WINNER OF THE TIMES/CHICKEN HOUSE CHILDREN'S FICTION COMPETITION 2012! - FLETCHER MOSS



                              
YA writer. 1st novel, a car-crash. 2nd novel, a train-wreck. This novel - winner of The Times/Chicken House children's book competition 2012. (In his own words.)



About Sleepwell and Fly

Sleepwell and Fly’, is an adventure set in a thrilling fantasy world populated by bandits, pistol-bearing brawlers and poisonboys. Highlions is a city of shadows; a smuggler’s den of secret passageways, flooded cellars and moonlit rooftops. Making a tenuous living in these lawless streets are Sal Sleepwell and Dalton Fly, teenage poisonboys – orphaned food-tasters for the idle rich, and principal members of a threadbare team of homeless children, Oscar’s Honest Dozen (“antidote and food tasting for the people of Highlions”). 

Read more here Here

A panel of distinguished judges – all key figures in the field of children’s literature – were unanimous in their decision, despite the strength of this year’s shortlist. The Times children’s literary critic and competition judge, Amanda Craig, described Moss’ novel as ‘oozing raw talent’, while fellow judge, and bestselling children’s author, Michelle Paver, loved the novel’s ‘visceral style’ and the ‘utterly believable friendship between the two food tasters’.

Writing under the pseudonym Fletcher Moss (in tribute to an Alderman of the city of Manchester), the busy assistant headteacher of a large state secondary school is thrilled to have made an important step towards joining the ranks of his literary heroes.
Moss is now set to work with the Chicken House editorial team, including Barry Cunningham, to turn the raw manuscript into what promises to be a remarkably exciting and original debut novel. The competition was set up in order to give promising new writers a chance at having, as Barry Cunningham himself says, ‘the career they thought was impossible’. Something he did for J.K. Rowling when he gave Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone its big break. 

Comments

serendipity_viv said…
I didn't know Barry Cunningham was behind JK Rowling. Well done to Fletcher Moss. I can't wait to read it.