{"id":389,"date":"2015-11-10T16:47:11","date_gmt":"2015-11-10T16:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nibweb.org.uk\/?p=389"},"modified":"2015-11-20T22:27:42","modified_gmt":"2015-11-20T22:27:42","slug":"a-world-of-non-fiction-opportunities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nibweb.org.uk\/?p=389","title":{"rendered":"A world of (non-fiction) opportunities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Raising the profile of children\u2019s non-fiction \u2013 that was the challenge discussed at the Society of Authors on 3 November.<\/p>\n<p>Its Childrens\u2019s Writers and Illustrators Group (CWIG) held a meeting entitled \u2018Nonfiction: A World of Opportunities\u2019. It was addressed by Caroline Royds and Dan Pattinson (Walker Books \u2013 <a title=\"http:\/\/www.walker.co.uk\/\" href=\"http:\/\/www.walker.co.uk\/\">http:\/\/www.walker.co.uk\/<\/a>) and Debbie Foy (Wayland:\u00a0<a title=\"Wayland\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hachettechildrens.co.uk\/\">https:\/\/www.hachettechildrens.co.uk\/<\/a>), and chaired by Nibweb member Nicola Morgan. The blurb from the meeting said: \u2018All four are loud advocates for well-written non-fiction and hope to inspire you with possibilities, while also facing the real challenges of today&#8217;s markets.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>This proved true, and\u00a0among a great many interesting points made were that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Wayland (part of Hachette, and hitherto very much a school-library type of publisher) is making a serious move into trade non-fiction (with one-off titles featuring as well as series), and<\/li>\n<li>(this especially from Walker) non-fiction titles really have to be US-friendly. That\u2019s because the genre has a much higher profile here than there. (See other articles on this page.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This difference between the US and UK markets has been raised before by Lionel Bender (see this page) who runs a regular non-fiction conference in the US. The big challenge must be to make non-fiction something that works in the UK, too.<\/p>\n<p>How can this be done \u2013 when reviews of children\u2019s non-fiction are as rare as the proverbial hens\u2019 teeth, bookshops rarely stock it and \u2013 it appears \u2013 children in schools are not encouraged to read non-fiction? There\u2019s a long way to go.<\/p>\n<p>But Walker do seem to be able to publish successfully in this area, and Wayland are taking the plunge. Let\u2019s wish them luck.<\/p>\n<p>PS The difference between the US and UK&#8217;s attitudes to non-fiction is emphasised by Stewart Ross, who draws our attention to the US &#8216;common core&#8217; curriculum. Especially, he says,\u00a0\u2018point 3.\u2019 See:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.corestandards.org\/other-resources\/key-shifts-in-english-language-arts\/\">http:\/\/www.corestandards.org\/other-resources\/key-shifts-in-english-language-arts\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Raising the profile of children\u2019s non-fiction \u2013 that was the challenge discussed at the Society of Authors on 3 November. Its Childrens\u2019s Writers and Illustrators Group (CWIG) held a meeting&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authorblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nibweb.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nibweb.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nibweb.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nibweb.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nibweb.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=389"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/nibweb.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":452,"href":"https:\/\/nibweb.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions\/452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nibweb.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nibweb.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nibweb.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}