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Out this week, new mystery adventure for aged 9+ WINNER TAKES GOLD 'A gymnastic fantastic read' - Cate Shearwater, author of Somersaults and Dreams 'A glittering gymnastic tale' - School Reading List 'Filled with passion, intensity, challenges and intrigue . . . A dazzling warm up to the...

There's also Winner Takes Gold, by me, Eloise Smith!

Yikes, that's crazy. So annoying it's not on US Amazon. I've seen it's on Shakespeare and Company and Fantastic Fiction, but the publisher is going to be selling international rights at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October, so fingers crossed a US publisher takes it on, which would make shipping...

Thanks IreneKa, totally. Yes, my coach character invented it in her days as a gymnast! And is a backwards full layout with double twist the same as a double full? Can anyone confirm?

Yikes. How about I swap it for a full twisting double pike? Currently that's known as a Patterson, but I could retitle it for the purposes of the book. Its a G rating, so pretty hard.

Also, one more crazy question. I have a beam dismount that was invented by the coach in the story called The Cazacu. It's supposed to be super-hard, a backwards full layout with double twist. That's not known widely as anything else is it? It's okay if it's not well known, but shouldn't be...

Ah got it, good to know.

Ooh that's interesting. I have gone back and forth on how to talk about tape and hand grips, as I will hopefully have an audience who aren't all gymnasts, so I need to be inclusive of them, but also not seem like I'm getting it wrong. I had 'hand grips' then changed it to 'palm guards' - but is...

OMG this is so useful. You can do gymnastics research forever without picking up on these things! Am now frenetically going through my manuscript checking for stray uses of 'the'. On the dismount - if I swap it to a full-out, I'm assuming that's a hard skill, but not impossible for our highly...

OK, think I need to do a quick re-write of the dismount. The book isn't going to be illustrated, just cover art at the mo. But thank you!!!

Ah thanks, Josie. It's out Jan 5 2024 with Chicken House Books in the UK. I don't know if it'll be available in the US yet, fingers crossed I can get a US publisher!!! Here's the link, though don't know if you'll be able to access it Stateside:

Brilliant, thanks Josie, much appreciated.

Hi all, I'm a children's writer, currently working on a gymnastics novel for 9-13 year olds for the UK market. Seeing as there isn't really an equivalent to ChalkBucket in the UK, I was wondering if anyone here could answer some technical questions for me? 1. Would doing a tuck with one and...

Hello all, Another stupid question about competition routines . . . How much last minute changes are there to a gymnast's routine in competition? Is every element locked down fr weeks, or might there be last minute changes - if a coach doesn't feel the gymnast is nailing a particular element...

Okay great. Sounds like making my heroine 12 might help. I have the training camp currently in the UK, with the competition in Paris, so that could work. And do you get Romanians competing (random question I know)!!!

Okay, that's a really good idea. I've just signed up to my first ever gymnastics practice myself tomorrow. I am totally terrified, hopefully I wont injure myself! Wish me luck! But I'll look into attending a meet. And will do some research on Flipfest / IGC / Woodward.

So at 11 or 12 years old would there be any national squad of the most promising gymnats? Is a training camp of young top gymnasts something that happens at that age?

I shall absolutely try to portray the sport correctly - it's a tough challenge!

Thank you Geoffrey, that's really helpful. So you might have them doing a morning run together on a training camp, maybe tumbling informally but not as a class? And then at a competition they could compete at the same time but at different ends of a sports hall?

Thank you so much. That's good to know about the hours - I'd thought 25 hours was on the edge of too much, so that's good to know. Are there ever mixed warm ups or conditioning sessions with boys and girls? Would they even have a competition on the same day? Is it very segregated between boys...