I've always wanted to write children's books. As a child, I was addicted to Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton amongst others. I spent years with my head in the Faraway Tree, sitting in Miss Honey's classroom or collecting dreams with the BFG. But then I read How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff, and Rachel Ward's Numbers, I was hooked. It didn't take long for me to realise that teen fiction was exactly what I wanted to write.
My first attempt at a YA novel, 'Magpie', was chosen as one of the winners of Undiscovered Voices 2012, and as a result the first 4000 words of it will forever sit nestled in an anthology back-to-back with eleven extracts by twelve authors who will undoubtedly be coming to a bookshelf near you soon.
At the launch party for the Undiscovered Voices anthology, I was talking to an agent who told me there was someone I absolutely had to meet. The agent I absolutely had to meet was Molly Ker Hawn (The Bent Agency), who I am now signed with, and who is just brilliant.
As for my next book? You (and indeed I) will just have to wait and see.
As long as you don't want to shout at me, whinge at me or otherwise be a big meanie, you can contact me at jo.wyton AT gmail.com
