Last Tuesday I had a busy day: train to Portsmouth Harbour, lunch with writing buddies Debs Morgan and Jacqui Pack, and then - before dashing up to Birmingham NEC to see Neil Young in concert - The Portsmouth Book Awards!

The full shortlist for the longer novel category was:

• Vanessa Curtis, "The Haunting of Tabitha Grey"
• Tom Easton, "Hav3n"
• Jeff Norton, "MetaWars: Fight for the Future"
• Teri Terry, "Slated"
• Mark Walden, "Earthfall"

And Slated won! I was invited up for the awards event where the result was revealed to year 8 and 9 students from eleven Portsmouth Schools who voted in the awards!

And here is the award certificate being presented by Peter Bone, Portsmouth School Library Service Manager:

Here is the amazing animation of Slated created by Arbroath Academy, as part of the Angus Book Awards!

At the recent Angus Book Awards there was a competition for students to design alternative covers for the shortlisted books. A very creepy version of Chris Priestley's Mister Creecher won the day, but there were some awesome entries for Slated. The book award organizers emailed me the Slated entries, and here they are!

Apart from writing, I have no creative abilities - at all. The best I can do is stick figures. I'm so impressed both with the different approaches behind each one, and the results.

Which one do you like best?

Earlier this year I was thrilled to find out that Slated was shortlisted for the 2013 Angus Book Award. The full shortlist is this: 

• Tim Bowler, Buried Thunder
• William Osborne, Hitler's Angel
• Chris Priestley, Mister Creecher
• Teri Terry, Slated

Then finally it was time! On 4th June I caught the train for Angus on a beautiful sunny day. And this is what I found just out the door when I got to where we were staying at Carnoustie: 

Drum roll, please!

Sorry I haven't been blogging much lately - I've been busy working on book 3 of the Slated trilogy, in-between many other distractions & happy occasions. Here is an update on some of it:

Just over a month ago I put up a blog asking for comments with names: a name I could use as a character in my third book.

WOW: what a response! Over 370 comments were left in total (you can see them all here).  And for all the lovely comments left about Slated and Fractured, thank you so much. This is the stuff that makes writing by yourself for all those hours, days, weeks, months, years....feel worthwhile. And thank you for reading, for choosing to spend your time with Kyla and in her world.

I’ve been itching to reply to so many of the comments. But because I was using a random number generator based on the number of comments left to pick five winners, I didn’t want loads of comments from me mucking up the result. So I had to exercise restraint.

OK I’m sure you are curious so I won’t keep you in suspense any longer!

The five entries chosen at random are:

I had a totally fab World Book Day at Wootton Upper School and Arts College. Thanks so much for inviting me: and all the interesting and intelligent questions the students asked made my day.

And this place really knows how to make an author feel special.

There was an awesome colour-coordinated World Book Day Slated Display:

The new year has been off to a crazy busy start: sorry I haven't been blogging things as they happen, but I couldn't keep up. So here is a run down of all the news.

And I must say that 2013 is looking a lucky year!

The winners were posted last year, but not all of them have got in touch!

Details are here.

Copies of Fractured to send the winners will be available soon: I've got to go into London and sign them, and then my amazing publisher, Orchard Books, will send them out.

So if you haven't contacted me yet on the contact form of my website, here, please do so.

Thanks!

Teri

I'm gathering all the plot strands and possibilities for book 3 together in my mind in a big warm hug, and getting caught between jumping up and down with excitement and pulling the duvet over my head. It tells me it could be some sort of awesome, but it is like a toddler on too much sugar in the Santa queue. How am I supposed to settle it down enough to get it on the page?

#amwriting #seeyoulater #itcouldbeawhile

Merry Christmas, everyone! 

(or Seasons Greetings, if you prefer)

A few weeks ago I asked for questions I could use in a Q&A in the back ofFractured, the sequel to Slated. It was really challenging picking which to use: there were so many great ones! You can see all the suggested questions and the blog here. 

I just got home from a great trip away - Winchester SCBWI conference and Mass Book Launch, a writing/research trip to Keswick, and appearing at the Edinburgh Book Festival First Book Award party with authors SJ Watson and Allan Wilson..... and what did I find?

My house is a Disaster: new bathroom and old scattered throughout and none of it functional; thick layers of dust; total chaos.

But I was Happy Dancing because Slated has been shortlisted for the Leeds Book Award, 14-16 category! wahoo!

It is a great shortlist: 

14-16 Category

Phil Earle             Saving Daisy

Sarah Hammond   The Night Sky in my Head

Sam Hawksmoor   The Repossession

Edward Hogan       Daylight Saving

David Massey       Torn

Teri Terry              Slated

Voting closes Friday 26th April 2013 and the winner will be announced at an Award ceremony and celebration event on Thursday 23rd May.

Maybe the bathroom will be sorted by then...?

Hi everyone!

Just a quick note before I head out the door. Actually I'm supposed to be leaving in three minutes, so this is a test of my speed typing skills.

I'm going up to Winchester for the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) conference: on Saturday night, there is a massive Mass Book Launch, and Slated is part of it!

After that I'm off on a research and writing trip to Keswick, with a few days out to visit Edinburgh for the Anobii first book award party. 

I'm sorry I can't tell you whose questions are going to be in the back of Fractured just yet: I'm waiting to hear how many pages space we have at the back to fill before it can be finalized. So I'm afraid you're going to have to wait until I get back.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Teri

I'm very excited that Slated has been shortlisted in the North East Teenage Book Award!

And quite a shortlist it is, too: 

Secrets of the Henna Girl by Sufiya Ahmed

15 Days Without a Head by Dave Cousins

Mister Creecher by Chris Priestly

Black Heart Blue by Louisa Reed

Slated by Teri Terry

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

NETBA is an annual, regional book award in which schools from all over the North East of England take part. Students are asked to read the shortlisted books and then vote for their favourite.

The winning book will be announced in January 2013 at the NETBA party, which takes place this year on 18th January in Newcastle upon Tyne. All the shortlisted authors will be there: me, too! 

I'm very excited, but have no idea what to wear....

I was away at the Edinburgh Book Festival, having the BEST time meeting readers and talking about Slated. Out of this I've blogged about reasons why dystopian fiction seems to be IT at the moment, and where Slated fits in, over at Demention.

And after my events I was just generally having fun hanging out at the festival and the magic land of the author Yurt (more about this here), when I got more than a little distracted and excited by this:

Ta da!!

SLATED: US cover

Hardback, 24 January 2013!

Penguin imprint, Nancy Paulsen Books

I was interviewed on Radio Teesdale book show - it aired today! But you can hear it on listen again.

The link is here.