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June 20, 2005

The White Giraffe

There are only three web-logs which I look at every time I go online: Under the Acacias, Boing Boing and Achuka. The formidable 'Achuka' is edited by Michael Thorn and updated daily with news, reviews and gossip from the world of children's publishing. This is a heady time of year for Thorn, with one London publishing house after another throwing its summer party; somehow or other he gets invited to all of them. On Monday last week he went to the Puffin Party in the Orangery at Kensington Palace, and on Thursday he attended the Orion Party at the Oktober Gallery. (Thorn's analysis was that Orion's food this year was not quite up to last year's 'glorious spread of bread, cheese, fruits and dips'. Made me feel hungry just reading it, and as soon as I left the telecentre I rushed across the road to buy a mango off a passing girl's head. Anyway, I'm straying from the point here.)

Thorn took photos of various Orion people having a good time, including an arresting picture of two ladies grinning from ear to ear. The caption was even more arresting:

Jo Williamson, Orion Publicity Officer, with Lauren St John, whose first novel in a 5-figure 3-book deal, 'The White Giraffe', will be published in the autumn. It is the story of a 9-year-old orphan who is sent from England to live with her grandmother on a game reserve in South Africa. With few friends and feeling an outsider, her adventures begin as she gradually learns the secrets of the reserve, including the story of the fabled white giraffe who is rumoured to live there.

Hello, I thought, this 'White Giraffe' book sounds rather similar to my own Sophie and the Albino Camel (8+): the African setting, the girl sent from England and feeling an outsider, the eponymous tall white four-legged animal…the coincidences are such that I am relieved that neither 'White Giraffe' nor 'Albino Camel' have yet been published - I would hate to be accused of you-know-what.

The 5-figure 3-book deal thing is where Lauren St John and I part company. St John is an established author (of biographies) with a good literary agent. My book has only been accepted via the 'slush-pile', which is how publishers refer to the dozens of unsolicited manuscripts which they receive every week. I am grateful to the readers at Andersen Press for bothering to even look at 'Albino Camel', and to Klaus Flugge (director), for being willing to take a chance on it.

'The White Giraffe' is set to be published in the autumn by Orion, and I am looking forward to reading it. I am sure it is very good indeed, gnash-gnash, and I wish Lauren St John the best of luck with it. Sophie and the Albino Camel will be published by Andersen Press just a few months later (April 2006), by which time books set in Africa and populated by lonely English girls and large albino fluffies should be either well and truly 'in' or well and truly done to death. Only time (and Thorn) will tell which.

Posted by sahelsteve at June 20, 2005 01:06 PM