Latest Event Updates
Dia Duit Éire!
Ireland is taking centre stage this week. I’m preparing for my travels there later this week (see below), but before that, tomorrow, on Monday 24th Nov, I’ll be taking part in the Book of the Year 2025 online event with Halfway up the Stairs, an award-winning children’s bookshop in Greystones, Co. Wicklow, one of the only children’s bookshops in Ireland. I’m looking forward to meeting the team, thanking them for supporting and loving My Name is Jodie Jones, meeting the other authors, and finding out what their Book of the Year is for 2025. https://halfwayupthestairs.ie/events/
On Thursday, I’m flying to Dublin for Winners’ Ceremony for the A Post Irish Book Awards. I’m so excited! I haven’t been to Ireland for (too many) years, and what a glorious reason to be returning to the motherland. My excellent editor, Anthony Hinton, and brilliant agent, Jessica Hare, are joining me for the glam black tie ceremony. I’m very grateful to The Powers That Be at my day job for letting me have Friday as well so don’t have to rush back the morning after the ceremony. I don’t know how inspiring or energetic my teaching would be if I had to get up early and fly back for a full teaching day.
Just as well …
An Post Irish Book Awards and another great review.
I’m honoured and delighted to have been shortlisted for Teen and Young Adult Book of the Year in the A Post Irish Book Awards. The shortlist was announced on 22 October, and the award ceremony is on 27th November, so I’ll be off to Dublin for the glitz and glamour of a night with some of the brightest and best of Ireland’s writers. There are no storytellers as skilled as the Irish; we are a tale-bearing, yarn-spinning, word-loving bunch. Irish writers have always been radical, progressive, profound, creative and groundbreaking. Look at Lawrence Stern, Jonathan Swift, James Joyce, WB Yeats, Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, Edna O’Brien, Maeve Binchy, George Bernard Shaw … the list goes on. And in more recent years, Irish writers are quite rightfully shining on the world stage, with the likes of John Banville, Anne Enright, Colm Tóibín, Sally Rooney, Roddy Doyle, Eimear McBride, Maggie O’Farrell, Claire Keegan, Emma Donoghue … honestly, I could fill an entire post with a list of Ireland’s astonishingly brilliant authors, poets and playwrights. I’m honoured to spend a night in the same room as the others on the shortlists. My fellow Teen and YA shortlistees are so imaginative and skilled: there is stiff competition indeed. Good luck to them all. You can vote for My Name is Jodie Jones here (you don’t need to vote in every category!): https://www.irishbookawards.ie/vote/
My Name is Jodie Jones has been out for two months now, and the stunning reviews keep coming in: this one by Fiona Noble in The Observer this weekend is gorgeous.
https://observer.co.uk/culture/books/article/young-adult-fiction-of-the-month-spellbinding-stories
Thank you so much, Fiona!
Annnd she’s out!
Jodie Jones is out in the big bad world, and she is getting lots and lots of love. The launch was jubilant thanks to the amazing Rev and team at Waterstones King Road, the DFB team, and everyone who came along to celebrate. Anthony, my editor, gave the world’s best and most complimentary speech. My oldest and bossiest friend came and spoke to everyone there, I think: I’ve known her since I was six (we walked to primary school and secondary school together every day, were besties at sixth form college, had kids around the same time, and have stayed in contact ever since). She’s on the left in photo two with my wonderful agent, Jessica Hare, in the middle of us. In photo three, my colleague Shivani is giving me grief, telling me I have to write something spectacular and original when I sign her copy of the novel, and beside her is my uncle, over from Thailand, who is one of my most favourite humans.
The reviews keep coming in, and they are astonishing. On Friday, Imogen Russell Williams of The Guardian included it in her round up of the best new books for children and teens, for which I’m ineffably grateful.
https://share.google/ptd8sESlobBJ5U2Rz
It’s time to write something else but for now, I’m letting Jodie enjoy her newfound freedom. I know she would just love that.
Two days to go …
I’m delighted and excited. My Name is Jodie Jones will be published this Thursday 11th September, and the pre-publication reviews are astonishing. I have been bowled over by the positive energy and love for this book. Thank you to all the reviewers for taking the time to read and review it.
Sarah Webb on Instagram wrote the one that made me squeal:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DN5J5AzDIRs/
Brilliant book alert 🚨🚨🚨
I am undone. What an extraordinary book! I’ve just finished reading My Name is Jodie Jones and I am beyond impressed – one of the standout books of 2025. @emmashevahauthor has created one of the most complex, interesting and unique characters in any book I’ve ever read. …The whole novel is a literature lover’s dream! But it’s so much more than that, it’s an examination of trauma, a mystery story, and an ode to friendship – Jodie Jones’ best friend, Becca is magnificent. The plotting is fiendishly clever, towards the end of the book I gasped when I realised what Shevah had managed to do. And some of the scenes made me sob for little Jodie Jones.
When I have time I’ll craft a review worthy of Jodie Jones and Emma Shevah’s rich, muscular and clever language, but for now I’ll simply say BRAVO!
A whopping 10/10 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
And then Erin at My Shelves are Full …
And Veronica Price at V’sViewfromtheBookshelves
And the Ireland vote, which means a lot to me, being half Irish: thank you, Children’sBooksIreland.
https://childrensbooksireland.ie/our-recommendations/my-name-jodie-jones
A reader review is a wonderful thing as well: this one is by a reader called Willow Brown.
https://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/reviews/25341/My-Name-is-Jodie-Jones-by-Emma-Shevah.html
Thank you, all. I might need a little sit down on Thursday.
Summer writing: the good, the bad and the other stuff.
Sometimes I find writing easy: I just open my head and words come out. I’m happiest if they come out exactly as my brain intends. With My Name is Jodie Jones, I was stunned when someone (that someone being my agent, Jessica Hare) actually liked the words my brain intended, and didn’t think they were all weird and nuts. Then other people liked what I’d written (those people being the team at DFB) and that was even more surprising. Other other people seem to like it, too (those other other people being early readers and critics) so here’s hoping.
Sometimes I find writing hard. I need an ‘in’. I need a character and a voice and I’m away. Coming up with a voice can be hard, though.
Moan alert: I think my day job is changing my wiring. It’s allowing me to access the minds and day to day lives of teens, which is a plus. Not that I can really access the minds of teens but at least I’m around them and get a sense of their thinking. But being a teacher is hard work and I think my creative juices are drying up somewhat. I need a creative juice generator. I think it’s called a holiday.
(Yes, it’s the summer and yes, that could be considered a holiday but I mean a holiday from the whole cycle of academics: terms, preparing lessons, seating plans, KCSIE updates, exam marking, being constantly and increasingly exhausted.)
Positive energy alert: Look, I’ve managed to write and publish eight books while having two jobs, four kids and piles of marking so let’s be easy on ourselves. I also like teaching, and the kids, and my colleagues, and literature. I just don’t like being tired.
The reason I’m writing this post: My agent has asked me to send her some ideas. This is good. This means I’ve spent the last two weeks writing snippets of things. Deadlines work for me: otherwise I’m excellent at thinking a lot. Gathering ideas for Jessica gets me writing words down and developing them into something a wee bit longer. I now have five ideas and snippets to send her, and some I like. Let’s see if she does.
Photo credit: https://unsplash.com/@nick_brookenheimer
Cover Reveal
My heart is going boom booty boom booty boom with love, delight, excitement and titillation to share the cover of ‘My Name is Jodie Jones’, published this September with David Fickling Books. It’s a beaut: full of zip, zing, zeal and pizazz. Big up Michelle Brackenborough for this stunner: you rock. I love so many of your covers. Thank you. https://michellebrackenborough.com/
On Friday, I found out how to make Instagram videos and spent a stupid amount of time making my first one. It’s hard to do on a phone at Paddington station, that’s all I can tell you. What I’ve learned is that less is more and to break it up next time. But it was fun and I now have insane respect for people who can make those quick-fire, funny, creative ones. I’ve posted it below, but it’s useless really: because I’m a school teacher, my Instagram account has to be private: I’m not sure how to get around that. Chats need to be had with pastoral leads: maybe I need a separate author account? Meanwhile, please request to follow me unless you are in my class. If you are in my class, hello and do your homework.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJcWygNo7JmBFR5ALNRSaNAfnAoKi52FSX7oSI0/?igsh=MTh1bWJvN2xrZ3Z4Yw==
Debut Teen/YA out this September.
I lost my writing mojo a few years back. It happens. I think it might happen more to those of us who have full time jobs, kids, homes to run, and barely time to brush our teeth, so writing and editing books seems an unnecessary add on. Writing them is fine. It’s fun. It’s hard. It involves hours of laptopery and screenery. But it’s fine. Not quite so fine are the seemingly endless days, weekends, half terms, holidays, evenings and sunny beach days spent editing and rewriting – that is a massive pain. You think to yourself, I swear, if something significant doesn’t materialise from this, like enough income to give up the day job so I can enjoy this writing malarkey as my main and only gig or … actually, no, just that … then I’m making life harder for myself for no reason and that, in English, is known as masochism and I, in English and in all other languages, am known as a giant idiot. So I stopped. Gave myself and my hurting arm a break. Maybe forever.
Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash.
But in October 2023, I went on an Arvon course with sixteen kids (none of them mine: I have lots but not quite that many) and continued writing a chapter I’d started years before. I came home, tentatively carried on, went to Thailand over Christmas and kept writing it, and I dunno, a book materialised from the ether, as they sometimes do. My agent loved it, which is always a happy scenario. The rest of the year, my beach days, weekends, half terms etc etc were eradicated with editing and rewriting.
Last year, something exciting happened, which is leading to something even more exciting happening this year. Three publishers were interested in my I-am-not-writing-anymore-possible-never-but-somehow-a-story-has-materialised-from-the-ether novel, and I signed a contract with one of them. This September, my debut teen/YA My Name is Jodie Jones will be published by David Fickling Books.
This is honestly a glorious feeling and I’m so grateful to Jessica, my agent, and to the team at DFB. Can I give up my full time job to write? No. Not yet anyway. Maybe never. Can I go down to four days? Risky. Do I love the new book? Am I thrilled? Was it worth it? Am I keen to introduce Jodie Jones to the world and the world to Jodie Jones? Definitely.
How to Save the World with a Chicken and an Egg
Disclaimer: I am no expert on saving the world. I am no expert on chickens. And I know very little about eggs.
My, but I’m a terrible blogger. Actually, I’m quite a good blogger when I post – I must have been because I used to write a blog for the Independent called ‘Independent Minds’. But these days, I only seem to have time to write OR parent OR run a year group and teach, and somehow I’m doing all three. Blogging? Back back back of the queue.
But. With this really lovely-looking new book out next week, I can’t help but queue-jump. This one I’m proud of. I’m proud of them all, obviously, but this one is special: it’s about the planet I love, animals I love, a place I love, humans I’m very fond of, even though they aren’t real, and a message I’m hoping will resonate. Plus it mentions real people I think are incredible, like Carl Safina, and fictional people like Nathaniel, a boy with Autism, who is very lovely indeed, as is Ivy Pink Floyd, the girl he meets in Southwold.
Best of all, it’s uplifting, and tell me one person who does not need uplifting right now.
I know it’s uplifting because my mother told me. She’s reading it, you see. She is giving it rave reviews on a daily basis. This was her WhatsApp review last week:
I am on chapter 12 of your book ,I just LOVE IT ,when the advertise it ,they should say ,”its for the child in all of us ,irrespective of our age ” its SO delightful ,and just the lighthearted up lift we all need after this very hard lockdown to me it makes me smile , really ,I sat up in bed ,after reading 2 chapters ,before I had to get up ,and when I closed the book I smiled ,with pure happiness, it’s a summer must read for everyone ,good luck ,its a masterpiece,
She’s now up to chapter 15 and leaving me voice notes about how long she laughed for after reading certain sections. Sadly, my mother’s review doesn’t cut it in the world of critical acclaim so hopefully some other reviewers will feel the same way. Maybe even you.
Children’s Book Council
It’s live!
My interview with the Children’s Book Council’s ‘Beyond the Page’ author section is now live on the webinet. You can read it here:
Thanks to the CBC for inviting me to talk about cheese, moving to Thailand and being a non-surfer. It’s made me reassess my values…
I have a book out for early readers with Bloomsbury in September – my first early reader – and I have other news too, but it’s a bit ssssshhhhhhh for now. And I’m working on my next MG book – due out in 2020 (if I get on with it), about a girl, a boy, a lot of animals and a mission to save the world. Which is a big mission, you have to admit.
Book Birthday!!!
Yippppeeeeee! Today, a delightfully funny, very caring yet deeply confused child is born into the world, and her name is Lexie. Happy book birthday to me (and her). May her life be most excellent and may she be very very loved.
(Disclaimer: Lexie is not my a biological child or she would be child number seven, and seven children is beyond even my mothering capabilities. No, I have four children born of my flesh and blood, and three now born of my brain.)
Here are my girls. Don’t they look perdy?
Thanks to Chicken House and cover designer Helen Crawford-White, Amber and Dara have been rebranded so now they all have fabulous floating heads on the covers and look MORE GRAPHIC DESIGNY AND CLEAN-LINED, MORE POLISHED AND EYE-CATCHING, MORE PROFESSIONAL AND CONNECTED-TO-EACH-OTHER-IN-A-COOL-AND-GROOVY-WAY, MORE MMM MMM MMM and MORE GORGEOUS THAN I COULD HAVE THOUGHT POSSIBLE.
Quick focus on LEXIE: Lexie is about a ten year old girl from a Greek Cypriot family in London who is separated from her cousin after a BIG FAT FAMILY ARGUMENT and tells a HUGE LIE to try and stop them arguing. In a sentence, it’s about truth, lies and spinach/feta pies, friends being mean and car keys in the sea, and toilets in the garden and secrets in shoeboxes. In order for any of this to make sense, you have to read it.
Useful information:
- By clicking on the hyperlinks above, you can read the opening chapters of all three of the books.
- What Lexie Did will be published soon in the US and Canada by Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, and will be called ‘LEXIE AND THE LIE’.
- Graphic designy is not a grammatically correct word.
- MMM MMM MMM needs to be hummed in the way a chicken-frying mamma in deepest Louisiana might hum it.
Useless information:
- According to the twitter site, Quite Interesting (@qikipedia), “a Tokyo restaurant has said a woman who ordered their world’s smallest sushi, made with a single grain of rice, was so moved she cried for an hour and a half.”
- And seeing as Lexie is Greek Cypriot, @qikipedia also tells us that “the word “ostrich” is derived from the Greek “struthos meagle” – literally “big sparrow”. (Photo: Sven-Kåre Evenseth.)”
You’re welcome.
Emma Shevah 