Blogs and Articles AF’s written…

Every now and then I get asked to write a thing for someone’s blog about this thing or that thing, and I thought it would be nice to collect them together here so you can find them. Please not: these links open to other places on the internet and sometimes addresses change and pages are moved or replaced - I last checked that these were all correct and active in January 2024, but I can’t guarantee they’re all still there right now!

About The Imaginary

When me and Emily Gravett’s book The Imaginary came out I wrote a ‘Top Ten’ post for The Guardian about imaginary friends in fiction and a bunch of nonsense captions to a selection of Emily’s illustrations, to give people entirely the wrong idea bout the book (but, using my imagination).

Here I am answering some questions LoveReading4Kids.co.uk around the time The Imaginary came out.

For the 10th Anniversary I wrote a new ‘Top Ten’ for BookTrust, with all new imaginary friend recommendations.

About The Afterwards

When me and Emily Gravett’s second book, The Afterwards, came out the brilliant BookTrust asked me to write about my favourite fictional duo… which allowed me to talk about Barbara Firth and her bears.

Here’s an interview, from around the same time, in which I talk about The Afterwards and twiglets and Emily, for ReadingRealm.co.uk.

About The Song From Somewhere Else

Here’s a playlist to go with the book, with explanations of my choices.

About The Worlds We Leave Behind

Here is a piece I wrote for my friends at CLPE about me and Levi Pinfold’s second book together, The Worlds We Leave Behind.

And here’s an interview with me at the PaperBound Magazine blog.

And another interview with me at the Paperbark Words blog.

Some tips at the Young Writers blog about writing and how I wrote The Worlds We Leave Behind.

About Greta Zargo and the Death Robots from Outer Space

Here’s an interview with me about Greta Zargo on the Book Activist blog.

About Poetry

Here’s a piece about my love of small, funny poems for Children’s Poetry Summit.

And here’s a general piece thinking about poetry and stories in conversation with my friends at CLPE.

In a post for National Poetry Day 2019 I wrote a few words about Spike Milligan’s Silly Verse for Kids for the National Poetry Day website.

For National Poetry Day 2020 I wrote a thing about comedy in poetry.

Here’s a piece about my thoughts on the question of poetry and privacy (to read and to write it) on the BookActivist blog.

Here are some answers to poetry questions in a blog from when I helped judge the Betjeman Poetry Prize in 2015.

Miscellaneous subjects

For BookTrust I wrote about the books that made me.

For Teach Primary magazine I wrote an article about ‘my reading journey’.

Here’s a piece about ‘the book I wish I’d written’ for Books For Keeps.

For The Guardian I wrote a piece about my love/hate relationship with Jan Pienkowski’s book Haunted House.

Here’s the 2024 University of Reading Children’s Winter Lecture, entitled Imagining the Imaginary.