Twelve towns, nine venues, over 25 schools and thousands of children, the Macmillan Children’s Authors Assemble North to South tour certainly wasn’t a sedate affair.
Thankfully, with the spectacular assistance of the Macmillan team, Tom Percival, Katie Dale and I made it back to our respective homes in one piece, six days later.
Exhausted, mentally battered but in very good spirits thanks to an amazing adventure from Newcastle all the way to Brentwood, where we met up with our awesome west-east authors Claire Fayers, Marianne Levy and Kieran Crowley.
The children at all the schools and venues we visited were in fine and lively form – singing, posing, chanting, dressing-up, shouting and cheering – apologies to all the teachers who had to get them back to class.
It was also great to spend some time chatting with the children after the events. I learnt a lot about their favourite football players and favourite foods. One girl’s middle name was ‘Wednesday’ after Sheffield Wednesday. Now that’s excellent parenting, in my humble opinion.
Big thanks to Fritha Lindqvist for all the work putting together an action packed tour. All at Macmillan Children’s for babysitting us and answering our stupid melted brain questions (Alyx Price, Lucy Pearse, Jess Rigby, Venetia Gosling and Gillian MacKay).
All the amazing Independent Bookshops who supported and drove us about during the tour. Hopefully we weren’t too much of a burden. Make sure you visit them if you are in the area – Drake’s Bookshop (Stockton), SilverDell Books (Kirkham), Urmston Bookshop, Chorleywood & Gerrards Cross Bookshops, Chicken & Frog (Brentwood)
Finally to Katie and Tom, who were brilliant author allies and travelling partners during the tour. They are both supremely talented authors, and engaging presenters, and I look forward to hopefully working with them again in the future. Buy all their books, they are great.
So, here’s some highlights of the week long Authors Assemble tour. Sadly no pictures of the amazing food we ate or me watching ‘Hot Tub Machine’ at 3am, when I couldn’t get to sleep one night due to a sore throat (I’m old now, so this is ok).
