Category: YA
I would like to submit my 60,000 word teen novel, THE ACCIDENTAL FEMINIST, for your consideration. I have had requests for the full manuscript from some of you already.
THE ACCIDENTAL FEMINIST is the humorous diary of politics junkie, Martin. It’s an uplit book: Adrian Molemeets the Fault in Our Stars.
When Dad agrees with Oma (Martin’s grandmother) that Mum’s ashes can be spread at sea, Martin can’t bear to lose Mum twice. He steals her ashes. Martin records his hapless preparations to become a politician (which include emails on how to run the county and a much better cheat sheet than any former Prime Minister) and his accidental journey into male feminism. It is my hope that Martin will make you laugh, that you’ll enjoy his various antics (including his nit extermination work and camel milk promoting) and that you’ll find his journey towards the acceptance of his mother’s death, moving and heart-felt.
The book deals with universal themes of grief, modern day teen anxieties, male feminism and first love. I am hoping it will appeal to teens who have outgrown Tom Gates and the Donut Diaries, or for those whose reading confidence developed a little later than their friends.
I used to be an aviation lawyer but felt the truth always got in the way of a good story. I was brought up in France and Holland by an English father and German mother, but my husband just calls me Eurototty. When I’m not writing or looking after my teenagers, I’m into squash (not the food).
Since winning a place on Write/Mentor, I have been mentored by Emily Critchley whose Notes on My Familywas listed for the Carnegie prize. Her comments and advice have been invaluable. Emily says of the book: ‘This fresh, authentic, heart-warming YA crossover is Adrian Mole for the twenty-first century. Full of hope, laugh-out-loud hilarity and tear-jerking tenderness, this is the book we all need right now.’
My full manuscript is available if requested. I have been serious about writing for the last eight years. I am an active SCBWI member, attended Book Bound. In 2014, I published an anthology of short stories with a group named the Blue Room writers which included Peter Bunzl (Cogheart).
Thank you for your time in considering my work.
Annette Caseley
Sunday 1 January
I’ve stolen Mum and hidden her in my cupboard. I don’t want her to end up on a football pitch (Dad’s choice) or the bottom of the sea (Oma and Grandad). I put Radio 4 on for her as much as possible. It’s that station old people like where they talk a lot and hardly play any music.
Mum gave me a diary a few weeks before she died. She said it would be good for me to write down my feelings.
I’d forgotten all about it until Radio 4 had this whole series on diaries. A guest called Sally said, ‘Keep a diary and one day it will keep you.’ She also said that I should include the price of things because then no matter how crap it is (the diary that is although mine won’t be), it will always be relevant. I thought that was good advice so I’m including the price of milk. I also know that some of our former Prime Ministers were not able to say how much a pint of milk cost and I’m definitely going to be better prepared than any of my predecessors. We had a barrister visit our school last year during career’s day. He said we should be ambitious, so there it is, I am being ambitious, I want to become a top politician to change the world for the better.
By the end of the year, I will no longer be single (I’m definitely being ambitious about this one). James will no longer be able to tease me with his ‘Still a Single Pringle, Martin,’ which always makes me want to thump him. James is so Year Seven.
No one talks about relationships’ status as Single Pringle and Taken Bacon anymore. It was such a stupid concept anyway: Pringles are never single –they are sold in packets.
I’ve never had a girlfriend. Dad always asks me: what are you waiting for? I don’t know any girls and it’s his fault because he doesn’t send me to Highgate, a nice mixed school where there are girls. You don’t meet girls at my local comprehensive, Kentish Town High School for Boys, the clue is in the title (although we do have girls in the sixth form but that’s two years away).
James goes to Highgate and he’s had plenty of girlfriends. Even my friend Neil’s had a girlfriend (at a camp in Europe somewhere –tragic that us boys who go to single-sex schools have to travel abroad to meet girls). I hardly know any girls and the ones I do know I’ve never fancied. I know all about French kissing and tongues but I’m not sure about it. Neil told me his technique: he said he opened his lips slightly and put his tongue into the girl’s mouth – Yuk, I mean what if she ended up infecting him with something in her saliva?
