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of secondary royalties for children’s writers who aren’t yet members of ALCS – our second largest category for undistributed royalties – so we are dedicated to increasing our visibility in this field to ensure we are paying out to as many children’s authors as possible. To help highlight the amazing work the CILIP CKG Awards do for the children’s authors’ community, 2021 Carnegie-shortlisted authors Manjeet Mann and Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick were kind enough to provide us with an insight into their working lives, including how they got started, how lockdown has affected their productivity, and some tips for writers
We think it’s essential that all creators understand copyright and how it protects their work.
who are starting their writing journey. “I haven’t had a conventional path into writing,” says Manjeet Mann whose debut novel, Run, Rebel, gained her a first-time spot on the 2021 Carnegie shortlist. Mann is an actress as well as a writer, so uses both jobs to sustain her income. For her, writing was a way for her to gain control over her acting career: “I started writing out of necessity about six years ago because I was fed up with the acting roles I was being offered. [Then] in 2016 I started writing Run, Rebel and decided to apply for the WriteNow programme, which is how I got published.” Fellow first-time Carnegie-shortlistee Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick, on the other
hand, started her career as an illustrator alongside her day job: “My first three picturebooks were created ‘on the side’ while I taught art at secondary level, sold watercolours from a pitch opposite the National Gallery of Ireland and illustrated love stories in a weekly magazine.” Marie-Louise says that she’s always had to do additional jobs like school visits, and library and festival events, as well as writing: “It’s a juggling act and I work to keep things in balance. There’ve been a few wobbles, but I’ve always managed to hang on in there.”
While both authors are at different stages of their careers – Run, Rebel is Manjeet’s first novel, while Marie-Louise
Spring-Summer 2021
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