My Books.. So Far.

It's weird to think I have FIVE books knocking about! They're all completely different! I thought I'd put a post together where they can all be in one place at once.

For The Best was taken from notes my father made of his childhood growing up in Gipton, Leeds. I've not changed the order of the stories and memories, as that's not how you remember things, there's always tangents and finding something else to talk about. So it's written very organically - which means a lot of explicit language - not for little ones!
You can ONLY grab a copy here:
FOR THE BEST - MEMORIES OF A FIFTIES CHILD.

My poetry book is fairly angry, it's mainly politically focused and it's a collection of my first poems. I used my friend Jo's artwork for the cover (support indie!) - and again, the poems can contain explicit language - but not all of them do!
You can ONLY purchase a copy of my poetry here: MIND THE GAP.

The Charlie Cheese books series are cute, rhyming, indie books about a slice of brie! The illustrator is my friend Tommings - he is beyond talented! Give him a look up and check out his other work, too!
Where you'll find..
Don't Eat Charlie Cheese: Amazon / Waterstones / Barnes and Noble / Booktopia.

Charlie Cheese Travels The World: Amazon / Waterstones / Barnes and Noble / Booktopia.

Charlie Cheese And The Food Dance: Amazon / Barnes and Noble.

UPDATE MARCH 2019:
My brand new children's book, The Macroodelzig: Amazon / Barnes and Noble

Charlie Cheese Books : Third Book Coming Soon!

I'm so happy to say the third book, Charlie Cheese And The Food Dance, will be available in the next few days!

I'm in the process of editing and making the book look sharp, then it's off to print!

When I have a purchase link, or the books are available in stores, I will make a follow up post - but for now, keep your eyes peeled!

Charlie Cheese Books - Valentine's Day

Charlie and Mouse are excited for Valentine's day next week!

You can read about how Charlie and Mouse first met in 'Don't Eat Charlie Cheese'.

Mouse needed someone to protect him from a mean cat who lived outside his house, luckily Charlie came to his rescue and they've been together ever since!

We have Charlie Cheese Valentine's cards HERE. So you can send love to your friends and family in the cheesiest way!

School Visit - Photo!

This morning I received a photo of Tommings and I at our school visit earlier this month!

The photo is from the first class of Year 3 we visited, during a question and answer session about how I get ideas for my Charlie Cheese Books stories, how we got interested in writing and illustrating, and then brainstorming ideas for new books with the children.
- I'm mid sentence in the photo so excuse my face!

Thank you so much to Mrs Goodlad and the Year 3 staff for inviting us into their classes, and thank you to the children for making us feel welcome in their school!

Our First Ever School Visit!

As I said before, Tommings and I got invited to come into a local primary school to talk about the Charlie Cheese Books. Today was the day! It was fantastic, the children asked questions on where we get our ideas from, how long it takes us to write and illustrate, and how reading lots and lots helped our brains get new ideas! We also set a challenge to make their own food characters, all of them were amazing!

Here's some of the ones I remember:
Ogy Orange, Lucy Lettuce, Hassan Hummus, Dennis Doughnut, and for some reason Pizza Pig!

The children drew up their characters, some wrote their own rhyming childrens books, and Tom had illustrated what they were writing about. I'm very pleased with how our first school visit went as the children heard all about the effort and time that goes into writing - and that reading books is super important. We loved each minute of it, and hope to do it again in the future!

School Visit : Invitation!

Tommings and I will be visiting a school in Leeds in the very near future!
We are going to talk to the children about creative writing, illustrating books and explain how we make the Charlie Cheese series.
I think our visit will make the children excited about reading books, and give them an opportunity to meet a real life author and illustrator from Leeds!
I have always worked with children, I've had Tommings come in to a previous workplace to have a little workshop with the children, which was amazing! So we are beyond excited for the opportunity to show the little ones what we do!

I'll be posting an update after our visit!

Literary Festival - Entered

So, tonight I got tagged in an Instagram post about a commission, for a literary festival that takes place in May (by Tommings, see I told you he was awesome!).
I had to quickly think and put forward my idea as the deadline is the end of the month (if I didn't do it now, I'd get worked up and nervous and it wouldn't get done).
It's a new Charlie Cheese story!
Not to be mistaken with Charlie Cheese And The Food Dance, which I will release, eventually...
I've written up less than half of the story, I know the overall storyline but it needs editing into oblivion and that's what I'll be working on for the next few weeks. I'll know if anything comes of it early February.
Wish me luck!

Charlie Cheese Books - Tommings

I just want to take a moment to share some of the artwork from Charlie Cheese Books.
Charlie has come a long way from being a terrible doodle I sketched, and I have Tommings to thank for that. He put a lot of time and effort into illustrating the Charlie Cheese we have today. And I am delighted with how the illustrations have turned out, I cannot imagine Charlie looking any other way! Thank you so much, Tom!
You can follow Charlie on Facebook and on Twitter - come say hi!

I honestly suggest if anyone needs an illustrator to look into Tommings' work. He's done comics, logos, gig posters and so much more. Go see!

This is from the second book, Charlie Cheese Travels The World. This is where Charlie goes for a bike ride in the desert.

 This is from the second book, too. This is where Charlie goes to the beach and gets a little seasick!

This is from the first book, Don't Eat Charlie Cheese, where Charlie is trying to find a job that suits him perfectly, but his boss seems to have other ideas!