Around the World in 15 Days!

My debut novel 15 Days Without a Head was published by Oxford University Press in the UK in January 2012. It has since been published across the world in many different languages. 

The Polish edition—15 DNI BEZ GLOWY—came out today!

I'm always fascinated to see the different artwork and titles used. 

One of my favourites is the edition that came out recently in Taiwan (above bottom row, middle). The jacket illustrates characters and elements from the story, and even has silver endpapers! (below)

Great illustration of Mina in her RAMONES T-Shirt!

There are more character illustrations inside.

artwork: CommonWealth Magazine, Taiwan

I recently blogged about the fantastic animated trailer Penguin Random House produced for the Mexican Spanish Edition. Watch the video here.

With these and further editions scheduled for publication, every so often a new copy arrives in the post. The arrival of one of these always gives me a huge buzz, knowing that a story I wrote in my attic is now being read by people thousands of miles away in countries I have never been able to visit myself.

I did however get the opportunity to visit Italy last year, when Quindici Giorni Senza Testa, was awarded the Premio Andersen. 

With my award at the beautiful Luzzati Museum, Genova

My Italian publisher San Paolo kindly invited me to Italy for the ceremony. I had a wonderful couple of days in Genova, and managed to deliver my award acceptance speech in 'very broken' Italian! Huge thanks to everyone at San Paolo, plus Barbara Schiaffino, Paolo Rinaldi, Marco Albonico, Alessandra Grasso, Giuseppe Trapani and the rights team at OUP, and most of all Giulia Guasco who translated the story into Italian and clearly did a very good job!

With Marco from San Paolo, and Giulia who did
such a great job translating the story into Italian

None of this would have been possible without the Rights Team at OUP. It is due to their dedication and hard work that my stories have found their way to readers all over the world. Here's a report from their recent trip to the Bologna Book Fair, see if you can spot the display for my new book Charlie Merrick's Misfits.

Finally, thanks to all the publishing houses across the globe for giving my stories a life beyond the attic.

Thanks to Jennie Younger for the photos and her company on my Italian adventure.