I largely wrote adult crime.Īt that time, about 20 years ago, e-publishing was not what it is now, so I wanted to be traditionally published. I was always sending out three chapters and a covering letter to agents. So after doing my A-levels I got a job working in accountancy and continued to work with numbers until recently.Įven after I got married, had a daughter and brought her up, I never stopped writing. If you’d asked me when I was about to leave school what I was going to do, I would have said I wanted to be a journalist, and that my dream job was to be a writer.īut life never quite turns out the way you want it to. I read widely from literary fiction to crime, children’s and young adult books. I started when I was very young and have always read lots. Kim also talks about how much her writing has benefited from doing both these degrees. Part of this hard work involved a BA in English and Creative Writing and an MA in Creative Writing and. Smart was such a novel, but the road to becoming published by Pan Macmillan was a long one, requiring a great deal of sustained hard work by its author Kim Slater. And when there are dangerous secrets everywhere, not just outside, but under your own roof.Every so often a debut novel comes along that takes off because the writing is spot on and really speaks to its audience.

When you're amazing at drawing but terrible at fitting in. It's a good job Kieran's a master of observation, and knows all the detective tricks of the trade.īut being a detective is difficult when you're Kieran Woods. And to his grandma, who just stopped coming round one day.

He's going to find out what really happened. He's made a promise, and when you say something out loud, that means you're going to do it, for real. It was only a homeless old man after all. There's been a murder, but the police don't care. He was a homeless man, but he still wanted to live.' 'I found Jean's friend dead in the river. Shortlisted for the Waterstones Children's Book Prize, the Federation of Children's Book Groups Prize and longlisted for the 2015 Carnegie Medal, Kim Slater's outstanding debut, Smart, is moving and compelling novel with a loveable character at its heart.

Smart by kim slater