Undercover Unicorn

Where do authors go on their summer holidays? Last week, the Muse infiltrated a secret author conference in deepest Oxfordshire with a secret camera hidden in his horn to bring you this exclusive unicorn-at-the-window report.


Obviously, I took a cross country route to the event. Other authors elected to travel there by motorbike, in shared taxis, or took back routes around the lanes that made their SatNavs shriek at them.
When I arrived, I spotted my first famous author in classic sunglasses disguise:

Who is this Carnegie medal winner?


There were hush-hush meetings in the garden


and other meetings inside

Do you recognise any of these authors NOW?

After sorting out the publishing industry, the authors watched some book trailers in search of the Secret Bestseller Formula that has eluded just about every human up to now (unicorns know it, naturally, but I'm not telling!)

Write a Great Synopsis - trailer for the book by Nicola Morgan

Forsaken - trailer for the book by Katherine Langrish

City of Swords - trailer made by Anne Rooney for Mary Hoffman's final Stravaganza book

Nicola Morgan interviewed by a computer animated character about her book Death Watch

Inbali and Joe do books... (watch out, Richard and Judy!)

After which they all drank some special creativity-enhancing drinks:

It's water, honest...
Some of the more energetic authors did yoga before breakfast to work off the three puddings supplied twice each day (6 puddings per day x 3 days = 18 puddings in total!), while those who couldn't manage yoga did a collage to prepare their own bestselling book trailer.

Katherine with her ideas for a Pendragon Legacy trailer
And on the last night they held a Children's Book Quiz to show how brainy they all (or at least half of them) were.

Cindy J. kept the scores... she's laughing, no idea why!

The two quiz teams were Mary's Marauders and Celia's Reivers, and I'm sorry to say it all got rather violent and bloody towards the end, although you'll be pleased to hear that no unicorns (or other muses) were harmed during the evening.

In case you're now feeling a bit left out, here is a special quiz question for you set by the Muse:

1. Who were the team leaders? (fill in the blanks)
Mary H _ _ _ _ _ N
Celia R _ _ S

2. Which team do you think won?

Answers in the comments below!