To celebrate a successful year, we at Tamarind Books are running a competition to encourage new writing for fiction and picture books.

How to enter

Fiction

To enter email an A4 page outline of your story and two chapters to tamarindbooks@gmail.com.

Picture Books

Please send the text through (no longer than 600 words)

Note: We are not accepting illustrations – just text

Dates

The competition runs from Dec 20^th 2011 through to midnight January 31^st 2012

Prizes

Two entries will be chosen for a professional review and will also receive a copy of the Writers and Artist’s Yearbook 2012.

Rules

• All entries must follow the Tamarind ethos. Please see the ‘About Us’ section on the Tamarind website
• This must be on a word document, double spaced in font size 10
• We can accept no more than 2 submissions per entrant

Good Luck!

Author of Skin Deep and Spike and Ali Enson, Malaika Rose Stanley, contributed a fantastic blog post for An Awfully Big Blog Adventure last week. In Black, White and Just Right Malaika compiles a list of children’s and young adult fiction which feature mixed-race and mixed-heritage main characters. The list includes titles from authors such as Bali Rai, Philip Pullman and Rick Riordan. However, it was not easy to put the list together. As Malaika says, ‘It’s a short list – and not in a good way – but in the end, isn’t quality always more important than quantity?’ We couldn’t agree more Malaika. 

To read the full article, follow this link: http://awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com/2011/11/black-white-and-just-right-malaika-rose.html

To celebrate Black History Month, we’re giving away a book a day between now and 31st October!  Each day, on Facebook (facebook.com/TamarindBooks) and Twitter @TamarindBooks), we’ll let you know which of our fantastic books could be winging their way to you.  All you have to do is email us at info@tamarindbooks.co.uk with your full name and address.  Winners will be picked at random and then notified by email.  Check out Facebook and Twitter NOW to find out about today’s amazing giveaway!

The list consists of inspirational black figures such as Barack Obama, Dame Kelly Holmes and the UK’s first black MP, Diane Abbot. Verna is a well desrved nominee having won many awards for her contribution to children’s literature. In 1987, she set up Tamarind Books  and since then Tamarind has published a range of books, many of which feature on the National Curriculum and on children’s television. Voting closes at 5pm on 24th October and an exhbition featuring the nominees runs until 31st October at the City Hall in Islington. Follow this link NOW to vote for Verna.
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/878059-who-should-be-crowned-most-inspirational-black-person

Click here to see a lovely trailer for Skin Deep by Malaika Rose Stanley

So who are we exactly? As you will know Tamarind was set up by inimitable Verna Wilkins, who has grown this company from scratch, with a love and passion that has our greatest respects. Although retired, Verna still plays a role and is very much part of Tamarind.  A new team was formed to help take Tamarind forward – and we have been working hard to plan our strategy for 2012 and beyond.

Introducing the Tamarind Team…

Heading our team is Philippa Dickinson, the MD of Random House Children’s Team. She has been a tireless advocate for Tamarind (and the one who signs off all our cheques…)

Ruth Knowles and Parul Bavishi work on the Fiction list. Ruth Knowles, a Commissioning Editor at RHCB, has been with the company for five years and works across all age ranges and genres. Parul Bavishi, an Editor at RHCB, joined in 2011. Prior to this she worked at Quercus Publishing for a number of years. She is drawn to fantasy and high imagination, gutsy fiction, and light-hearted capers for 5+.

Together they are looking to publish high quality stories that feature a diverse range of characters. What does this mean? They will be books for all children, with characters that reflect the beautiful diversity of the world and of Britain today. Above all they will be books are picked up through the strength of their storytelling.

Sue Buswell is the Deputy Publisher for picture books with over twenty years of experience in the industry. Joe Marriott is a Picture Book Editor at RHCB. Prior to this he worked at Mantra Lingua, an award-winning multi-cultural publisher. 

Together they are responsible for commissioning new picture books for Tamarind. They are looking for fun, high-quality picture book texts featuring strong central characters from diverse backgrounds. They are also looking for exciting new illustrators.

So that’s us folks! Nice to meet you finally. There’s more to come. Deals to be announced, on here and on the Bookseller very soon…

Have a nice bank holiday weekend!

Doesn’t it look fabulous? The book is all about big ambitions, big problems and big bullies – and it’s out in September, so keep your eyes peeled!

Joe

Before the hordes descended!

Tamarind Books was invited have a stand at the Essex Works ‘Time to talk about inclusion: and why it matters to every child’ conference, which was held on 7.2.2011. Joe Marriott and Louise Vallant set off for Chelmsford to represent Tamarind at a stall at the conference. There were over 100 early years child care practitioners from Essex. More than 70 Tamarind catalogues where taken by attendees… There was lots of interest for our latest titles: Sammy’s First Day and The Pink Bicycle, both available in April.

To see Malaika reading from Spike and Ali Enson, click on this link: YouTube S&ALE

To see Malaika reading from Miss Bubble’s Troubles, click on this link: YouTube MBT