THERE & HERE & THEN SOMEWHERE ELSE!

Last week I was down in London for the Walker Books 30th Birthday party - totally starstruck by all the wonderful writers and illustrators gathered there! Back home for a few days of tax returns from which I've now escaped - hooray! - so I'm happily looking forward to my next two visits.

Tomorrow - Friday - I'm off to MICHAEL SYDDALL PRIMARY SCHOOL, Catterick Village, to meet the children, staff and parents and open their new library. Very much looking forward to it.

The next week I'm visiting the younger children at ALL SAINTS J,I&N School at North Featherstone, near Pontefract. Looking forward to sharing some stories with you!

And thanks to the artists of St Marks Rainbows, Harrogate for their lovely thank you card.

Rainbows ahead!

Been away for a few days in Ireland, but home now. This week's a quiet one, and I'm trying to get some writing work done as there's quite a lot of pieces needing urgent attention.

Next week, however, I'll be visiting ST MARK'S RAINBOWS, Harrogate, so will have to find my story hat again. It will be fun, because a while ago I was lucky enough to write some stories for GirlguidingUK about Olivia, the character you can see at the top of this post. Looking forward to seeing you all, Rainbows!

National Share A Story Month and Me.

Hello. You've arrived at the second entry in my new Diary blog. The old Journal is being kept in detention by the forces of Evil IT or FTP or something far too complicated for me to understand.

I went into a local school this morning on behalf of Harrogate Children's Book Group. I was helping the children create a new "chapter" for the Federation of Children's Book Groups on-line story project, as part of National Share a Story Month.

The story itself was begun by Jeremy Strong - of the famous 100 Mile and Hour Dog fame - and the Aldbourne Chidren's Book Group back in late April. The project is running through May with about six more groups due to work on the story, so it will be fun seeing where the plot leads. It will also be intriguing to see how author Jeremy Strong finishes the slightly eccentric tale.

Today's session was great fun, and it was very kind of the school - BILTON GRANGE PRIMARY SCHOOL, Harrogate, to host the storymaking as some of the classes were busy with SATs this week. My group was a mixture of Year 3 & 4 children, full of enthusiasm and lots of ideas.

I'm now wishing I had some of the same enthusiasm and host of ideas. This afternoon I'm trying to pick up some writing work after almost two weeks break.

Blogger's Big Fat Cuckoo

Hello there! This is Penny Dolan, Children's writer & storyteller.

It's May 2nd and Blogger's big fat cuckoo egg of technical change has hatched and shoved me out of my old weatherworn blog-nest, once known as Penny Dolan's Journal. So the names of all the schools I've visited over the last few years have fluttered away with the wind of change. (Sigh!)

Luckily, I've managed to end up HERE on a brand new perch. Did you spot my new if not amazingly surprising title? PENNY DOLAN'S DIARY. At least it does what it says on the screen. Yes, this is where I'll tell you all about what I'm doing, where I'm going, who I'm seeing and which schools and other places I've been visiting.

Last week - and over the last few months too - I've had some great times with the Year 3 classes at MIDDLETON PRIMARY SCHOOL, near Leeds. We've had all sorts of storytelling, book reading, library visiting, drawing and poetry-making fun. So hello to all my Middleton friends and hope to see you again sometime soon.

This weekend I've been busy answering emails from children in FOREST OF GALTRES PRIMARY SCHOOL, near York, which I visited not too long ago. They tell me they are going to have a new school library soon - but where will it be? The one I recall was in a small room-and-also-corridor so maybe this will have more space? Hope I find out sometime.

Must go now, as I need to write a paragraph of two more for my current story before supper-time. What am I working on? What book have I got coming out? That's on my other blog, THE YEAR OF MOUSE.