I’m thrilled and honoured to announce that I am Alexandra Park School‘s new Patron of Reading.

All kinds of grand and sinister masterplans are afoot, involving brilliant indie booksellers The Big Green Bookshop and others. Find out more about the Patron of Reading scheme here.

My thanks to APS’ Samurai School Librarian Sonia C. for appointing me. HEE HEE HEE ‘scuse me; rather excited. 😀

On 6th November I’ll be spending a night outside – getting a small taste of what it’s like, here in London, to try to sleep in the open.

It’s to raise money for Centrepoint, a charity that helps homeless young people. You can find out more about the Sleep Out here. If you’d like to sponsor me – and I would very much appreciate it – you can do that here.

On Thurs 2nd Oct I gave three talks at Beaumont Leys School in Leicester. Here’s a pic of me there, gesticulating and gurning.

I spoke to three whole year groups – around seven hundred and fifty young people in all – and did my best to answer some wonderfully searching questions about writing, reading and more. With two of the groups I also took the chance to test out the current draft of the opening scene of my new book and was thrilled (and relieved!) to find it went down well. My thanks to everyone I met for the warm welcome they gave me – especially Jane Robinson, the school’s fabulous librarian.

I adore school visits. If anyone reading this is interested in having me visit your school, I want to hear from you! As well as my page at Contact An Author you can now reach me via the Society of Authors, the National Association of Writers in Education and (I’m especially happy about this one-!) Authors Aloud. Click through or email me directly: visits@samenthoven.com