Joan Lennon
Home address:
11 Woodmuir Terrace, Newport-on-Tay, Fife, DD6 8JN, ScotlandTelephone:
01382 543195Email:
joanlennon@clara.co.ukWebsite:
www.joanlennon.co.ukBRAW network:
yesLL funded:
yesBiography:
I live in the Kingdom of Fife, on the River Tay. The Kingdom is thought to be shaped like a dog's head. If this is so, my house is just on the tip of the ear, which explains a lot. I have a husband, four tall sons and one short cat, and I plan to go on writing books forever.
About writer's work:
I read somewhere a quote about fantasy being about ideas, and I think it’s true. Ideas … and excitement. Ideas that make you go “Wow!” and your brain go “Ping!” (Or whatever noise your brain prefers for those moments of acceleration.) Sometimes these are huge ideas, like worlds unravelling or time as a game of skipping stones, and sometimes they’re just little ideas, like dancing frogs or voice-activated paper. The stories and the worlds grow out of each other. If I can get kids to feel as excited by the stories as I do, I’ll have done my job. About writer's events and projects:
I am currently offering five events:
1. For 4 - 6 year-olds - Ribburta the Frog. A fun event for Nursery and P1, includes a frog story, a bit about what it’s like to be a writer of frog stories, frog dancing and, if there’s time, some fabulous froggy art.
2. For 6 - 8 year-olds - Tales from the Keep. Using puppets and a suitcase full of toy ferrets, this event introduces the three books of the series – The Ferret Princess, Wag and the King, and The Mucker’s Tale. I will be talking about where I get my ideas and what it’s like to be a writer. This event can be tailored to include some hands-on writing with the children.
3.For 8 - 11 year-olds - The Slightly Jones Mysteries. Set in Victorian Britain, the series follows the adventures of Slightly Jones, detective-in-training, as she pits her wits against mad scientists, underworld criminals, Egyptian mummies and the occasional ghost. I also will be showing the children what they'll need to write their own mysteries, with the help of the DIY Detective Story Writing Kit.
4.For 8 - 11 year-olds - The Wickit Chronicles. This series is set in the vast swampy fenlands of medieval England, and tells the adventures of Pip, an orphan brought up at Wickit Monastery, and his friend Perfect, a living, breathing, talking, dragon-shaped stone gargoyle. In my talk, I make use of medieval costumes for the audience to model, readings, and squishy and revolting facts about the medieval period.
5.For age 11+ - Questors, The Seventh Tide and The Night of the Kelpies. Using my older fantasy novels Questors, The Seventh Tide and The Night of the Kelpies, I focus on how writers write the exciting bits – the bits that are most likely to make the best movie trailers! I look at how to build up tension, grab the reader’s attention and keep the pages turning. Hands-on writing with the children can be part of this event.
Teacher’s notes, with ideas for further discussion and class projects based on the books, are available for each of these events.
Language:
EnglishAge groups:
5-8, 9-12, Teens, AdultsBooks written
There’s been a series of mysterious thefts from the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow ... Despite maximum security measures, the thief is yet to be caught and the stolen objects appear to vanish into ...
Three worlds, held in perfect balance for millennia, are inexplicably drifting apart. Luckily, the people in charge have a plan: create three perfect heroes and send them to find three objects of ...
Slightly Jones has red hair, too many freckles and a flyaway temper, but she's not going to let that stop her becoming the next Sherlock Holmes...
A precious fossil is about to be presented to ...
Princesses come in all shapes and sizes - from pink and fluffy to ravishing and regal, and everything else besides.
Princess Cecilia is the ferrety sort. She has loads more energy than sense and ...
Original and bizarre subjects chosen by sixty-two poets from various countries - this collection eschews the predictable and familiar favourites of comic verse in favour of, among other things, a ...
Illustrated by: Scoular Anderson
Find out how a stable boy, a princess and a surprising secret weapon save the day in this tale of mispelt spells, dastardly deeds and flying horses!
Sandy's dad disappeared before he was born. Some say he drowned, but others say the kelpies, the evil horses of the bay, took him and still hold him prisoner. Sandy's not sure who to believe, but ...
A teenage shape-shifter called Eo, a boy from the 6th century called Adom, and a girl from the 24th century called Jay … What do they have in common? More than you can possibly imagine! One ...
Contributor only
Scottish poems for children is a lively and imaginative anthology from the Scottish Poetry Library packed with brand new poems that will delight and inspire young ...
You'd think growing up in a medieval abbey, surrounded by nothing but monks and hundreds of miles of swamp, would be pretty boring. Pip thinks so too, until the day he meets Perfect, a small stone ...
Trouble is heading for Wickit Monastery through the sweltering summer Fens - from the King's court comes Cedric with a chip on his shoulder, and from the land of the Vikings, Rane, a beautiful Norse ...
It’s the harshest winter anyone can remember, and the vast waterways of the Fens are frozen solid, transformed into an Ice Road. Ideal conditions for a surprise invasion by young King Arnald’s ...
Pip the orphan and Perfect the stone gargoyle meet up with a mysterious stranger - a man who has actually heard the ghostly sound of a witch bell. Hot on his trail is the Holy Hunter, sniffing out ...
You'd think growing up in a medieval abbey, surrounded by nothing but monks and hundreds of miles of swamp, would be pretty boring. Pip thinks so too, until the ...
The hot summer has brought several kinds of trouble to the monastery at Wickit, and Pip the orphan and Perfect the stone gargoyle find themselves up to their eyebrows in it all! What is the king’s ...
Wag and the King, the new book in Joan Lennon’s funny and exciting Tales from the Keep series, is a tale told by a dog. An old dog, but a dog at the court of a king.
The dog’s ...
