Introducing Tatum Flynn

SEVEN THINGS ABOUT ME

1. I was a pro poker player for a decade. Bluffing all your chips while being stared down by a guy who looks like he might moonlight for the mafia is pretty good practice for making up stories while staring down a deadline.
2. The first thing I ever wrote, aged seven, was a precociously brilliant comic about a girl detective. Okay, it was terrible. A blind rhino can draw better than me.
3. I think funny books are underrated. After all, imagine a world without laughter. Now there’s a horror story.
4. I have a tattoo of a hissing black cat. It tells the world that I’m not a person to be trifled with. Or possibly a person who makes poor decisions when hungover.
5. Once upon a time I worked in a casino on a cruise ship, and I missed the boat. I had to jump from a moving pilot boat onto a rope ladder hanging from the side of the moving cruise ship and climb a hundred feet up. Yes I am secretly James Bond.
6. Unless you catch me when I’ve not had enough sleep or coffee. Then I’m more Rosa Klebb.
7. I don’t trust adults who’ve forgotten what it was like to be children.

 

SEVEN THINGS ABOUT MY BOOK

1. A successful author once told me no publisher would ever buy a kid’s book set in Hell. Muahaha.
2. My favourite note from my editor says ‘How I love [the main character] Jinx – he is such a NICE sort of boy, despite being the literal spawn of Satan’.
3. My book will be illustrated (by the very talented Mr Dave Shephard). It never crossed my mind that this might happen, and has been one of the coolest things about getting a book deal.
4. There’s one scary scene I asked *not* to be illustrated, because some things are better left to the imagination.
5. The very first sentence I ever wrote – ‘Lucifer was sulking.’ – is still in the book, which makes me happy. I have a soft spot for the King of Hell.
6. Making up fantasy worlds is one of my favourite things ever. It’s your universe – you can do ANYTHING with it.
7. If you like underdog heroes, ninja dead girls, kindly sloths, dangerous libraries, carnivorous carousel horses, and laughing, you might like my book.

Tatum Flynn lives by the sea in England with a cat called Friday and too many hats. Her debut, THE D’EVIL DIARIES, is a humorous MG fantasy about Lucifer’s youngest son Jinx, who’s hopeless at being evil, and the startling adventures he gets up to when he runs away from home. It’ll be out from Orchard/Hachette in April 2015, with a sequel to follow in October. Find her on Tumblr (sometimes) and Twitter (far too often).

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