Saturday 23 April 2016

HANNAH: THE FAN FOLDER THAT GOT ME PUBLISHED!

Reader Hannah isn't just a CC fan, she's a super-creative and talented one... read about how her love of THE CHOCOLATE BOX GIRLS series got her into print in one of the books!

Hannah says:
I have been a Cathy Cassidy fan for as long as I can remember. I've been reading the books since I was six or seven and I am almost seventeen now. I can safely say I'm still hooked! When I got the opportunity to meet Cathy at a book signing at Waterstones in the Bluewater shopping centre, two years ago, I knew I had to do something special. My favourite books are THE CHOCOLATE BOX GIRLS series and I've always loved following the tales from Tanglewood. What makes them so great is that the characters are so easy to identify with - there's a little bit of each of them within all of us, whether it be Honey's stubbornness, Cherry's creativity, Summer's determination, Skye's eye for cool stuff or Coco's madness! I wanted to harness that and show Cathy how much her characters meant to me. So, I made a folder of letters from the Tanberry-Costello girls, including a few recipes of my own invention! And this is where my own story begins...

Cathy loved the folder, which I gave to her at the book signing at the Bluewater shopping centre, and she later contacted me to say she'd like to put it into her blog post on DREAMCATCHER. Of course I agreed immediately! But what happened over the months to come exceeded my expectations. Cathy messaged me again, this time to say she'd like to use a recipe in one of her new books. You can imagine how thrilled I was by this point - my favourite author wanted to publish my writing about her characters... in her own book? It was amazing! Time went by, and eventually the book was published. You can see my recipe for 'Skye's The Limit Cake' in Cathy's book CHOCOLATE BOX SECRETS.

Cathy was my initial inspiration to start writing books for teens and pre-teens, and I am working on a book at the moment. It's early days, but I am hopeful! Last June I was shortlisted for the Wicked Young Writers Awards, and to be in the top sixty out of 12,000 entries was a real honour. I've also recently started writing for an online magazine, a proper journalism job that earns money! It has been a whirlwind journey and a most exciting one. When I'm older, I hope to see books of my own on the shelves of bookstores, so having Cathy's support has inspired me and will go on inspiring me through all of my writing days...

Cathy says:
Hannah is without a doubt one of the most inspiring young people I've been lucky enough to meet... her amazing fan-folder was so detailed and carefully done, I just had to use one of the cool ideas! I'm certain Hannah will achieve some awesome things in her life. Are YOU a super-CC fan? Do YOU love to write? COMMENT BELOW to have your say!


7 comments:

  1. love it hope you become av writer I've not got the chocolate box secrets yet but i'd really love that recipe could you post it

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  2. Oooohhh that's awesome! I've been writing heaps since I was about 7 or 8. My mum once wrote it on a school application under "talents" in the hope it would get me accepted. Despite the fact my spelling and grammar was dreadful back. I still write now, sometimes. Not so much since I had I had a career advisor tell me at school that I needed to pick a "real" career.

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    1. Do what you want! If you want to be a writer, make it happen. It will be hard, but if you work hard enough you can become a writer. If all else fails, there are a wide range of jobs you can get around writing: Journalism, Editor magazine work and so much more. I love to write, have been since I was about 8 as well! I want so much to achieve being a writer, or at least get a book or more published. That would be so wonderful, I know there are people out there who have wanted that exact thing, you just have to keep on going till you get there, and I think you would leap into the sky with joy if you managed! Keep on moving forwards.

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  3. Oh I know it will be hard. I think the word hard might be an understatement but I'm not afraid of a challenge. I'm looking forwards to having a wall full of rejection emails & letters to make me work harder. :D

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  4. does anyone know Cathy's email address or how i can email her because there's something i really want
    her to post.

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    Replies
    1. Just go to the website www.cathycassidy.com and click the 'email cathy' link there. xxx

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