They’re here! I can finally announce that I’ve written two new books:
Tell me about… Space and Tell me about… Planet Earth!
They will be published in March 2024 by Templar Books and they’re beautifully illustrated by Chorkung. Did I mention I’m excited?
There’s something wonderful about coming back to Earth and Space – I’m sharing something I’ve always been passionate about and making it accessible to young children.
My background is in Earth Science (I did a geophysics degree) and then I did a masters in communicating science – my MSc dissertation was developing and evaluating space educational materials for primary schools. I wrote a rockets show and toured it around schools along with space themed craft workshops. I was also a planetarium presenter back then too – at Tecniquest Science Centre in Cardiff.
Later I went on to write and deliver Space and Earth workshops at Dynamic Earth as Education Officer. That was all a long time ago, before I became an author and screenwriter. But it feels like my past and future are colliding somehow in these books and I like it!
Many months of hard work went into writing these books. I especially want to thank the editor at Templar Books (Rachael Roberts) , the designer (Nathalie), the illustrator (Chorkunn) and my brilliant former agent, Lindsey Fraser at Fraser Ross Associates.
It’s wonderful to open these books and I feel proud of what we’ve achieved in making them work so well for a young reader!
Tell me about… Space and Tell me about… Planet Earth explain university level science to four year olds in a storytelling style narrative.
I love the illustrations from Chorkung, she’s based in Thailand so we’ve never met but I’m a big fan of her work. Here’s a closer look at the gorgeous covers she created:
l’ll write another blog post soon with a peak inside the books but for now, I wanted to let you know they are coming and you can pre order them, from all good bookshops now.
These books are the second two books in the ‘Tell me about’ series. Plants and Human Body are already available in bookshops. They came out last year.
Read about Tell me about… Plants and Tell me about… Human Body on the blog here.
It’s real – you can say to siri or alexa or spotify “Play Feathers by Emily Dodd” and I start singing! I’ve tried it in the car, it actually works. That’s because last week, the album STAGES was officially released on all streaming channels. You can listen to the album here (on apple or spotify or amazon or youtube etc!). The song I wrote is track number 3, feathers.
You can also buy the CD here. I really hope you enjoy listening to it and to the rest of the album. Twelve of us got into a songwriting, production and performance course that ran over 4 months. It was called STAGES, it was wonderful and it was run by Moniack Mhor, Boo Hewerdine and friends – you can read more about it on my blog here.
We had a pre-launch live gig at Eden Court Theatre in Inverness – each of us performed our track live, this is us all taking a group bow at the end:
I also had something super exciting happen – my first air play on Black Dog Radio. The lovely musician Shirley Barr sent the STAGES album to Andy at Blackdog radio ahead of it launching and he only went and played my song! I woke up to messages saying ‘you’re on the radio’, was such a lovely surprise and then I discovered the Saturday morning folk show was broadcast from Belper – the town I was born in!
MY TRACK FEATHERS PLAYED ON THE RADIO!!! (for the first time ever!) 🚀🪶
So my first ever song airplay and the first song to be played on the radio from the STAGES album was broadcast from the town the singer songwriter (me) was born in – all by random co-incidence. Here’s what my song is about:
Emily Dickinson’s poem “Hope” is the thing with feathers gifted me a melody and this in turn gave me the words for this song. If we can fly in our dreams we can soar in the here and now. Hope gives us wings – and every wing needs feathers to fly.
Really hope you enjoy Feathers and the album STAGES – if you do please play it lots of times and add it to play lists and heart it and tell friends about it. If you know any music journalists or radio presenters – please pass it on to them! And if you’re a pal of mine and you want to buy some CDs for Christmas presents, I’ve got some copies on the way so get in touch.
UPDATE listen to the STAGES album and track 3 (feathers) here.
Over the last three months, I’ve been part of a writing, production and performance programme for emerging songwriting talent, it’s called Stages. It’s run by Moniak Mhor (Scotland’s National Writing Centre) in partnership with singer-songwriter, musician, producer, tutor and mentor Boo Hewerdine.
Being part of Stages is one of the best things that has ever happened to me – it has changed my life and my future. There’s twelve of us on the course and we’ve got an album launching in November (AN ALBUM!). This is us on the gorgeous album cover, designed by Elly Lucas:
Elly also worked with each of us on a professional photo shoot. That including taking the silhouette shots for the album cover above and each of us had our own personalised shoot. I wanted mine to have a water theme and then it rained during my shoot so we went with it. This is my new ‘I am a music person and I like it’ face:
I have a few more portrait photos too – they will be popping up on my socials sometime soon.
There is a launch gig at Eden Court theatre in Inverness (Scotland) on 28th October where each of us performs one of our original songs. The others are amazing – you need to hear them. I’ll be singing a song I wrote too and there will be a band playing with me and you’re invited! You can get tickets here.
I’ve decided to interview myself about it all – as a way to tell you more! Here we go…
What is your song about?
I’m glad you asked, it’s called ‘Feathers’, here’s my well crafted short song description:
Emily Dickinson’s poem “Hope” is the thing with feathers gifted me a melody and this in turn gave me the words for this song. If we can fly in our dreams we can soar in the here and now. Hope gives us wings – and every wing needs feathers to fly.
Boo Hewerdine helped me to write the song description – I actually wrote 660 words to describe my song. It felt like I’d written an inspirational speech by the time I’d finished typing and I was finding it a difficult task indeed, to cut all those the words down to the 50 word limit we’d been asked for.
So I read my 660 words to Boo and he did a wonderful three minutes of scribbling to produce this concise summary of what I was trying to say about how and why I wrote it! We tweaked it a bit together but he should get the credit really for it.
What style of music is it?
‘The sweeter side of the Velvet Underground’, according to Boo. But if you come to the gig, you can find out?
Sounds great, I’ll be there! So what exactly is stages?
This video is really good at explaining what stages is:
In my own words, it’s a whole load of residencies on everything you need to know to make and release music. With mentoring too.
Tell me more, what were the residencies?
The first part of the course was a brilliant five days of songwriting at Moniak Mhor with Boo Hewerdine and Findley Napier. The photo at the top of this post is me performing one of the eight songs I’d written that week at a gig in the hobbit house.
Then we each had a three hour session in the studio Chem 19, to record a track. This is Jamie Savage in the studio – he was great to work with. He’s pointing to the studio room where you record vocals and instruments:
Then there was an image and branding weekend with Elly Lucas and Boo. And online sessions with Emma Pollock from the Delgados (I really love their music) on how to make a record and then a PR session with Innis and Campbell communications. Our last session is a performance residency – and then we perform the same weekend at Eden Court.
How are you feeling about the gig?
I got a vintage dress for it, in Edinburgh. I’m now worrying it’s too much like something a person who lived in a castle in the olden days would wear but it was expensive and it fits really well and it’s not every day you launch an album, so I’m going to wear it! I’m nervous and excited at the same time.
There will be a lot of people watching and you’re singing and performing something you’ve written for the first time in public, that is scary…
Totally! I’m also no sure what I should do with my body – do I just stand there? If I had an instrument I could hide under it, but Boo is a lot better at playing guitar than I am so he’s playing in my band. I’ve also got Beth Porter on Cello and Jamie MacRae on Ukulele. I’m really glad they were all up for playing on my track and being in my band for the live gig too. But their skill means I’m now instrument-less and it feels exposing.
I’m hoping I’ll learn what to do on the performance residency. I’m also hoping other performance related things I’ve done, spoken word gigs, science theatre shows and author events, I’m hoping they will help me to be less nervous. I’m trying to tell myself it will be fine but I know I am going to be EXTREMELY nervous and I may throw up beforehand! Hopefully not onto my vintage dress.
I hope you find a bucket in time. You mentioned Stages has changed your life, can you tell me how, apart from expanding your vintage wardrobe!?
Ha ha, well in lots of ways but mainly it’s helped me to gain confidence because I’ve discovered skills I didn’t know I had and that’s helped me to find a potential future I want too – one I didn’t know could exist for me and one that involves making music!
Wow, that sounds wonderful! I love your enthusiasm…
Thanks, this has been the happiest I’ve felt in ages too. I’ve been in and out of hospital with my back since March and I’ve not been able to play football or walk far or even drive at times but I’ve had this amazing music adventure at a time when physical adventure hasn’t been possible for me. So it’s sort of saved my year in a way. But genuinely, my entire future has changed because of this course.
Sounds like it’s been a tough year – life changing is big too – you mentioned skills you didn’t know you had – what skills were hiding inside of you and how did you discover them on the course?
During and after the first songwriting residency week, some sort of flood of songs got awakened inside of me. Some nights I was audio dumping two songs on my phone, just to stop them going around my head so I could sleep. I was waking up composing songs. I was audio recording songs on my phone while driving on the A87 (hands free). I had a spreadsheet of song ideas and it passed 100.
It started to feel like some sort of internal torture because I found it hard to believe I could be good at this – I was trying to resist writing songs – it seemed pointless when they’d be rubbish and there was no future in it, so I was having a sort of internal battle with myself because it all seemed so unrealistic – that I could be a songwriter. But the songs kept coming so eventually I sort help.
That’s a wise thing to do, for the sake of your sleep!
Totally it was, I asked Boo for help by desperate email. I told him I wasn’t sleeping because I kept writing songs. I told him I needed some feedback that wasn’t people being nice or my own judgement. I told him I wanted him to tell me what was wrong with my songs, so I could improve them but not to fix anything for me – I needed to try to find my own solutions. I said I’d rather write a bunch of rubbish songs and learn loads than carry on writing song after song into the void, with no clue of how to improve. I said I could take it, the constructive feedback. And that I’d only been able to get better at writing books and TV because people told me what was wrong.
What did Boo say?
He arranged to meet me for my next mentoring session and I braced myself for an onslaught of him telling me what I needed to improve.
How did it go?
I played the first new song and Boo played along, he really liked it. Then the next and the same thing happened. Then the next. He suggested using a cappo for one song. An alternative chord for another song. A tempo increase for another. But there was no actual changes. After four songs, he was as surprised as I was.
He explained he did normally give people lots of feedback. He said when I mentioned my spreadsheet of over a hundred song ideas, he thought I’d show up with lots of half written things but these were finished songs and really good. He said some more good stuff that I can’t remember because none of it seemed real. Then he was talking about producing my album and I couldn’t really take in what had happened.
So you discovered you could consistently write good songs, what happened next?
A similarly unrealistic things happened in the studio session at Chem 19. There was a load of excitement when I was studio singing. Boo got me to sing longer notes and be more conversational and I did a few takes but there was talk of me being extraordinary and I was totally baffled. I’m okay at singing but think I sound like a twelve year old – I’ve never been known as the amazing singer, I do not have the voice of an angel. But when I got back into the mixing room and I was told how good I was at singing, I answered with an angry and confused “What do you mean, good?”. I had it all explained to me – I can sing perfectly in pitch and apparently that’s extremely rare. Even most pop stars can’t do that apparently. Again, it didn’t seem real.
So you never knew, did you ever have singing lessons?
No but I’ve started them now, well I’ve had one! But there’s more too – more unbelievable alternate reality stuff happened in the studio that day.
Chem 19 sounds like a magical place, do go on…
Well we didn’t have long to work on my track so after my singing, I heard the different instruments play their parts and I told folk what I wanted to change and how. Specific things like note lengths or style and more general overall stuff like when guitar should come in – and we changed it and we got it all sounding really good together – I loved it.
Then it was lunch and we were driving to the co-op and Boo and Jamie from the studio were talking about me and to me – saying it takes years of working in the studio before people get to that level – how I was razor sharp with hearing and knowing exactly how things needed to change. And that I had the confidence to voice it. They said it didn’t matter that I didn’t have the technical terms to describe things.
I didn’t have the technical terms or words because I didn’t know them – I’d never done it before and I hadn’t realised what I’d been doing was producing. It’s normally what Boo would have done, but he had gone surprisingly quiet at the time.
I thought we were supposed to get our song sounding great so I told everyone what needed changing by singing their instrument parts and describing how it should change. When I found out that wasn’t normal, I got worried I might be coming over as some kind of arsehole – telling everyone what to do – but they explained I hadn’t and it had been surprising but very good.
Brilliant, so what happened after that?
I had a sort of mini melt down where I couldn’t take in any of what had just happened and I couldn’t go back into the studio to watch the others do their tracks. I felt like I needed to run away. It didn’t seem real, my brain didn’t have the neuropathways for what had happened so I had to get away from the studio and do something that felt more normal instead. So I went off to meet a pal for dinner. Later I drew Boo a graph to try to explain why I’d had to leave:
This is really long answer to the original question so I hope it’s not too boring. Now you’ll understand why I needed help summarising my song description from 660 words down to 50!
No it’s facinating, thanks for your honesty. Keep going..
Okay thanks. I’m clearly not secretly talented at writing song descriptions or answering interviews questions!
But there was one more skill I didn’t know I had and that was hearing what needed to change during mixing. Mixing is where the track gets polished up so everything sounds good.
A couple of weeks later, I mixed in person. I was back in the studio and Jamie Savage had already done a mix but I’d found some things I wanted to change – for example one of the times I sang the word word ‘night’, I hadn’t sounded the T at the end – so he took a T sound from another of my vocal recorded versions, where I had and added that in. I learnt loads about the process – Jamie showed me how he was fixing things – he was really generous in explaining what he was doing.
After a while, he got me to sit down between the two giant speakers and listen and write down the time I heard anything wrong and what it was. So I listened all the way through the track and I had twelve things – all really small. We fixed each of them. Then I listened again and had ten more, we fixed them. At this point there was talk of me having the hearing of a bat. For example I heard the start of a guitar cord about to come in on a bit where there wasn’t guitar. Jamie went through each audio track from the instruments one at a time to find the sound I heard was on the ukulele track, the uke microphone had picked up the guitar from when guitar was in at that point in the song.
I have hypersensitive hearing because of having ADHD. It’s quite overwhelming at a times, I can hear through doors and I can hear all the conversations at once in a cafe. Jamie told me I should be a mixer and he explained most people can’t hear the things I can on a song – they can just tell afterwards, when it’s fixed that it sounds better. So again – massive surprise there too.
Sounds like you could also be a spy?
(Emily giggles) I’d be a rubbish spy!
Seriously though, this sounds like it’s been an incredible journey for you – but you seem surprised by so much of it, were you not making music already?
When I applied for a place on Stages it felt like a long shot! I didn’t expect to get in and I didn’t tell people I was applying. You had to send two recordings of songs you had written and a statement about why you wanted to do it.
When I found I’d got a place and a bursary I delighted but mostly, I was shocked and scared. Isobel at Moniak Mhor said there were loads of amazing musicians on the course. I’m not an amazing musician so I didn’t know what I could bring to the course so I told her that I could bake cookies.
I spoke to a friend, Anna-Wendy Stevenson and she told me I had loads of ideas and loads I could bring because of my background in science and she said not to be afraid.
I still felt totally out of my depth when I arrived – most folk who got in were already out there playing music. I felt like a random who had stumbled in off the street. I’m not very good at guitar and I’d also been super nervous about there being an image weekend as part of stages. I don’t look glamorous – I didn’t think I’d fit in.
Were the other people on the course glamorous on arrival?
Turns out no one was. We’re all really different to each other, different ages and different styles of music so I felt at home. It’s such a lovely bunch of people on the course and it’s been wonderful going through the journey with them – I’ve made some life-long friends too.
I’m glad to hear it.So why did you apply to do the course, if this wasn’t already your thing?
I applied because of two things – this time last year a dear friend of mine, Elspeth Murray was heading to a songwriting weekend course with some friends and someone had dropped out. She asked me if I wanted to come along. There were lots of musicians but not many writers. So I said yes and I absolutely loved every minute of it. I loved being around people who were writing music, I wrote three songs and I used one of them as part of my Stages application.
So what about the second song, where did that come from?
I’ve written children’s songs about squirrels to go with a book I wrote , so I used on of those in my application too.
Sorry I interrupted you there, you were telling me the reasons you applied for the course, what’s the second reason?
There was another composing experience I’d had that I’d loved. I made a stop frame animation as part of the Art and Design NC I was studying, on the Ise of North Uist last year. I’d become friends with an amazing woman, Anna-Wendy Stevenson. She’s a world class violinist and she runs the applied music BA for UHI. She’d mentioned wanting to write film music once in passing so I tentatively suggested us working together because I’d made a short annimation that needed music (but I totally understood if she didn’t want to or was too busy).
Amazingly, she was up for it. I sent her the idea tunes I’d written for the otter and for some fish (me pretending to be a violin and flute as what app audio messages). She then did something wonderful – she recorded the tunes I’d sent on proper instruments and told me how I’d written trad tunes and that they were really good so we should use them instead of her writing something new.
We had a couple of evenings together at her house after that – where we put the tunes to the animation and I can see now, I was in a producer role back then – I just didn’t know that’s what I was doing.
It was one of my favourite ever life experiences – she was so talented and I could say – right can you now add this harmony over that with the violin and she did it instantly. So I could invent and sing out tunes that I could never play myself and she could play them back to me and make it sound exactly the way I wanted them to sound. It’s the closest I’ve been to feeling like a Jedi.
I was at the piano finding a segway tune so we could switch between two keys from the otter to the fish (because the otter starts making a fish picture on the beach out of shells, but the otter and the fish tunes were in different keys). So I found it and then she instantly played it back to me on violin and that made it sound just like an otter creating fish art.
We needed a tune for the raven at the end – I was sat at the piano playing all the notes from the fish to make a chord and then the otter notes in a chord and suddenly, a mournful raven tune sort of appeared out of the piano beneath my fingers and between the two chords and two keys – it was like the raven was in the room and in my blood. And I can hardly even play piano. It felt like magic. After I finished, Anna-Wendy said “Emily that was brilliant, we should have recorded it” But it was okay, I could a remember it!
If you’ve had the joy of music sort of just appearing – you’ll understand this – it’s like the combined creativity in the room enhances you and something beautiful appears that could have never appeared had you been by yourself. I love collaboration.
It sounds wonderful Emily, I’m aware I’ve taken quite a bit of your time so I’ve just got another couple of questions I’d like to ask if that’s okay?
Sure – go ahead!
What’s been the reaction to your new song from the Stages album, feathers?
Well I’ve only played the track to a handful of people because it’s not out yet, but I’ve had three people cry in a good way and a couple of goose bumps and everyone got excited and told me about something it reminds them of – a person or experience. So so far, it’s gone down well.
I wanted to ask you about how it felt seeing the photos and about the hardest and best parts of the course but we’ll save those questions for another interview if that’s okay. My last question is what’s next for you, after the gig?
I’ve written enough songs for a solo album (including three collaborations too) and I’ve got enough song ideas for ten albums at least – but I need to get funding to make my first album first. And then see if people actually like it too. So I’m in the process of applying for funding for that. I’m now going to be co-producing with Boo on it – which I’m super excited about. He’s amazing to work with, super talented and he makes me laugh all the time too.
Thanks Emily, is there anything else you wanted to add?
I want to say a huge thanks to Boo for so being kind and patient and grounding during what’s felt like a rollercoaster of emotions and experiences for me much of the time. And to everyone we’ve worked with during stages – they’ve been amazing! And to all the participants – I’ll write another blog post on ‘who are stages’ with a bit about each of them because they’re all so flipping brilliant.
I had a lovely time at Edinburgh International Book Festival doing a Tell me about science event for families based on two new books published by Templar and illustrated by Chorkung. They’re called: Tell me about… Plants and Tell me about… Human Body.
This is Lucy from the venue and James from Waterstones – big thanks to James for selling books and to Lucy for all your help. Thanks also to the lovely audience who came along to the event itself and for being up for audience participation – there were some fab moved out there when it came to singing and dancing. This is the lovely bee my cousin Ali knitted for the event, it’s visiting some flowers:
Thanks to Kristina Pedroja, one of the parents at the event who sent me lots of lovely photos including this one of the bee.
Was feeling nervous about the event the day before but I had such a nice day. I travelled on the train and was super early (fear of being late and of loosing things made me more than two hours early) so then I had chance to get photos like this one – this is author (and publisher of one my picture books) Alan Windram from Little Door Books:
He also helped me carry my stuff on arrival – thanks Alan!
And I had lots of time to soak up the atmosphere in the authors yurt, it has such a lovely vibe. I bumped into an author illustrator I’ve admired for a long time, I even wrote a blog about one of her books. We’ve met online but never in person. This is Anna Doherty – she was absolutely lovely!
And I met a new friend called Pilar Garcia de Leaniz – she runs the Illustration Masters for Edinburgh College of Art. Pilar and is also an artist, she did a self portrait workshop at the book festival that I heard was brilliant and we’re now planning some work together. She bust me into the illustration masters end of year show which was stunning – it opens this weekend and is on for a week – I very much recommend it.
And there were other lovely friends I caught up with including Katie from Craigmillar Literacy Trust and a lovely friend from Uist who now lives in Edinburgh. But I forgot to take any photos of them!
Edinburgh Book Festival will always be a super special place for me, my very first book Can’t Dance Cameron laughed here in 2014. I was so nervous about being a new author that my hands shook for a whole week before the event, every time I drank tea. But it was an absolutely lovey place to emerge as a new author in the end – the event sold out and everyone made me feel so very welcome.
I even had a portrait taken by the famous Chris Close, here’s me heading a football pinecone (it was a prop for the event – thanks to my Dad for making that!):
And I came back every year with new books for sold out events all the way up to 2020. A real highlight was visiting prisoners and their families with the Book Festival outreach team too.
But this is the first time I’ve been back at the festival since 2020 – we had the covid years and I lived in the Hebrides then so I watched the book festival online instead. But now I’m back living in the central belt and back at the book festival. It still very much felt like the book festival always did, despite no longer being in the George Street venue. Was so good to be back and to be at the Edinburgh College of art!
I’m really grateful to everyone who bought tickets and came along to the ‘Tell me about science’ event, it was a lovely surprise when I found out it had sold out a few weeks back. I particularly enjoyed answering some really brilliant questions from the children at the end of the event – they included ‘how do you make metal?’. I answered by starting from exploding a star and went all through making planets from the bits and then recycling the crust on our planet to make metal in the rocks but I now realise – I could have just started from rocks and going underground to get it. That might have been a more straightforward answer!
But the audience seemed to enjoy the explanation of how to make metal from the beginning of time (and with it being explained for the four and five year old audience). I summarised the question answer at the end with – so first you need to explode a star. Then the next question was ‘what is the surface of a star like the sun like, is it hard or soft or is it not like a surface at all?’. And so we went on!
I’m back in Edinburgh at the end of the festival on schools gala day to make articulated skeletons and to plant seeds and make fridge magnets as part of the drop in activities for schools. So if you’re visiting with your class, please do come and say hello!
I want to invite you to a neurodivergent shared reading and creative writing group. It starts this Thursday and runs monthly online through the Open Book. I’m leading the group. I’m looking forward to it and I’m also a little nervous because it’s the first one. I really want everyone to enjoy themselves and feel at ease.
The Open Book run over 1000 shared reading groups and creative writing groups every year in communities all over Scotland. That includes in libraries, gardens, refuge shelters and prisons. They’ve been doing what they do for ten years now. They do it because reading improves mental health and helps build community.
When I first got trained to run a reading group, we attended a group as part of the training – I was reminded of how good it is to be read to and have a chance to chat about a text and explore it together. I’d joined book groups in the past and forgotten to read the book so I never actually went along – the great thing about open book groups is there is no homework – you just turn up and read there and then.
I then ran a pilot in-person shared reading group for the Western Isles. It took place in person at Benbecula library on Uist while I lived there last year. Now I live in Fife but I hear the Uist group is still going and I recommend it if you live near – it’s a really lovely group.
The neurodivergent group is a little different because it’s online and it’s a reading AND creative writing group. Plus it’s specifically aimed at neurodivergent people. If you identify as being neurodivergent, you’d be so welcome to try the group. All the details are on the poster below:
And if you know of friends or family who might want to come along, please tell them about it and help spread the word. Here’s a social media shareable version of the invite too, feel free to download this or the poster above:
I’m very much looking forward to hearing what we all write from the same starting point. I’ve just checked the link and this Thursday is SOLD OUT but you can email admin@openbookreading.com to be added to the waiting list.
I’ve been working on a project funded by Museums Galleries Scotland for the year of stories. My work included nature storytelling events at the museum, launching a children’s writing competition online, judging entries and presenting prizes in person.
I got to wear this gorgeous 1920s cloak for the children’s writing competition launch video:
To enter, the children had to write a story inspired by the Highland Folk Museum – it could be inspired by one of the 35 historical buildings on site, or by one of the people who lived or worked there, or by one of the museum artefacts. They could go on a virtual tour of the buildings online or visit the museum in person for inspiration. We had entires from all over the world!
This month I had the priviledge of presenting prizes to the winners. I travelled to Inverness High School with Jo from the Highland Folk Museum. We met Karina, the winner in the older age category. Karina wrote a brilliant story about Lochahully house. We took Karina to the chocolate café Xoco with her friend and the school librarian, Susan. They could order whatever they wanted:
Then we went to Waterstones Inverness so Karina could browse the books and spend her £30 book voucher prize. We wanted her to feel special and have a day to remember. Here she is with her certificate:
Then I worked with the creative writing group and higher English group at Inverness High to run a writing workshop.
For the primary age children, Fiona from Newtonmore Primary was the overall winner with her story Lily Smith, a young traveller
Congratulations Fiona! We had three highly commended winners too, including Fiona again and Oscar. One highly commended entry turned out to be a group writing effort from Newtonmore Primary, so they all won!
We presented the winners with certificates and prizes on stage after I did a Crime Squirrel Investigators Assembly (with songs, stories, science and a water squirting squirrel).
Fiona was the overall winner so her class got an author visit too. I did a ‘Surfing the Moon’ event and a mini science show on energy (with a rocket making workshop):
I’ll add a link to the winning stories here, once they are published on the Highland Folk Museum Website. All the shortlisted entries were sent to me without names for judging – I really enjoyed reading them.
Newtonmore Primary and Kingussie Primary had writing workshops with author Merryn Glover as part of the project too. That could explain why they wrote such brilliant stories! Here we are together back in the summer, taking a tour of the museum and coming up with ideas for the school workshops:
And over the October Tattie holidays, there were free storytelling events at the Highland Folk Museum. I came along for a couple of days to run nature storytelling sessions and woodland crafts:
We started our first session of the day with just one family and then suddenly, 40 people came over the hill from the pine forest! Was so lovely to see all the families walking towards us. They weren’t an organised group, it had just taken a while for them to walk to where we were storytelling (it’s a huge place) after the museum opened. We squashed everyone in and from then on, we were full every session. Here are some of the children (and their parents and grandparents) dancing for a session:
I loved working with the staff at the museum and it was a joy to be working outside too. I especially loved seeing all the lovely crafty creations the children made. Here are just a few of their gorgeous red squirrel and bat fridge magnets:
I’ll be back at the Highland Folk Museum in the February break to run more crafts and family storytelling (with hot chocolate) check out my events page or the highland folk museum website nearer the time for details.
I have some really, really exciting news. I’ve written a new series of first science books for four and five year olds. The first two books in the series are published by Templar in February 2023 and I’ve just got my advance copies – I love them. They’re gorgeously illustrated by the brilliant Chorkung.
I called the series ‘Tell Me About’ because I’ve written them in storytelling style. They’re not so much fact books, they’re more ‘pull up an armchair and listen to a story that’s about science’ kind of books. If that sounds a bit strange, here’s an example of one of my favourite spreads from the body book. It explains neuroplasticity of the brain (and thinking and learning) for four year olds. It’s done with the help of squirrels – I love squirrels:
I’m also super proud of this spread on feelings:
I’m a counsellor and I’ve done lots of research on feelings so I’m glad I was able to explain how we all have our own legitimate reactions and feelings, based on who we are and our life experiences. It uses the example of a dog to help. It also explains the power of empathy.
I think so many adults stuggle to understand this, they judge how someone should feel, based on their own feelings and even tell others their feelings are wrong or they shouldn’t feel that way when actually, they’re real and legitimate to the person feeling them.
Here are the lovely covers:
And the back covers:
I wanted to use this series to explain the amazing and complicated things inside us and around us but I wanted to make them easy to understand and super beautiful. I hope these books have done that. I feel really proud of them. These books were a team effort so huge thanks to my editor Ruth Symmons for believing in my voice and to the designer Nathalie and the illustrator Chorkung for all their wonderful creativity. Thanks to my agent Lindsey Fraser too.
Here’s an example from the plants book – I explain how water molecules pull each other up the stem as water evaporates from the leaves, THE DROPS ARE HOLDING HANDS:
I also love the grasses spreads because this was a spread my editor Ruth questioned (do we need a whole spread on grasses?) and then I explained how amazing grasses were and that they weren’t just green grass so then she loved this spread:
I had to read three plant encyclopaedias and lots of books on the body (including books like Anatomy for Dummies). It’s important I read adult books on the topics, so I can simplify things down and make decisions on what to include from an overall knowledge base. If I looked at children’s books on the topic, they’ve already been simplified and I risk not fully understanding the science behind things. I’d also end up making books that are like every other book on the topic for that age. These books certainly aren’t like that.
Tell Me About: Plants is a partnership with Kew Gardens. That means they reviewed the contents pages (they gave it a YES WE LOVE IT!) and they fact checked the final text and illustrations. I’m super excited to be working with them and hope do events at Kew Gardens in February when the books are published. Check out my events page for more details nearer the time.
I’ve written two more books in the series but I can’t tell you what they’re about just yet because they’re published in 2024.
There is a competition running on Twitter and Instagram to win an advance copy of plants – you have until 10th December to enter by commenting with you favourite plant! Click on the links above to be taken to the Templar Books social media accounts.
I finally got my hands on a copy of my latest book, ‘Why is the Sky Blue?’ Published by DK in November 2022. It’s a reprint of ‘Do you know about Science?’ so it’s not a brand new book but this is a lovely new cover:
The new title and cover are to help it to tie in with the rest of the series, I wrote another book in the series all about the body, it’s called ‘Why is blood red?’
This book is general science, here’s a look inside:
And finally the back cover:
Huge thanks to Blackwells bookshop in Edinburgh for taking my photo with the book. I signed their copy along with a big pile of picture books so if you’re in the area, you can get a signed book from them for Christmas!
Earlier this year I had an exciting new book published – Everyday STEM Geology. It’s written by me, illustrated by Robbie Cathro and published by Kingfisher Pan Macmillan.
It’s a book about the geology in the everyday – in your phone, plastic, cans, concrete…
Plus geology in space and a few other surprises including experiments to do at home.
I love that it says ‘science is all around you’ on the cover. I’m especially chuffed that I wrote a full spread on geophysics – that was my undergraduate degree back in the day. I adore the illustrations by Robbie too. I hope you enjoy it!
Please ask for it from your local library and tell all the 9 – 11 year olds you know.
If you would like to buy Geology in a way that supports me and your local independent bookshop, you can buy it here. Otherwise I won’t earn anything when you buy elsewhere because I don’t have a royalty contract on this book.
Tiny Wonders is on CBeebies just now. It started during the Christmas holidays and it continues every day on the CBeebies channel until February. If you don’t get a chance to watch it live, you can catch up on BBC Iplayer here.
I’m super excited about Tiny Wonders because it’s the first time I’ve written a whole series for CBeebies – all ten episodes. I was also part of the development team – I wrote the pilot script, developed the characters and developed multiple episode ideas.
And after the show was commissioned by CBeebies, I wrote the storylines and scripts for each episode too.
Tiny Wonders was created by New Zealand based animator Daniel Short. He came up with the amazing concept and was also the lead animator throughout the project. The series was produced by independent production company Freakworks. Myself and Dan worked with Freakworks and CBeebies during the development and production of the show.
So what’s Tiny Wonders about? Here’s how’s it is described on the CBeebies programme page:
Join the Nogglins, Fidd, Nono, Itty, Yapp-Yapp and Hum, on a voyage of discovery to explore the Tiny Wonders of the natural world. Slow down, look closer. What can you see?
And here’s the trailer:
In its first week, Tiny Wonders was the most watched show on CBeebies and the most popular children’s show on BBC Iplayer. I think it’s gorgeous but it was really good to hear how many children in the UK enjoyed watching it too.
Before I tell you about writing for Tiny Wonders, I want to share some of the wonderful art and crafts children and parents have been sharing.
Tiny Wonders Art:
Some gorgeous Fimo Nogglins from Angus and Anna:
Tiny Wonders Art from Angus:
A brilliant wooden noggin, made by Mahboob Raja for his four year old boy:
And a tray of play dough nogglins from Rhona, Sarah and Craig Lamont.
These are all so lovely!! Thanks for sharing them with me.
Writing Tiny Wonders:
Here’s a bit more about the development process, from my perspective as the screenwriter for the show.
Hired:
Daniel Short pitched the initial Tiny Wonders idea to CBeebies, along with a company who wanted to make it with him, Freakworks. CBeebies liked it so much they gave Freakworks some development money and that’s the point when they hired me. I was brought on board to develop the characters and episode ideas, and to write the first episode script.
They found me on a children’s media database I’d forgotten I was even on. And we happened, by wonderful chance, to all be based in Leith in Scotland. So I went to meet Chris Marks the producer and we clicked. I’d written episodes for CBeebies before (Nina and the Neurons) and I’ve worked in-house for BBC Scotland in development – storylining episodes and developing new science series for children’s television. Freakworks had made lots of shows, but nothing for 3 to 6 years so this was a good fit.
Coming up with lots of small and wonderful ideas:
We all contributed episode ideas, until the list grew to around 30 wonders-of-the-tiny-world. We needed natural objects that had something surprising or interesting about them. We wanted a mix of urban and rural locations. Objects had to look different (and not too obvious) when you were close up and exploring them as part of a macro world.
Two of my ideas that later became episodes were geode and litchen. I’d seen an amazing fence post that had a whole host of lichens growing on it – it was really stunning. And I’ve always been fascinated by geodes – that boring looking round rocks can contain a dazzling crystal world inside them.
I wrote short paragraphs pitches for every episode next. These were important because they showed CBeebies what was Tiny (and Wonderful) about each episode and they showed the potential for a story. Here is an example:
GEODE (natural)
Inside the rock egg there’s a secret place, it’s purple and sparkling…
Location: Bottom of cliff
Developing Characters
The characters, designed by Dan, were shaped in ways that corresponded to how they moved. Fidd is an ice hockey puck shape and slides quickly about. Hum is a floaty cloud shape and glides slowly. The characters started as 2D drawings that later became 3D shapes.
I was given illustrations of the characters, names and basic descriptions for how each character moved along with their main characteristic – chatty, bossy, fast and so on.
I used the enneagram as a framework to develop the characters further, giving them more personality and depth. The enneagram is a type of personality profile that was used in ancient communities to make sure there were different types of people within a community and to show how everyone learns from (and needs) each other.
Each enneagram personality type changes under stress or aspires to be someone different at their best – so it was a perfect way to determine how each character would respond to the challenges presented in the episodes. It helped determine how they relate to each other too. It’s also pretty hipster, the enneagram. Not that I’m a hipster. I just like it.
Here’s an example of one of the character profiles, after my development:
HUM
The reflective, thoughtful, sensitive one.
Hum is distracted, drifting, musical. She is sometimes a little sad. She is in her own world, observing and taking things in from a unique perspective. Hum keeps calm in a crisis. Sample line: It’s all round and shiny, like a tiny moon!
Group role: Younger sister. Independent bystander. Notoces things the others don’t see. Movement: Floats along slowly Character type: Investigator / Observer. Investigators have a need for knowledge. They are introverted, curious, analytical, and insightful
Here are all the characters with their enneagram types:
Fidd: Type 7, The Adventurer / Enthusiast (red)
Yapyap: Type 3, The Achiever (orange)
Itty: Type 8, The Challenger / Asserter (purple)
Nono: Type 6, The Questioner / Loyalist (green)
Hum: Type 5, The investigator / Observer (blue)
It took a lot of thought to match profiles to the already assigned characteristics I’d been given. I had to include:
the way they moved
their already defined age relationship
name and a basic assigned characteristic (chatty, distracted etc)
And I needed to make sure all the characters were sufficiently different to each other.
At the time I was studying counselling one day a week at college so I’d explored the enneagram personality profiling in depth and I knew, for example what the child versions of profiles were too.
Every interaction I would write between the nogglins, every observation about their world, the way in which they respond to the jeopardy and solve a problem – they are all based on characterisation so it was really important that I knew who they were
I also wanted the series to represent neurodiversity and encourage child viewers to celebrate the differences within themselves and those around them.
For example, Hum is distracted and gets lost because of it in ‘Bark’. Distractedness in Inattentive ADHD is due to noticing (and thinking about) other things. It’s about noticing too much at once and being hypersensitive to things like sound and light. So HUM gets lost when distracted but is found by using music – humming sounds. In other episodes, I was careful to make Hum the character who spots things others don’t. For example in ‘Geod’, Hum is the one who finds the crack and follows it to reveal the crystals. The others haven’t noticed it. So in writing the episodes as I did, I show both the helpful and unhelpful sides of distractedness.
Yapyap is the chatty character. But in ‘Lichen’, Yapyap needs to quieten down during a game of camouflage hide and seek. Being talkative causes Yapyap to be spotted easily when the others hear them talking excitedly. But I was really conscious that we don’t suggest that Yapyap needs to learn to be a quiet Nogglin. Yapyap will grow up to be a chatty adult Nogglin and that’s okay, they just learn in that episode that sometimes, it’s a good idea to be quiet.
When I’d finished all the character descriptions and explained the enneagram to Julia Bond, (Executive Producer at CBeebies) she said “This is amazing, it stops them being just blobs, now they’re blobs with depth and this could be what makes this show stand out as different.” What a relief to have such a positive response after all that hard work. She really understood my ambition for the series.
The Noggins are voiced by real children and I wanted them to behave like authentic children too.
A lovely part of the Tiny Wonders concept was to include real children’s reactions to each of the wonders. So when I was writing scripts I’d write the sorts of things I knew children would say. For example “It looks like a tiny volcano” when describing the barnacle. Next to some of the lines of the script I added a star. These were lines that could be swapped out and replaced with real child reactions when they were recorded at a later date.
But most of the lines were too important to be changed. They were absolutely necessary to the viewer’s understanding of the story. So the child actors read all the lines in the script I’d written but they were also showed pictures of objects and they responded in real time with their own descriptions. Some of those lines were later chosen by the producer, Chris Marks, to be included in the final episodes.
For the development script ‘Dew drop’, I wrote a long list of questions for the children, to try to prompt reactions when looking at a dew drop image, these included:
What does it remind you of?
What do you think is sounds like?
What does it look like?
What do you think it wants?
All the time I was writing the script and developing the characters there were visual changes being added too, by the animation and production team. For example, glasses and monocles were added to the Nogglins to give them more character and to make them look similar to their craft, the bee sized Noggin.
I love the Noggin – Dan’s idea for the spacecraft. It has interchangeable appendages so it can hover or float or fly, depending on where it landed. A sort of cross between steam punk and nature. Nature Punk – if that’s a thing!
After weeks of hard work from everyone, the script, character descriptions, episode ideas and pilot animation were pitched to CBeebies and we got a yes!
This was super exciting news but I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone because it was all confidential. And then we had to wait 6 months before production began too. And it was more than a year after that before it came out on TV – that’s a very long time to keep a secret!
Creating Stories
Once we’d been commissioned and production began, my next challenge was to write each episode idea into a proper story. I collected information from all our meetings until I had a long list of all the things I needed to do as the writer. Here’s the list I came up with, to make sure I was doing what was expected. Every episode needed:
Awe and wonder at the natural world – introduce beautiful and surprising things in nature
An authentic child-based perspective and way of seeing the world (from the nogglins)
A initial moment to slow down and notice things, narrator introduced
A second moment of slowing down for the Nogglin of the day (who hadn’t previously slowed down much) to use mindfulness to solve a problem, without the narrator saying to do this
Increased jeopardy in each episode
At least one funny part in each episode
A problem set up and resolved, featuring that episodes nogglin of the day
A problem caused, in part by a characteristic of one of the nogglins (e.g. being fast, being distracted)
A problem caused in part by the Tiny Wonder environment
A life lesson learned from the solving of the problem – if it’s one that was learnt as a result of a characteristic (e.g. being stubborn) the lesson is universal to children (for example, it’s important to listen to your friends) rather than very specific to a perceived negative characteristic in a child (for example you need to be less stubborn / chatty / distracted).
At least two different scripted macro shots plus the landing shot
A section where the nogglin of the day is solo and uses mindfulness to discover something. But they have to discover this by talking to themselves (no narrator or other character dialogue) or by visually showing this somehow – and then they re-join the others and share what they’ve learned.
Every episode had to be under 3 minutes long and 1 minute of that was arriving and leaving the tiny world and there was always a section of live action too. So it was a massive challenge to get so much into so few words and construct a fully resolved story. All the noggins needed to participate in each episode, they all needed to respond in ways authentic to their character and the situation and there needed to be lines that could be swapped out for real child reactions. I wanted it to always sound like real children having real conversations.
Because it was a new show, things were still being worked out as I wrote the storylines and scripts. So for example I had to write some of the episodes without the actual Tiny Wonder image. I knew what it would be (for example a barnacle) but it hadn’t been taken yet.
Other episodes had to change because of the limits of animation, or in terms of movement of characters or the Tiny Wonder itself. So there were lots of changes.
We came up with initial story ideas during a writers room day, with myself, the producer Chris and later the animator Dan too – we really needed him to check our ideas were possible in terms of the animation.
I then wrote storylines for each episodes (a plan of what happens, it’s a bit like a book synopsis) and these were sent to various people for notes in including the producer, the lead animator and to the CBeebies exec. They all sent me notes.
I made changes to the episodes in response to the notes – but sometimes I came back to explain why something needed to be a certain way for the episode to work. Then they were sent back to CBeebies for the final sign off. Once a storyline had been signed off, it came back to me and I wrote the script – the lines of dialogue and lines of action for the episode.
The scripts went through a similar process of circulation and notes in response, and I rewrote them multiple times. Once we had a template script for one episode and rules for the Tiny Wonders world, it was much easier to write the next episodes but sometimes we’d need to change something in one episode that would affect all of the episodes.
We kept all the characters genderless. That was challenging from a writing perspective – to never use ‘he’ or ‘she’ in any dialogue, but always make all the dialogue sound like four year olds talking naturally to each other.
As changes happened I worked super hard to maintain the authenticity of each character – so if a change was needed visually, I’d make sure the character responded in a new way that was authentic to them. With so few lines, any small change – even to a single line – would change the whole script. I needed to make sure each character got an equal amount of lines and lines in keeping with their character. I also had to think about the lines for the narrator – if they’re speaking to the Noggins or to the viewer because this changes the ways things are said.
I have lots of experience working with four and five year olds, doing workshops and storytelling. I often show them a giant pinecone and without fail, every time I get it out, wherever I am, children react in the same way. The reaction is always a big amazed noise that turns into a collective wow. Here’s a photo of that moment in an outdoor classroom:
I included the collective ‘wow’ as an authentic shared expression in my scripts – a bit like a family having a catchphrase or in-joke.
At times I had lines suggested to me as quick fixes to solve a visual problem but more often then not, they didn’t work because they were explaining something from the viewers’ perspective, looking in or looking down on the tiny world. The Noggins are in the Tiny World looking outwards – they can’t see what what the viewers’ can. That was yet another thing to consider and I wanted to keep it consistant.
Writers need to take notes they are given on board and make requested changes. But I said when I believed something was really important and when I believed a suggested changed could damage the integrity of the show. Ultimately – there were lots of compromises but I am hugely proud of the end result.
Conclusion
Well that’s me shared a little bit about my role as a writer for Tiny Wonders. There were so many people involved that I haven’t mentioned. People at Freakworks who did things like taking beautiful photos of the tiny worlds, filming on location, animators, the voiceover actors (a big shout out to the children -they were so good) and so many more besides them. We’re all really proud of what we achieved together. If you haven’t seen it already, I really hope you enjoy it.
auntyemily 