Katherine Roberts

This week the Muse is delighted to introduce Anna Vasileiadi-Dardalis, who translated "I am the Great Horse" into Greek for the fabulous Greek language edition pictured here. Anna is also an author herself, so Katherine was very excited when she agreed to an interview. This is what she has to say about the Great Horse and translating books into other languages... KR: Since I do not read Greek myself, I find the Greek edition very mysterious. When you translate a book, do you translate it word for word or edit the text as you go? ANNA: I suppose you must be feeling the same way I feel when I read Japanese – or even German! They say that a translation is like a woman… hasn’t to be faithful in order to be good. Of course there are differences between two languages. Being an author myself, I feel that need of keeping as strict to the original text as I can. At the same time, by reading the book as from the first time, I try to sink in the original a...

A quick nudge from my glittery horn! In case you think my author is being lazy letting her editor, illustrator and translator post on this blog, Katherine is guest blogger this week over at  Seven Miles of Steel Thistles  as part of Katherine Langrish's fairytale series. So if you like magical worlds of snow and ice, devilish mirrors and adventurous heroines, climb into your sleigh and head on over to read what Katherine has to say about her favourite fairytale THE SNOW QUEEN , where you will also find more fabulous fairytale posts by a selection of your favourite fantasy authors. (The illustration is from a 1937 reprint of the 1920 original edition of My Book House, edited by Olive Beaupré Miller, believed to be in the public domain .)

They say a picture is worth a thousand words… and when you’re talking about maps, a picture can be worth a hundred thousand words! There is just one map in this book, but it tells you all you need to know about Bucephalas’ epic journey with Alexander. So this week the Muse is delighted to introduce talented artist Brian Sanders, who created the beautiful map you see at the front of “I am the Great Horse”. Brian has been a professional artist for five decades, during which time he has worked in every area of the illustrative arts ranging through book publishing, magazines, newspapers, government agencies, film, television and art education. Although he loved to draw maps in his childhood, he has only recently been asked to produce them for books, and the commission for "I am the Great Horse” came from book designer Ian Butterworth, with whom Brian has worked over many years. The project began with a rough sketch of the historical area supplied by Katherine, together with a dr...

At last we come to the title. You might be wondering why it took so long to get to this point, but titles can be trickier than you think. Sometimes they come straight away and everyone loves them – like the first book of my Seven Fabulous Wonders series, which I knew would be called “The Great Pyramid Robbery” before I wrote a single word. But more often the published title comes after much discussion with the editor, and the author’s original ideas can usually be improved upon. This might seem overly fussy, but the title is probably the most important word(s) in your book, because title and cover image taken together must inspire a potential reader to pick it up in the first place. They may then turn it over to read the back cover “blurb”, or leaf through the pages to get a feel for the story, but if your book is shelved the traditional way in a bookshop then chances are people won’t even see the cover image, only the spine with title and author’s name. So unless you a...

The Muse is delighted to welcome freelance editor Helen Wire to this blog, pictured here passing on her love of books to a young reader! This week she gives us a fascinating glimpse into her work on the Great Horse manuscript… over to you, Helen. HELEN WIRE: Without exception everyone who read and assessed Katherine’s massive 200,000 word manuscript of what was to become I am the Great Horse , “loved it”. Katherine had already been very successfully published by the Chicken House so we – the innovative publisher of great books for children and young adults Barry Cunningham, his deputy managing director Rachel Hickman, their in-house editor Imogen Cooper and I, a freelance editor – already knew what a thoroughly good writer she is. And we weren’t disappointed. No one reading this Great Horse blog could fail to recognise that Katherine is a gift to an editor – she barely needs editing. And that leaves one free at first reading to simply enjoy her stories. From page one of Bucephalas...

The Muse would like to push the Great Horse aside with his sparkly horn for a moment to send a few more Glitter Awards out into the enchanted misty parts of the blogosphere. The first two Glitter Awards were given in June to Seven Miles of Steel Thistles and The Bookette , who nominated some other blogs they thought a unicorn would enjoy. Awards also went to Scribble City Central for a fabulous series of interviews with fantasy authors (this series has now finished, but you can still read them in Scribble City's archives) and Daria's All Pencils of Mine are Sugar Plums for her beautiful drawings of the Echorium Sequence . The Muse has been checking out the other nominations over the past couple of months and is now sending a long-awaited award over to: The Fairytale Cupboard … for exactly what it says on the door! A glitter award is also on its way to new blog Dragontongue written by a group of authors who live in the mysterious dragon country of Wales. (You migh...