#219 One editorial critique of a first chapter (adult or children's) from children's author E.L. Norry

A wonderful chance to have the first chapter of your work read and critiqued by author E.L. Norry.

E.L. Norry is an experienced mentor (previously via Author Mentor Match), and a published children's writer of Son of the Circus and Amber Undercover, as well as short stories in upcoming children's collections The Place for Me: Stories About the Windrush Generation (Scholastic, June) and Happy Here (Knights Of, August).

About the author:

Emma Norry is a rising star as a writer with a particular interest in exploring difficult issues and complex characters in a realistic contemporary and accessible style. She says: 'Finding reading a challenge shouldn't deter anyone from enjoying a good story. I believe that stories are how we make sense of the world; they are an essential part of who we are and what makes us human.'

Emma has a BA (Hons) in Film and an MA in Screenwriting and her short stories for adults have been placed in various competitions (Rhys Davis Award, West Sussex Writers), anthologies (NFFD, Reflex Press), as well as shortlisted for the Fish Short Story Award and longlisted for the S1 Leeds Literary Prize. Most recently she was shortlisted for the Diverse Book Awards in the children’s category, for her book Son of the Circus (Scholastic, 2019) a middle grade novel based on the son of Pablo Fanque, the first black circus proprietor in Victorian Britain.

Emma wrote her first YA manuscript Bury the Things You Cannot Hide which draws on her personal experiences as a mixed-race child and teenager growing up in the care system in Cardiff, Wales. Emma was commissioned to write two short stories as part of the Homecoming anthology in celebration of VE day, published in April 2020. She has also written for Penguin’s Extraordinary Lives series, chronicling the life of Nelson Mandela (Penguin, 2020) as well as capturing the life of footballer Lionel Messi for Scholastic's Football Legends series. Emma’s middle grade fiction title about a teenage spy – Amber Undercover, (OUP) publishes April 2021.

Emma's work will be included in the anthology collection Happy Here, published by Knights Of in August 2021 as well as in the collection, The Place For Me: Stories of the Windrush Generation (Scholastic, June 2021) which features 12 stories inspired by the people of the Windrush generation, drawn from the Black Cultural Archives.

E. L. Norry lives and works in Bournemouth, working as an academic support assistant at Bournemouth and Poole college by day and writing by night, inspired by her two young children.