Reading Jacqueline Wilson

Creator of Tracy Beaker and one of Britain's top writers for children,
there's hardly a young person in the UK that hasn't heard of Jacqueline
Wilson. The most borrowed author in Britain's libraries, over 30 million
copies of Wilson's books have been sold in the UK alone and they have
been translated into 34 different languages. Amongst her awards are the
Smarties Prize, the Guardian Children's Fiction Award and the Royal TV
Society Best Children's Fiction Award. Jacqueline was Children's
Laureate from 2005-07 and was awarded an OBE in 2002 for services to
literacy in schools. In 2008 she became Dame Jacqueline Wilson when she
was awarded a DBE. 

This one-day conference on 20th October 2011 celebrates the work of
children's writer Jacqueline Wilson as part of the Jacqueline Wilson
Festival at the University of Central Lancashire. The conference will be
preceded by a public event by Jacqueline Wilson on 19th October and
Jacqueline herself will be attending some of the conference. 

Areas for consideration
*	Autobiography and becoming a writer
*	Telling life stories
*	Bildungsroman and identity
*	Growing up with/through Jacqueline Wilson's characters
*	Jacqueline Wilson's books as crossover fiction (selected and
read by adults for pleasure)
*	Jacqueline Wilson books as moral or didactic tales
*	Using the books as teaching material
*	Encouraging reading and literacy
*	Using the stories therapeutically
*	Jacqueline's influence on the development of 'issues'-based
realism in children's literature
*	Concerns parents have about the issues e.g. that they are too
'adult' or too 'real'
*	The representation of issues such as divorce, adoption, truancy,
stealing, addiction etc. 
*	Representations within the books e.g. of gender, age, parents,
teachers, social workers 
*	Creating television and/or stage adaptations
*	Tracy Beaker - books and TV programme
*	Jacqueline Wilson magazine
*	Publishing history of Jacqueline Wilson's books
*	Influence of Jacqueline Wilson's books on children's writing and
publishing
*	The Jacqueline Wilson brand
*	Working partnership between Jacqueline Wilson and Nick Sharratt
*	Relationships between text and illustration 
*	The pleasure of the texts
*	Jacqueline Wilson Fans
*	Interactive website
*	Creative writing based on or inspired by Jacqueline Wilson's
oeuvre

Proposals
We welcome proposals from a number of perspectives and disciplines, such
as literature, creative writing, publishing, journalism, marketing,
education, social work and so on.
Individual papers, posters and workshops as well as panel discussions
around specific topics (panel leader needs to organize the panel and
submit an abstract) may be submitted. 
300 word abstracts should be sent to Helen Day [log in to unmask] by
November 30th 2010.
http://www.uclan.ac.uk/schools/journalism_media_communication/literature
_culture/writing_for_children/jacqueline_wilson_festival.php
Decisions will be made by January 31st 2011. We will be pursuing options
for publication.