[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":11},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-post-monsters-on-charing-cross-road":3},{"_type":4,"body":5,"bodyHtml":6,"excerpt":5,"featuredImage":5,"publishedAt":7,"slug":8,"tags":9,"title":10},"blogPost",null,"Today was FEAR FEST at Foyles... don't we look SCARY???! Heh heh. I love how Morris the Mankiest Monster is absolutely foul, but there's no real monster fear factor, just a horrible fascination. The kids at Foyles bookshop were as bogey-obsessed as ever and we had a great time making monsters... right next to a tank full of... PIRANHAS! That wasn't \u003Ci>too\u003C/i> scary - they're behind glass - but then one of the staff told me Marcus Sedgwick once had to stick his arm into the tank to fish out a book, with the piranhas still in it. Okay, that's slightly edgy stuff.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/foyles2-5a7131ce58.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nFoyles will host several more \u003Ca href=\"http://www.foyles.co.uk/events.asp#mmonday\">Fear Fest events\u003C/a> on \u003Cb>Sun, 31 Oct\u003C/b>, with Sarwat Chadda, Sam Enthoven, William Hussey, Cliff Mcnish and L.A Weatherly. Some of them might be scarier than mine.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/foyles3-0e50a88fe8.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nHere are the fab \u003Cb>Neil\u003C/b> and \u003Cb>Jeni\u003C/b>, who made the event a great success. (Thanks so much!) They gave me a goodie bag which included a rather sinister-looking cupcake, complete with big, gory eyeball.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/foyles1-48a2e92efc.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nI'm off tomorrow morning with DFC colleague \u003Ca href=\"http://www.daedalusblue.com\">John Aggs\u003C/a> and studio mate \u003Ca href=\"http://www.littlewhitebird.com\">Ellen Lindner\u003C/a> to paint murals in \u003Cb>Nottingham\u003C/b> Market Square for two days. We'll each have our own lounge space at \u003Ca href=\"http://www.gamecity.org/\">Game City\u003C/a>, where people will be able to play video games while we do graffiti on the walls around them. I've never done anything like this, but I'll let you know how it went.\\r\n\\r\nI just heard from \u003Ca href=\"http://www.meimatsuoka.com\">Mei Matsuoka\u003C/a> that she's going to be at the \u003Cb>Sheffield Children's Book Award Ceremony\u003C/b> on 23 Nov, along with \u003Ci>Morris the Mankiest Monster\u003C/i> writer Giles Andreae and me. (\u003Ci>Morris\u003C/i> is shortlisted.) Mei's fab (she illustrated \u003Ci>The Great Dog Bottom Swap\u003C/i>), really looking forward to seeing her. (Here's \u003Ca href=\"http://jabberworks.livejournal.com/tag/matsuoka\">my post about her visit to our studio\u003C/a>.)\\r\n\\r\nApologies if you've sent me a lovely e-mail and I haven't answered it yet. I have a terrible backlog of correspondence and, while I'm loving this eventing thing, I'm teetering a bit and I think I'll really welcome getting back to picture book work. And I'll need to do so very soon, as the deadlines are LOOMING. Yikes.","2010-10-26T05:45:00.000Z","monsters-on-charing-cross-road",[],"monsters on charing cross road",1776628718964]