2013 YA Debut Event

Megan McDade is hosting a 2013 YA debut author event on her blog, Reading Away the Days, and two of our lovely authors have agreed to take part!

Karen Saunders, author of the new hilarious chick-lit series Me, Suzy P will be appearing on Megan's blog on January 1st to talk about her inspiration, writing for the first time and a few of her favourite things. You can read Karen's interview here.

You can follow Karen on Twitter, Facebook and on her blog. 

Look out for Suzy Puttock's Tweets in January! @SuzyPuttock

And Ferryman author, Claire McFall, will be answering questions about her new epic love story on 9th January.

 Follow Claire on Facebook and her blog 

You can pre-order Me, Suzy P and Ferryman now.

Indian Takeway Facts

As India Dark, a tale of intrigue and mystery set in the Indian subcontinent, is part of today's Kindle Daily Deal, we thought we'd wet your appetite with some surprising facts about Indian takeaways!

• In London there is a greater number of Indian Restaurants than there are in Mumbai and Delhi combined! 
• Britain’s first curry restaurant was opened in 1809. 
• Two thirds of all meals out in the UK are Indian Food.
• Record Breaking - Poppadom Tower 5’8” in 2012 – 1280 poppadoms!

• Chilli is the most popular spice in the world - it can help combat heart attacks and strokes and extends blood coagulation times preventing harmful blood clots.
• The biggest curry (10.3 tonnes!) was made in the UK, of course, by Abdul Salam of the Eastern Eye Restaurant in Lichfield, in 2005. 

• Largest onion Bhaji. As part of the Curry Capital of Britain Awards in 2011, a team of cookery students from Bradford College and Prashad Restaurant created a 102.2kg onion bhaji. Despite the abnormal size, the team made sure the many layers were cooked so that it would be edible. In the end the length of the bhaji was 40.94 inches, the width 29.62 inches and the height was 12.20 inches. 

Click here to get your kindle copy for 99p

Where are they now?

India Dark follows the lives of Tilly Sweetrick and Poesy Swift as they sing and dance across hundreds of stages in India as members of a troupe of Australian child performers. This got us thinking about child stars in the media, and where they are now... here are some our favourites:

Britney Spears

1993 - Mickey Mouse Club

2012 - X Factor Judge

Jodie Foster

1973 - One Little India

2012- At the Cannes Film Festival

Lindsay Lohan

1998 - Parent Trap

On the red carpet - 2012

Macaulay Culkin

1990 - Home Alone

February 2012

Dani Harmer

2007 - Tracy Beaker

2012 - Strictly Come Dancing

Dakota Fanning

2005 - War of the Worlds premier

2009 - Twilight Saga's New Moon

Where do you think Tilly and Poesy would be now?

India Dark is 99p today in Amazon's daily deal: http://amzn.to/UwcoBn 

A Writer's Passage to India

Author Kirsty Murray talks about her inspiration for writing India Dark

I’m in Shimla at the moment, in the Lower Himalayas, once the summer capital of British India. It’s sixty-five years since India won its independence but you can still sense the ghosts of the Raj here in the Himalayan foothills. Shimla doesn’t feature in my novel India Dark because Pollard’s Lilliputian Opera Company, the real theatre troupe who inspired the story, didn’t venture up here in 1909. The town was under snow by the time the children reached northwest India.

Pollard's Lilliputian Opera company

  In 2007, I retraced the route the Pollard children followed, travelling by train in a wide arc around the subcontinent. I trekked through the heat and dust of modern Indian cities searching for remnant shadows of the Empire theatre circuit. British and Australian singers, dancers, music hall performers and magicians regularly toured every outpost of Empire. Child theatre troupes – or ‘Lilliputians’ as they were commonly known - were popular fare. But the events of the Pollard’s disastrous 1909-10 tour signalled the end of an era. Once the scandal broke in newspapers around the world and the truth about the backstage lives of the child stars was revealed, the Lilliputian’s reputations were destroyed forever.

India Dark is part of today's Amazon Kindle Daily Deal and so is 99p! http://amzn.to/UwcoBn

Follow Kirsty's Indian adventure on her blog: http://magiccasements.blogspot.co.uk/

Templar is on the lookout for an intern!

Templar is delighted to be able to offer a six-week internship in our busy editorial department, starting in early January.

Working in editorial is exciting and varied – whilst here you’d be undertaking project work such as picture research and proofreading, as well as helping us go all out in preparation for the most important event in the children’s publishing calendar: the Bologna Book Fair. We're also going to be looking for help reading submissions and creating our autumn/winter catalogue. So if you have a passion for children’s books and a keen eye for typos, please do get in touch!

We can offer travel expenses of up to £15 per day and a small amount of subsistence. If you’d like to apply for the position, please send a covering letter and your CV to liza.miller@templarco.co.uk with the subject heading ‘Editorial internship’.

Deadline for application: 21st December 2012

Templar's Night with the Stars!

Yes, we were there at The Specsavers National Book Awards last night!

Jonny Duddle and his lovely wife, Jane
Libby Hamilton - Jonny's editor
Tamlyn Francis - Jonny's agent
Mike McGrath - Templar's MD
Jayne Roscoe - Templar's Press Officer

looking dead glam in our posh frocks and smart suits  as we made our way into the Mandarin Oriental hotel on Knightsbridge.

The Pirate's Next Door was on the shortlist for best Children's Book.  We had a feeling that if David Walliams showed up then he was more than likely going to win this category (and he did show up and he did win!)

Tamlyn and Jonny - still standing

Before we got down to the serious business of the awards themselves, there were canapes and  fizzy stuff to be downed, celebrities to spot and photo's in the special spacelab to be done.   We're not quite sure what happened to Tamlyn and Libby in the last photo - rumour has it that they fell off the stool.

Libby and Jane Duddle

I had to go and tell Caitlin Moran that I loved her writing and have given her book to all my friends.  She let out a great whoop, gave me a huge hug and nearly fell off her amazing bright green stacked heels.

Jayne and Caitlin Moran

From then on it was a straight celeb fest!  Compared bakes with  Mary Berry - looking lovely in a gold sequin jacket, shared photo's with the lovely Liz Pichon and said hello to Ben Cort.  Saw Gok Wan tell the waitress serving mini-spring rolls that his dad made the best ones (Mr Wan snr looked delighted!).  Kathy Lette, Ian and Victoria Hislop were huddled in a corner whilst Miranda Hart and Clare Balding were seeing who was the tallest of the two.  Such fun.

Spotted our arch rival, David Walliams and asked if I could take his photo - and before I knew it, his pr had pushed me next to him and taken the photo.   He is very tall!

Then it was off into the ballroom for the actual awards ceremony - with cheers all round for each of the nominations and applause for the winners.  We then got down to the serious business of continuing the celebrations which went on to around midnight.  

Then it was time to go home - and as we spilled out into the cold night air something strange had happened, we all found ourselves wearing our Sponsor's products .....