Write4Children e-journal

e-journal latest edition

Today the latest edition of Write4Children went live. You see I am not just a lecturer and a writer, I also edit, with Andrew Melrose, an ejournal. Write4Children is an open access journal that is online. What that means is anyone can have a look at it. You don't have to pay a huge subscription in order to read the fascinating articles inside it.

We set it up back in 2008 because whilst doing my own research I spotted a gap in the market. There are some excellent journals that deal with children's literature and some equally good journals on creative writing. But there were none that really, and deliberately, combined the two. Children's literature is a broad and fascinating subject and as a writer of children's books I am a great believer that I need to have an understanding of it. This understanding can inform my writing. But also I consider it just as important, if you happen to study children's literature, for you to have an awareness of the issues involved when writing for children. And there are many things we have to consider when we put pen to paper. On this basis it seemed the logical conclusion to pull the two together into a single journal.

The journal has been supported by the University of Winchester Press and being online gives us a lot of flexibility. We can including pictures (with appropriate permissions),photographs and even YouTube clips, if you so desired. All our articles are peer reviewed, this is important for an academic journal. But I do believe that many of you will find something of interest in the articles therein. They are not all purely academic. We have had articles written by Meg Rosoff, Lucy Christopher, Lucy Cuthew (an editor) and most recently Madeleine Milburn, who is an agent. They have all spoken about various things from their creative processes to what it is like to be an editor. This time there are articles by BJ Epstein, Tony Eaton, Jessica Seymour and Felicity Pulman, as well as Madeleine's

It can be at times a huge amount of work but I have a great deal of support from our editorial assistant, Jen Morgan, who is fantastic at going through everything and chasing people up and generally being there. The satisfaction when it finally goes up is enormous. And we are going from strength to strength which includes having an international following now....But rather than me telling you all about it go and have a look at Write4Children

And here is a clip of Where The Wild Things Are being read as a tribute to the outstanding children's author, Maurice Sendak, who sadly died this week. Thank you for all the inspiration.