005), and the University of Newcastle (2006). The 2007 event will be held at Bogaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey. The most recent conference attracted 85 delegates from 19 countries, and included 36 presentations from primarily PhD students. It has been a wonderful way to build a growing community of international children's literature scholars.

GENERAL WORK AND ACTIVITIES

Otherwise, I have been involved in a variety of other work and activities in the area of children's literature, as well as being a member of several organisations.

I worked from 2003-2005 as a contributing editor, and am currently a consultant, to PaperTigers, which is an international website focusing on children's literature from and about the Pacific Rim and South Asia. This work has included conducting interviews with authors, researching new publications and promoting the site.

I have also volunteered as a contributing editor for the Achuka website, writing features and events reviews for this extensive UK children's literature resource.

In 2002, I acted as a judge for the London Writer's Competition in the short story for children section. The judging panel was chaired by novelist, critic and Booker Prize administrator Martyn Goff OBE.

In 1999 and 2000, I was a mentor editor at the Rutgers One-on-One Conference, in which aspiring writers submit manuscripts and received individual feedback from experienced editors.

Additionally, I have been a member of the PEN Open Book Committee in New York from 1999-2001, which is committee working to increase diversity in publishing in the United States, organising awards and events. I was also a member in 1997 and 1998 of the Children's Committee, helping to organise the children's section of the San Francisco Book Festival.

I am an active member of the following organisations:

British Section IBBY (International Board on Books for Young Readers) committee

Centre for Research in Postcolonial and Transcultural Studies, Roehampton University

Centre for Research on Nationalism, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism (CRONEM)

Child and Book Steering Committee

Children's Literature Research Cluster, Roehampton University

Diversity in Publishing Network

Diversity Matters Steering Committee, Arts Council England

International Research Society for Children's Literature

Nordic Network for Children's Literature Research

FEATURES AND INTERVIEWS

Finally, here are links to features and interviews I have published on a variety of children's literature-related websites:

Carnegie/Greenaway Collection Interpretation Pack.
I've created a collection interpretation pack as part of the 70th anniversary of the Carnegie and 50th anniversary of the Greenaway awards. The theme is Outsiderness/Otherness/Diversity, and I look at a variety of award-winners over the last 70 years. You can download this very nicely-designed pack from the fantastic CILIP awards website. It's called Collection Interpretation Pack 1.

'Report on Diversity Matter Conference', www.papertigers.org, July 2006

'Interview with Mitali Perkins, author', www.papertigers.org, July 2005

'All There in Black and White?' report on launch of Diversity in Publishing Network, www.booktrusted.co.uk, May 2005

'Interview with Madeline Thien, author', www.papertigers.org, April 2005

'Interview with Patricia Billings, Publisher of Millet Press', www.papertigers.org, July 2004

'It's Not an All-White World of Children's Books Any Longer', www.papertigers.org, February 2004

'Author and Editor Feature: Interviews with Malorie Blackman and Annie Eaton on the Development of Noughts and Crosses' www.achuka.co.uk, May 2002 (this is no longer available on the Achuka website, so I've provided a version of it on my website which sadly lacks the nice flash layout created by Michael Thorn of Achuka)

Interviews for my PhD

Here is a list of the people I have interviewed so far for my PhD research. The date after each author's name indicates the date of their first book published for children.

Authors:

Berry, James (1987)
Blackman, Malorie (1991)
Breinburg, Petronella (1973)
Chatterjee, Debjani (1989)
Dhami, Narinder (1996)
Dhondy, Farrukh (l976)
Gavin, Jamila (1979)

Editors:

Ahmed, Rehana - Puffin
Bradman, Tony - Macmillan and various
Chambers, Aidan - Topliners
Eaton, Annie - Transworld/Random House
Hodgson, Miriam - Egmont
Nissen, Jane - Penguin
Otter-Barry, Janetta - Frances Lincoln
Royds, Caroline - Walker Books
Wilkins, Verna - Tamarind