Peahen and Peachick

Phew! What a year 2019 has been and it's still only February! 2018 had some highlights which I wanted to share quickly...

From Joe's Liver Transplant Story winning an award and publishing the first in an exciting YA trilogy, to running our first workshops at a children's literature festival, 2018 was an exciting year for Peahen. I love the wiggly road that running a small business can take you on. One day I can be a courier, another day I am visiting printers and talking about paper weights and choosing gold foil – exciting stuff! Plus there's the day-to-day book making and receiving enquiries from new authors who want to publish their story/ies. Every day is different (and not always without its challenges) but wow, we are getting a lot of job satisfaction from this and every time a box of new Peahen books arrives it's like Christmas!

Peahen started to take a little swerve of direction last summer. Nic and I visited a couple of primary schools to talk about children's publishing. The children were excited and asked lots of questions, telling us about the stories they like to write. When we launched a book writing competition we had LOADS of entries. It was so exciting – and tough – to judge the winners. From a singing avocado unicorn to astronauts flossing in space, they were all brilliant and so original! So ... Peachick Books was born.

Peachick Books is our imprint for budding, mini authors. The author of Mike the Mouse, our first Peachick book is 7! Soraia sent us a brilliant story about Mike, 'a naughty little mouse' who lives with his family in a field. We loved the story and Soraia's art. So, Nic and I worked on the book as we would any other children's book and the result is brilliant. Soraia's family wanted to print more for family and friends and her school even ordered some for their library. What's more inspirational for getting kids to write than publishing their own stories?!

Alongside Peachick Books, we have also launched Peachick Parties and Peachick Holiday Workshops in the Bath/Wiltshire area. Exciting times! And we also have some very exciting Peahen books coming up this year. The second book in The Earth Chronicles written by J.A. Browne will be published this spring. There's 101 Things to do with a Stick on the Beach (it's amazing and definitely one to take on your summer holiday!) and we're working on The Multilingual Experience which will be a go-to handbook beautifully designed with top tips and support for multilingual families.

So, the daffodils are out, Easter eggs are in the shops (I'm resisting) and we've enjoyed our first half term Peachick Workshop. It's feeling promising :)