Pushkin Children’s signs two after opening submissions

Sarah Odedina, editor-at-large at Pushkin Children’s, has acquired two manuscripts after the latest round of open submissions.

Odedina bought world rights to Gribblebob’s Book of Unpleasant Goblins by David Ashby, a humorous story about a group of siblings who get involved with a goblin, and The Dead World of Lanthorne Ghule by Gerald Killingworth, about a quest to find a stolen baby sister. Both deals were signed directly with the authors.

Odedina said: “Our ‘Open Submission’ initiative has proved to be a wonderful way to get in touch with and nurture new authors. The standard of writing was quite remarkable in this round and it was something of a challenge to choose which books to focus on from the many submitted. Gribblebob is an exciting adventure story and Lanthorne Ghule is a chilling and dark story but the humour is also laugh-out-loud and a delightful counterpoint to the more nail-biting moments of the story.”

Pushkin received 249 manuscripts for this round of open submissions, which was for books for readers aged 8-12.

Lindsey Whitlock’s debut novel The Collective, which Odedina acquired from Pushkin Children's first open submission round in 2016, will be published in August 2019.