It’s been a busy year for Isadora Moon and for me. As it’s New Year’s Eve, I thought it would be nice to reflect on some of my highlights from the last year.

January to March 2018

My year started with a visit to the Tower of London for an author Pop-Up Event Day to get some tips on improving my events and school visits. It was a great day and gave me loads of ideas for the year of events ahead.

In February I was invited to speak at the Oxford University Press Sales Conference. Henry came along to talk about how he helps me with admin and events planning. It was a lovely chance to see all of the wonderful people who help bring Isadora Moon to life face-to-face in one place and chat with them.

Later that month, OUP had organised the first National Isadora Moon Day. Twenty-three bookshops across England held Isadora Moon events, and I was invited for an interview with Fun Kids Radio and to do a special event at Foyles Bookshop in London. You can read about it and watch my vlog on my Isadora Moon Day blog post. The following day I had a publicity photo shoot.

Also in March, the seventh Isadora Moon book, Isadora Moon Goes to the Fair was released.

April to July 2018

In April, the amazing Fierce Kitty Films came to my house to make a couple of short videos. It was a full-on day of filming in unusually warm weather, but it was a lot of fun. You can see the videos on my website, but here they are again:

In May I appeared at Barnes Literary Festival. This was also the debut of my very own plush Pink Rabbit. Henry helped me make him, and also helped put together the pattern which you can download for free to make your own. Here he is:

Later in May the first batch of Pink Rabbit pins arrived from the manufacturer. I was so pleased with their sparkly glittery finish, and it was amazing to see the pictures people shared of them wearing the pins. So far there are over 170 of them out in the wild! They are still available on my shop page.

Over the year I did quite a few school visits (a lot of them in Ipswich!). One of them, Whitehouse Community Primary School, held an author day to celebrate the opening of their new teaching and library block. They invited myself, Lisa Thompson and James Campbell, and asked us all to visit different year groups.

I did a couple of other festivals before the August heatwave hit. The first was at Quarry Bank in Cheshire for the National Trust Children’s Literature Festival. I then headed east to Essex for the Brentwood Literary Festival with the excellent Chicken & Frog Bookshop.

August to December 2018

I actually covered a lot of the incredibly busy last third of 2018 in my last blog post. This included driving up to Scotland for the Edinburgh International Book Festival, my first trip abroad for Isadora Moon (to Dublin) and another trip north to Manchester. October also saw the release of the eighth Isadora Moon in a special hardback gift edition:

It’s been a wonderfully busy year and I’m so grateful to everyone who has supported me and Isadora over the last twelve months. OUP continue to be a dream to work with. Obviously I do the words and pictures, but they do so much more to help create the finished books and get them into readers’ hands!

There are also all the bookshops and festival organisers, and a few bloggers, who champion the books, or even just offer Isadora a little shelf space. I also really appreciate all of the schools who invited me through their doors and gave me an opportunity to speak with their pupils. My husband, Henry, who works full-time with me doing admin, planning for events and other things, as well as helping to look after our daughter, has also been a huge help. I couldn’t do nearly so many events without him! And, of course, thanks go to my agent Jodie and her team at United Agents, who continue to support me behind the scenes!

Finally, a big thank you to all of you reading this, and to everyone who bought, borrowed or shared a copy of Isadora Moon over the last year. Here’s to the end of sparkly and magical year!

Harriet x