Undiscovered Voices Stands and Delivers

When I was 6 years old this was my favourite thing ever...

Highwaymen were cool!
(Remember I said that).

I read every book I could get my hands on that had a whisper of a highwayman in. A sniff of a Dick Turpin or a whiff of a Claude Du Vall and I was there. Highwaymen were exciting, dangerous, flamboyant and galloped about on big black horses. I wanted to be one.

Later, when I was a older than 6 and writing for children was now my favourite thing ever, I wondered 'Where all the highwaymen gone?' There are loads of kids' books full of the baddies we can't help but love. Pirates, wizards, dragons, werewolves, vampires are all still there, but the only highwaymen stories I could find were the icky sicky romantic ones.

But highwaymen are still cool!

And so I wrote 'The Lowayman'

'Mystery, adventure and a life on the open road, that’s what young George Beckett wants. What George has is a shrieking aunt, a bed in a hayloft and a collection of highwaymen posters. So George goes in search of ‘The Phantom’ who turns out to be half the man George thought...literally! '
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A few months ago I sent  'The Lowayman' to Undiscovered Voices. UV is a biannual competition run by the British Isles Region of SCBWI. Its aim is to help fresh, new voices in children's literature- both writers and illustrators-find agents, publishers and ultimately readers. 

Today I heard that 'The Lowayman' has been  LONGLISTED! 
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See! I told you Highwaymen are cool!

So now I'm 41 years old and this is currently my favourite thing ever...



(black, leather gloved fingers crossed for the shortlist)

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