Her talk is about her life as a writer, how writing for children differs from writing for adults.

Jill Atkins has been writing for children for 30 years. Her talk is about her life as a writer and how writing for children differs from writing for adults – and it isn’t easier!

The talk is about getting published: the successes, the failures and the processes – editing, illustration, etc. Her books range from historical fiction to workbooks on spelling and phonics, from fiction to non-fiction, from teenage novels to early readers.

Then – Jill began telling stories to her two younger brothers when she was quite a young girl. Later, while she was teaching infants, she realised that the ‘reading books’ the children in her class were reading were very dull so she decided to write her own. Whilst not published, these were a useful tool in the classroom!
Having escaped from teaching, she ran a B&B establishment with her husband and this gave her more time to write. The breakthrough came with her first children’s book: Cooking with Rabbit!

Now – Two hundred books later, Jill is still writing.