The cat subject was started inadvertently, I promise. But it now seems to have a life of its own. On Friday afternoon the witch met up with Nick Green in Bolton where he had gone for the Bolton book awards this morning. And as you well know by now, Nick’s book is The Cat Kin.
The other shortlisted books are Colin Bateman, Titanic 2020; Will Gatti, The Geek, the Greek and the Pimpernel; F E Higgins, Black Book of Secrets; Jill Hucklesby, Deeper Than Blue; Derek Landy, Skulduggery Pleasant; Jenny Valentine, Finding Violet Park; and Cat Weatherill, Wild Magic.
Some of the other authors had also made it to Bolton, and we ended up sitting in the sunshine in the beautiful hotel garden over cups of tea. I never like admitting to people that I’ve not read their books, but this time I had to. Luckily they had just spent the day with school children who had read all the shortlisted books, and they had aching arms from all the book signing they’d had to do.
Nice bunch of people, and it’s always interesting to hear what different experiences writers have had. The eagle eyed among you will have spotted that two of the authors are called cat in one form or other. And the hotel cat kept sauntering across the lawn where we were sitting.
It would be good, if somewhat confusing, if they all won the award this morning. Can’t be done, I suppose.
The Occasional Bookwitch 
Pingback: Some awards round-ups at David Maybury | Blog
Is it Year of the Cat? Two weeks ago I was at the Calderdale Book of the Year presentation, shortlisted for CATCALL. The winner was Inbali Iserles, for THE TYGRINE CAT. Also shortlisted was Julia Golding’s THE DIAMOND OF DRURY LANE, whose main character is Cat Royal … The fourth author, Andrew Norriss (THE DARK PORTAL) said that no cat of any description appeared in his book, so he must have got there by mistake.
Mrs Norris in Harry Potter is a cat. I’m sure someone was having fun putting the list together.
Andrew Norriss was at Calderdale because he wrote a brilliant book called The Portal (which has a dog that understands everthing you say, and aliens who come to tea but no cat). Someone else wrote The Dark Portal…