Proposed cuts to Seven Stories funding

The Council is proposing to cut its funding to all arts organisations by 100% by 2015/16 as a measure to save £90m, in response to cuts imposed by the Coalition government. Our grant from the Council is 13% of our income. That's the equivalent to the funds we spent on our learning and outreach work. It is proposed that the cuts are phased over 2 years, to give us time plan the future direction of our work and develop our income generation strategies.

We understand that the Council is faced with hard decisions. Newcastle City Council, along with Arts Council England, helped to fund the building of Seven Stories and both have been regular funders ever since we opened. We want to work with them to find solutions that ensure that Seven Stories continues to thrive and make a unique contribution to our childhood culture in Britain, the North East and the City of Newcastle.

The founding of a brand new organisation to save, share and celebrate our literary inheritance for children in 1996 took vision and courage. Since we opened in 2005 over 1¼m people have enjoyed a Seven Stories experience. In just 7 years we have gained National status. This has taken dedication, hard work and belief. We know it won’t be easy, but we will build on these strengths.

Kate Edwards, Chief Executive.

http://www.sevenstories.org.uk/news/latestnews/not-100

Blue Peter Book Awards shortlist announced

 

Quentin Blake - Knighted in the New Year's Honours list - has another reason to celebrate after being shortlisted for a Blue Peter Book Award for his work on Michael Rosen's biography of Roald Dahl.

Columnist and author Caitlin Moran is among the judges who have selected the six books for the shortlist – announced today – of this year's Blue Peter Book Awards. The six books, which will now go to a children's vote to decide the overall winners, include a novel about a boy called Stan and his close encounters with fish; a biography of Roald Dahl by a former Children’s Laureate; Shirley Hughes’ first novel – a tale of daring set in Italy during World War II; a handbook for the grim and gruesome science of everyday life; the latest installment of inspiration (mostly) from Tom Gates; and a true-life account of the British Army’s first black officer, who also happened to be a brilliant footballer.

Best Story

• The Boy who Swam With Piranhas by David Almond, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers (Walker Books)
• Hero on a Bicycle by Shirley Hughes ( Walker Books)
• Tom Gates – Genius Ideas (Mostly) by Liz Pichon (Scholastic)

Best Book with Facts

• Horrible Science: House of Horrors by Nick Arnold & Tony De Saulles (Scholastic)
• Walter Tull’s Scrapbook by Michaela Morgan (Frances Lincoln Children’s Books)
• Fantastic Mr Dahl by Michael Rosen, illustrated by Quentin Blake (Puffin)

These enormously popular and influential awards have been unearthing and celebrating the best children’s authors, the most fascinating fact books and the greatest reads for children since 2000.

HOT KEY BOOKS wins a COSTA Book Award! Sally Gardner wins with Maggot Moon

PUBLISHING START-UP HOT KEY BOOKS WINS A

COSTA BOOK AWARD WITH THIRD BOOK PUBLISHED

 

MAGGOT MOON by Sally Gardner has won the 2012 Costa Children’s Book Award

 

MAGGOT MOON, the stunning novel with a dyslexic hero at its heart, is the book closest to author Sally Gardner, herself severely dyslexic and branded ‘unteachable’ when she was at school.

Set in a reimagined 1950s world under the ‘Motherland’s’ dictatorship, MAGGOT MOON is the heartbreaking but inspirational story of the power of the imagination and friendship and has received great praise since publication in August 2012, described as ‘the most original publication for years’ by the Times, ‘the outstanding teenage novel of the autumn’ by the Telegraph and ‘… an inspirational piece of writing’ by the New Statesman.

Sally Gardner said: ‘In all my experience since becoming a full-time writer, winning this award is the most phenomenal. I used to be an illustrator and now I paint with words; I've discovered exactly what words can achieve as pictures. MAGGOT MOON is a book I’ve always wanted to write and Standish has been waiting to be written for years. It is thrilling that the story now stands defiant in the world. It is a great honour to have won this award, and for me, it goes towards proving the power of dreams.’

Hot Key Books, part of Bonnier Publishing, was started up by MD Sarah Odedina, previous Publisher/International Editor-in-Chief at Bloomsbury Children’s Books, in September 2011, and launched its list in August this year to great acclaim.  

 

Sarah Odedina said: ‘We are over the moon that Sally Gardner has won the 2012 Costa Children's Book Award with her outstanding and original book MAGGOT MOON, and particularly delighted that it is just the third book to be published by Hot Key Books. In it she has created a unique voice and one of literature’s best heroes, Standish Treadwell.’

 

MAGGOT MOON is available in hardback, paperback, ebook and as a Multi Touch edition for the iPad. The adult edition will be published on 31 January 2012.

 

 

 

 

The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry 2012 goes to John Agard

THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT IS ISSUED BY

THE PRESS SECRETARY TO THE QUEEN

 

The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry 2012

 

The Queen has approved the award of Her Majesty’s Gold Medal for Poetry for the year 2012 to John Agard.

 

Background and Biography

 

The Poetry Medal Committee met at Windsor on 23rd November and was in agreement that Mr Agard should be nominated for this year’s award, on the basis of his body of work over several years. In particular, the Committee considered Mr Agard’s most recent published volume, Alternative Anthem: Selected Poems (2009), as well as his book of children’s poems Goldilocks on CCTV (2011).

 

Mr Agard grew up in Georgetown, Guyana, in the 1950s. In 1977 he moved to the UK where he has lived ever since: in London working – as a touring speaker  – for the Commonwealth Institute, and for the National Maritime Museum); and now in Lewes (East Sussex). His first books were published before his move to the UK. He has produced numerous volumes of prose and verse, winning the Paul Hamlyn Award for Poetry in 1997 and the Cholmondeley Award in 2004.

 

The Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, has said:

 

‘John Agard has always made people sit up and listen. He has done this with intelligence, humour and generosity. He has the ability to temper anger with wit and difficult truths with kindness. He levels the ground beneath all our feet, whether he is presenting Dante to children or introducing his own (Guyanan) culture to someone who hasn't encountered it before. In performance he is electrifying - compelling, funny, moving and thought-provoking. His work in Education over years has changed the way that readers, writers and teachers think about poetry.’ 

 

History of the Gold Medal for Poetry

 

The Gold Medal for Poetry was instituted by King George V in 1933 at the suggestion of the then Poet Laureate, John Masefield. Recommendations for the award of the Medal are made by a committee of eminent men and women of letters, selected by the Poet Laureate (Carol Ann Duffy).

 

The Medal is awarded for excellence in poetry, on the basis either of a body of work over several years, or for an outstanding poetry collection issued during the year of the award. The poems will have been published. The poet will be from the United Kingdom or a Commonwealth realm.  The obverse of the medal bears the crowned effigy of The Queen.  The idea of the reverse, which was designed by the late Edmund Dulac, is “Truth is emerging from her well and holding in her right hand the divine flame of inspiration – Beauty is Truth and Truth Beauty”.

 

Previous recipients of The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry

 

1934      Laurence Whistler

1936      W H Auden

1940      Michael Thwaites

1952      Andrew Young

1953      Arthur Waley

1954      Ralph Hodgson

1955      Ruth Pitter

1956      Edmund Blunden

1957      Siegfried Sassoon

1959      Frances Cornford

1960      John Betjeman

1962      Christopher Fry

1963      William Plomer

1964      R S Thomas

1965      Philip Larkin

1967      Charles Causley

1968      Robert Graves

1969      Stevie Smith

1970      Roy Fuller

1971      Sir Stephen Spender

1973      John Heath-Stubbs

1981      D J Enright

1986      Norman MacCaig

1988      Derek Walcott

1989      Allen Curnow

1990      Sorley  Maclean

1991      Judith Wright

1992      Kathleen Raine

1996      Peter Redgrove

1998      Les Murray

2000      Edwin Morgan

2001      Michael Longley

2002      Peter Porter

2003      U A Fanthorpe

2004      Hugo Williams

2006      Fleur Adcock

2007      James Fenton

2009      Don Paterson

2010      Gillian Clarke

2011      Jo Shapcott