World Book Day 2016 in pictures

Swapna HaddowRoosting With Dave

Dave Pigeon’s first official outing was to celebrate World Book Day at Garden Suburb Infants School where he met the brilliant Year One pupils of  Lilac Class. In our story building workshop these young authors took Dave on a journey, where he dodged ninjas on the way to the hospital before he was chased out by the doctors and escaped on …

Dave Pigeon COVER REVEAL!

Swapna HaddowRoosting With Dave

I’m absolutely thrilled to reveal the cover of ‘Dave Pigeon: How to Deal with Bad Cats and Keep (most of) Your Feathers‘, illustrated by the brilliant Sheena Dempsey. Dave Pigeon hits the shelves in the UK on 7th April 2016! Find out more here.    

Dave Pigeon is flying off to Mountains to Sea Festival

Swapna HaddowRoosting With Dave

Sheena and I are chuffed to bits to be taking Dave Pigeon to the Mountains To Sea Book Festival in Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin this March. It’s an incredible line up of brilliant writers and illustrators this year and I can’t wait! We will be running an afternoon ‘Dave Pigeon: Art and Story Fun‘ session on Sunday 13th March and would love …

Feb-bird-ary News

Swapna HaddowRoosting With Dave

Just a quick note to tell you all that Sheena Dempsey’s fabulous artwork for Dave Pigeon is now with the incredible design team at Faber and from what I’ve seen so far, it is looking FANTASTIC! And to top it off, it has been incredibly exciting to see Dave in The Bookseller’s Children’s Preview for April. Suddenly, this is all …

Meet Sheena Dempsey

Swapna HaddowRoosting With Dave, Scrapbook

I think it’s time you met the brilliant illustrator behind Dave Pigeon. I met Sheena on a rainy day at Faber HQ. As I sat on the couch in the reception area, eyeballing absolutely everyone who was buzzed through the door, in walked an Irish leggy beaut, slightly drenched, with a look in her eye that said ‘we-clearly-watch-the-same-You-Tube-videos-of-brutish-cats’. I can’t …

One pigeon step for Dave, one giant leap for me (seriously struggling with these bird titles, all suggestions welcome)

Swapna HaddowRoosting With Dave, Scrapbook

If you can believe it, Dave Pigeon is now at the copyedit stage.  We did it!     I have to be honest the last six months haven’t been plain sailing. Back in January, following on from my editor’s notes, I felt quite lost with the book. I produced a draft I hated. I felt trapped between what I thought …

Dave Pigeon: one year on

Swapna HaddowRoosting With Dave, Scrapbook

I’m knee-deep in a second round of edits for Dave Pigeon and here’s where I’m at:     Since the last time I’d heard from my editor there had been a lot of thinking. A LOT. Everything I had changed from the original version I wanted to undo whilst still keeping the new plot I had developed, all the while …

Watch the birdie

Swapna HaddowRoosting With Dave, Scrapbook

Yesterday my editor sent me a sample of work from a potential illustrator for Dave Pigeon. This is beyond exciting. Dave Pigeon will be an illustrated book and it’s so important the right illustrator is chosen because the pictures do as much telling of the story as the words. It got me thinking about the importance of illustrations and illustrators …

Up with the lark

Swapna HaddowRoosting With Dave, Scrapbook

I’m up early this morning and freaking myself out. A few days ago I sent off the first redraft of Dave Pigeon to my editor and it just occurred to me that a few days ago I sent off the first redraft of Dave Pigeon to my editor. Yikes! So what to do in the mean time as my nails …