WIN: 'Caddy's World' - Hilary McKay

Caddy's World is the latest in the acclaimed Casson family series by Hilary McKay.

Hilary McKay revisits the Casson family, but this time with a difference ...
Go back in time ... Caddy is 12, grappling with school, best friends, first boyfriends, younger siblings and the unexpected arrival of one baby Permanent Rose who has arrived in the world a little sooner than expected. While baby Rose lies in critical condition in hospital, life goes on in the unpredictable, colourful Casson household ...

Win one of three signed copies. To enter please contact my website (www. hilarymckay.co.uk) with your name and address and a few words on the subject of What Book I Would Like to Read Next. Fiction or non fiction, by any author, in print, or out of print or not yet written.

Closing date 20th July at noon (UK time). Please include your contact details with your entry.

Who Would You Be? by Keren David

It’s unusual to be completely thrown by a question from the audience, but a teenager in the audience at my most recent event managed to do just that.

The event was the Hay Festival, my fellow panellists were Sally Nicholls and Anne Cassidy and the question was this: ‘If you could be any other writer, who would you be?’

‘Homer,’ said Sally, for his wonderful stories and use of language.  ‘J K Rowling,’ said Anne, ‘just think of the money.’

I mumbled something about Shakespeare, but it wasn’t really true, and over the last few weeks I’ve been wondering which writer I should have picked. Anne Tyler, whose novel ‘The Accidental Tourist’ is written so beautifully that I have line-envy on every page? Antonia Forest, because then I’d know more about the Marlows, possibly my favourite family in children’s fiction? Hilary McKay for creating the Casson family, who run the Marlows a close second? Lauren Child, because I’d love to have her visual imagination? Jodie Picoult or Joanna Trollope, because I feel I could do what they do, but then I wouldn’t have to do it and I’d have all their royalties.

No. The answer, I realised was simple. I write because I like to create my own stories. I don’t want to write other people’s books or plays, even if they are more lucrative than mine, win more awards, are better written. I don’t want to be another writer, is what I should have said. I just want to work on being an even better version of me.

How about you? Is there an author you’d like to be?