The last few weeks, it’s fair to say, have been quite hectic. As well as a rather stressful cave move, which saw me shifting my few remaining belongings along several miles of dark, cramped tunnels until I reached my new cell, I appeared at two different book festivals on the same weekend.

Provided you count Friday as a weekend day. Which I do. So there.

On Friday 13th of August – yes, FRIDAY 13th – I appeared at Eden Court theatre as part of the Inverness Book Festival. This was my first ever festival appearance, and I was really pleased that it was at my ‘local’ festival up in the Highlands. As well as my usual trick of rambling on for an hour talking rubbish, I incorportated a new bit into my event. A poor, unwitting soul was selected from the audience, then dressed up as Caddie, the villain of my second Invisible Fiends book, Raggy Maggie. Then, after the ‘volunteer’ (and I use that term loosely) was revealed in all her full horrific horror, she helped me with the reading, by being the voice of Caddie in the story.

Here’s the Inverness Caddie – the lovely Rachel – in her costume and make-up, which was hastily applied by her mum:

On Saturday, I made the trip to Edinburgh, where I was taken out for dinner by the lovely people at HarperCollins Children’s Books. At the dinner I met Garth Nix, Darren Shan and his partner, Bas, and Louise Rennison, none of whom I’d met before. It was a great night, and the meal was flippin’ lovely, too, after having eaten nothing but Snotgrump’s ‘arm bogeys’ for weeks.

The following day, I made my first appearance at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. It was all a bit nerve-wracking, but it went quite well (I think!). This time, I didn’t just get someone dressed up as Caddie. I went one better than that…

Here we have Maria as Mr Mumbles, and Henry as Caddie. Both of them were great sports, and their performances really made the audience laugh. Or maybe they were so terrified they were hysterical. Either way, they were making a lot of noise.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to lately. Now the festivals are over (until Fife next month, at least) I should have more time to blog here. I’ll also soon be offering you the chance to bag yourself a sticker like the one below. More details soooooon…

A little bit of news for any Scream Street fans in the Emerald Isle…

I’m going to be at the Mountains to Sea Book Festival in Dún Laoghaire next month and, as part of the fun, you can now book a place at the Monster Mountains to Sea Author Lunch.  A barrel full of top children’s authors will be present (and me as well!), each hosting a table for young readers and book fans!  Plus, as if fighting us for the last cheese sandwich wasn’t enough, you can hear us all talk about our favourite novels, get copies of your favourite books signed, ask us burning questions, and much, much more!

The authors hosting tables will include: Sarah Webb, fellow captive Niamh Sharkey, P J Lynch, Gordon Snell, Mary Murphy, Tommy Donbavand, Judi Curtin, Joe O’Brien, Don Conroy, Marita Conlon McKenna, Sarah Rees Brennan, Claire Hennessy, Oisin McGann – and perhaps more!

Check out this page for details: Monster Author Lunch

Tommy

As if the pictures weren’t horrifying enough, further evidence of the humiliations of Mark, Tommy, Ali and myself at May’s Trapped By Monsters event at Lincoln Book Festival has just emerged in the form of this video, by Julie Catterson.

Thanks, Julie. You really shouldn’t have. ;D

Sam

PS: Mark has trained in Tae Kwon Do and knife-throwing. So I for one will not smirk or giggle until he’s safely out of the room. ;p

A while back Tommy posted the interview he gave at Holmesdale Technology College in Kent.

Well, I was there too! And I also gave an interview. In fact, for some it, Tommy was sitting at the back making faces at me. It was a little distracting. But only a little. Because, as you’ll see from the interview, I was distracted by many other things as well.

So much so that I rambled on for twice as long as I was meant to, and they had to split the interview into 2 parts. I don’t have much memory of either half, to be honest. But watching back now, I think the second half is a bit more entertaining. Have a go with the first half, but then don’t forget to check out the second half too, because like all good sequels, it takes things to a whole new level.

To give you a flavour of the interview before you watch, here are some of the things I talk about: my shirt, the Queen, Tony Blair, the Spice Girls, Latin, inspiration, top hats, Borat, my drinking problem, monkeys, the ‘nodules’ on bottles… and much more.

Here’s the interview, in 2 parts…

Since we started duetting the hits of Barry Manilow together, Andy and I have appalled the Monsters so much they have decided to shove us both out of the caves for a few hours on Saturday. Just to stop their faces melting. They’re dumping us in the care of the Elephant Toyshop in Trading Boundaries Estate, Sheffield Green (nr Fletching according to OogleMaps) and we must answer questions and read out each other’s stories for a couple of hours from midday. We’ve been told if we sing, though, the monsters (several will be disguised as sales assistants) with drown us in toxic spit, small children present or no.

It could be entertaining and also quite dangerous. Do come along!

My exhibition officially opened yesterday at The Garter Lane Gallery as part of the SprOg Children’s Festival.

Alas, I was foiled by a dribbling monster when I tried to escape on time! The monster heard that marshmallows and Jammie Dodgers were to be served instead of the usual wine and cheese. And he would not let me GO!

In case you get a chance to drop out of the sky and go along, the show runs until 28th August at Garter Lane Gallery, in Waterford.

I have eight pieces of original art from The Ravenous Beast. 

Annie West, Adrienne Geoghegan, Bruce Ingman, and Oisín McGann are in the exhibition too.

Save me a Jammie Dodger if you go along!

Thanks to Tony and all the staff at Pritchard’s Bookshop in Formby for a wonderful – if incredibly busy – day last week !

I was allowed out of the caves visit to Linaker Primary School in Southport where I created some creepy chaos with my Vampires vs Werewolves Game Show before signing books for an hour.

Then it was a dash back to Formby to meet up with Astrosaurs and Cows in Action author, Steve Cole for his event…

…followed by an open-air signing back at the shop…

…where we were joined by my pal and future Scream Street character, Spider, and his utterly brilliant skateboard…

and fellow captive – Mortlock author, Jon Mayhew, who had been sent by the monsters to escort me back to my cell!

What a day – and I’m back at Pritchard’s again on Thursday!  Will I survive…?

Tommy

Recently, I jetted off to the Orkney Islands for a three day tour, talking about being a writer and running workshops with some of the children in the island schools. It was a fun – if occasionally dramatic – few days, and for a full report take a look at this post on my website.

While on the first of the islands I visited – Sanday – I heard tell of a place I would have loved to have visited, had I not been so pushed for time. Lady Kirk is a ruined old church, dating back to at least 1773, but probably much, much further. The walls are in excellent condition, although the roof seems to have done a bunk.

See what I mean?

Despite having no religious leanings whatsoever, I’ve always been quite interested in old churches, probably because they appeal to the horror writer side of me. But there was a specific reason I’d have liked to have gone to Lady Kirk. It’s because, according to legend, the Devil himself has been there. And he’s left his signature behind.

At the top of the stone steps which would’ve once given access to the north gallery, a series of deep grooves have been carved into the rock. They suggest a hulking brute of a creature, with at least six claws and supernatural strength. Or they suggest someone playing silly beggars with a chisel.

Take a look and decide for yourself. What do you think made those marks?

These photos are courtesy of Undiscovered Scotland. Take a look at this page on their site for more information about the clawmarks.

I found myself in Norwich last week as part of the launch for the new mobile library that is set to patrol the roads and some 250 schools in the area for the next 10 years! Why me I hear you ask? Well, I am incredibly lucky to have been the illustrator chosen to have some of my artwork decorate the vehicle.

It was quite strange to see my drawings at such a vast scale. Couldn’t help but worry about all those little mistakes I’d done at the time, and which are now amplified for all to see.

Later I spoke to some wonderful children at Tuckswood Primary School. Thank you to the local council, the librarians and the school who made me so welcome throughout the day!

Ali, Mark, Tommy and I have returned from our show at the Lincoln Book Festival. One of us returned inside a monster. But all of us will bear the psychological scars of what transpired…

After an opening section in which the monsters allowed each of us thirty seconds to plead pathetically not to be eaten, we were hurled straight into a Word By Word Story Round. Two kind young volunteers from the audience did their best to keep our choices out of the gutter, but in vain: I think this pic below captures the exact moment I shouted the word “UDDERS“.

A cavalcade of humiliations followed. Mark made us fart. Ali made us run like girls. Tommy made us race to turn three more unlucky audience volunteers into mummies using special toilet paper that (as he gleefully explained) had ‘only been used once.’ For my round, we recreated the mind-controlling spider-like parasites from Crawlers using rubber gloves attached to sausage balloons stuffed down the backs of our shirts…

I invited the audience to take on the role of the Queen in the book, giving commands to her hapless victims that we poor authors had no choice but to obey…

Of course they were absolutely merciless. I think this (below) is us all obeying the order to ‘roll on the floor like babies.’

After a Q&A section in which we attempted to regain whatever limited authorial dignity we’d possessed at the start of the show…

…it was time for our closing statements – a last chance to beg for our lives before the audience was given the opportunity to vote for whoever they thought should receive the dreaded condiment of doom.

It was at this point that the drama of our predicament became too much for Ali, who – for reasons that remain unclear – suddenly burst into a spontaneous rendition of Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You.’ This was clearly a step too far for our audience, and – still claiming desperately that her Blue Peter Badge might scratch the monster’s delicate intestinal passages – Ali was dragged from the stage by our monster jailer Simon to begin her, ahem, Alimentary Adventure.

Maybe I was just relieved not to be sharing Ali‘s fate, but the rest of the gig really was a lot of fun. Our listeners bought loads of our books…

…and we even got the chance to judge the fabulous entries of a monster drawing competition. Here are our three favourites (check out the ‘floating eyebrows’ on the right-!)

A MONSTER THANK YOU to Andy and Julie and everyone we met and spoke to. You know what? Considering that we suffered an ordeal of psychological torment that ended in one of us being eaten alive, we really did have a surprisingly brilliant time.

Poor Ali. Best of luck in there. We’ll be waiting with high-pressure hoses and emergency fudge whenever you emerge. ;D

Sam

PS: William Hussey, author of the excellent Witchfinder: Dawn of the Demontide, witnessed the whole thing. For an alternative view of how the afternoon went, check out his brilliant new blog.