Published today by Fischer: RAIN – Das tödlich Element (Rain – The deadly element), translated by Rainer Schmidt.

Wunderschön!!!!

It is so amazing to see The Rain translated – even if my German is so terrible I can’t understand much of it. I did learn some German in school, but I learned a whole lot more when I went to Salzburg to be an au-pair. I was 19, and I lasted a month before I ran away to Stuttgart because I’d fallen in love with a German boy . . . oops.

He was studying, so I got to visit him in Tübingen, and then in Berlin – before and after the wall came down . . . what an amazing city.

Ha! I just got a magnifying glass to read the sign I’m holding – it says ‘Himalayan Expedition 1989’. (Travelling light, huh? And check out those authentic 80’s trousers!)

The Rain made the Oxfordshire Book Award shortlist!

Brilliant news! I am so honoured and so thrilled to be included because ONLY young people vote in the OBA . . . and I was once a young person of Oxfordshire myself:

I grew up in Abingdon. Here’s the story of that in pictures:

From my sister’s First Holy Communion (I’m on the left; they called me Droopy Drawers) – right through to my first and most beloved pet, that 70’s-look outside St Edmund’s Church (I was at St Edmund’s School), New Romantic teen phase (Fitzharrys School), superb teen bedroom (until someone tells me otherwise, I suspect I am the ONLY teen – ever! – to combine Supertramp lyrics with feminism) . . . and, finally, when I left home at 17 . . . and lived in a disused classroom me and my friends called ‘The Bat Pad’. By then I was at Oxford College of Further Education doing A-levels . . . when I remembered to go. I messed up (BIG TIME), I almost got kicked out, I had to start new subjects . . .

All I wanted to do was write stories, but that wasn’t an exam option back then . . . but . . . maybe that doesn’t matter?

Ruby would say I need a conclusion. My conclusion would be: if you want to write, write. Follow your heart.

So there you have it: an Oxfordshire childhood. I never, ever, would have believed that a story I wrote would be featured in the Abingdon Herald.

Thank you, Oxfordshire Book Award voters!

So . . . I finally finished tinkering. It is printed. The Storm is coming your way February 26th.

That’s in the UK.

(The Storm pic taken in the fabulous Bristol Central Library.)

This is what Macmillan had to do to stop me from re-writing at the last moment (apologies to Jonathan Goodwin the escape artist):

And this is how I responded (security pic from Macmillan author-proof story vault):

But really . . . it’s all down to Ruby now . . . The Storm is coming!

I am honoured indeed that H20 (The Rain) is a VOYA Magazine perfect 10. That means:

‘A 5Q for quality (hard to imagine it better written) and a 5P for popularity (every young adult who reads was dying to read it yesterday).’ (VOYA)

Honoured . . . and in great company: read all about it at VOYA.

US interview with SF Signal! Thank you, guys!

Read it here: SF Signal interview.

You know . . . I really did think about how this story would read if I made the bacterium in the rain bio-luminesce . . . it would entirely possible; it would look magical, and weird; imagine it . . . the whole world glowing with death . . .

. . . but I chose to make the bacterium invisible to the human eye. I thought . . . the ordinary, the invisible, is so much more scary. You cannot see what is coming to kill you . . . can you, Ruby?

UK publication date: 26th February 2015!

Thanks again to that lovely lot at Maximum Pop! for zapping out an exclusive cover reveal right here. (Click link to view!)

If you’d like a peek at what’s inside, Macmillan’s My Kinda Book have posted a l’il extract . . . but trust me, Ruby’s panda eyes are going to be the least of her problems. Share her misery here! (Click link to view.)

For anyone who has already read The Rain/H20, the question you might want to ask yourself is, WHAT’S SASKIA DOING THERE?! Why would anyone want to leave a place of safety during an apocalypse . . . ?!

In The Storm, Ruby finds out answers to questions she never even dreamed she’d be asking . . . ‘The end of the world was just the beginning.’

Amazing news . . .

The Rain has been nominated for the 2015 CILIP Carnegie Medal.

It’s a very long list of nominations, but it feels like a very great honour just to be on that list.

When I was growing up, we didn’t really go to bookshops.

If we had book vouchers, we went to a shop called WH Smith; if we had cash, we went to the charity shop (Oxfam!).

The rest of the time, every week – every single week – we went to THE LIBRARY.

Ah! Don’t get me started . . . at a library you can gorge on books FOR FREE. Any subject . . . any anything . . . and if your library hasn’t got the book you want, they can order it.

If you clicked on the CILIP Carnegie Medal link, you’ll have seen this already: Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) was a Scottish self-made industrialist (who made money in steel in the USA). He gave away 90% of what he made. He went to the library when he was a kid . . .  and later vowed, “if ever wealth came to me that it should be used to establish free libraries.”

There are more than 2,800 Carnegie libraries across the English-speaking world.

LIBRARIES ROCK!

I feel honoured that The Rain has been nominated for this award.

Sort of  . . . I wrote a Discussion Guide for H2O/The Rain . . . I wrote it in a hurry, so I don’t think it covers everything . . .

Plenty of questions I’d like to add – eg about whether you think this story also reflects any biological or medical issues we face . . . or how you feel about Ruby – ahem – ‘taking’ clothes/make-up during an apocalypse . . . why do you think she does that? Just because she can?

I don’t have answers. (Although I suppose I did have some intentions!) These questions are just based on things I was thinking about when I wrote this story . . .

So, here they are:

H2O -Discussion Guide

ps On Q10 The Rain readers could substitute ‘The Rain’ for ‘H20’ – so, ‘Why do you think this book is called The Rain? (And not Water, for example.)’ I think that still works.

It’s here!

Translated  by Rainer Schmidt – to be published 19. Februar 2015 by S.Fischer Verlage

MIT DEM REGEN KOMMT DER TOD …

Samstag, Partyabend. Ruby und ihre Freunde feiern ausgelassen bis in die Nacht. Was keiner ahnt: Es wird das letzte Mal sein. Ruby wird ihre Freunde niemals wiedersehen. Und sie wird auch Caspar zum ersten und letzten Mal geküsst haben. Denn in dieser Nacht kommt der giftige Regen, der ein tödliches Virus bringt. Die Menschheit rast ihrem Untergang entgegen. Wer nicht gleich stirbt, kämpft mit allen Mitteln ums Überleben. Freunde werden zu Feinden, Kinder zu Waisen, Nachbarn zu Gesetzesbrechern. Auch Ruby ist von einem Tag auf den anderen völlig auf sich allein gestellt. Inmitten von Tod, Chaos und Angst macht sie sich verzweifelt auf die Suche nach überlebenden Verwandten. Doch es gibt auch Hoffnung. Ruby erhält ein Lebenszeichen ihres totgeglaubten Vaters …

Gasp! Along with other writers and illustrators, I left my keyboard . . . to meet LIBRARIANS!

Usually, the only time I get to speak to a librarian is when I’m standing in a library going, ‘Excuse me, but I was wondering . . . could you help me with . . .’

AND THEY ALWAYS DO! LIBRARIANS ARE ACE!

So, thanks to the incredible Reading Agency for organising the Childrens’ Reading Partnership roadshow at the wonderful Hive in Worcester. Thanks to Kat McKenna from PanMacmillan’s My Kinda Book for keeping me calm (I’m shy! Really!) and not letting me go on too much when I discovered I have a lot to say about The Rain . . .

And, above all, thanks to the LIBRARIANS . . . from schools, from public libraries . . . from Lincolnshire, from Birmingham, from Warwickshire,  from Worcester itself – and from Staffordshire. (Got all weepy about Staffordshire; heard there’s young people there like this book . . . gotta come and see you!)

Apologising immediately if I’ve missed anyone out; I’ve never done an event like that before, so . . . well – it was amazing!

As is The Hive  . . . Europe’s first joint university and public library! Pics: