INDIGO Launch

Last night I was lucky enough to be invited to the launch of the new Indigo YA imprint from Orion.

Here's the official bit: "The Orion Publishing Group is delighted to share the exciting news of the launch of INDIGO, the new imprint that will publish a wide variety of genres for teens and young adults by established authors and rising stars.

Launching in September INDIGO will publish four titles a month.

Fiona Kennedy will be the publisher of INDIGO alongside her role as publisher of Orion Children's Books, with commissioning editors Gillian Redfearn and Amber Caraveo.

INDIGO will publish fiction for older teen readers focusing on the strengths of the publishing that currently sit on the popular and successful Gollancz and Orion Children's Books imprints.

A stellar list of authors will launch the new venture: Mia James, Cinda Williams Chima, Harlan Coben, Kate Harrison, Holly Black, Marcus Sedgwick, Sara Grant, Sally Gardner, Chris Wooding, Anna Kendall, Cliff McNish, Sarah Silverwood, Alan Gibbons, James Dawson, Chloe Neill and Annabel Pitcher."

We started the evening with the wonderful hosts Nina and Louise taking us through the launch titles for September 2011, and then exciting us with covers and hints about the books coming up until March 2012. There are some *wonderful* books coming!

I am particularly looking forward to Soul Beach by Kate Harrison, Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick and Hollow Pike by James Dawson.

Once our appetites had been thoroughly whetted, we were introduced to four of the authors who will be leading INDIGO - Marcus Sedgwick, Sara Grant, Kate Harrison and Sally Gardner. Each gave a short talk about various aspects of their work, including inspirations for the particular novel (Marcus Sedgwick), their route to publishing (Sara Grant), and early experiences that led to them wanting to write within YA (Kate Harrison) - and then we were treated to readings from their novels.

I do love readings by authors - they know the correct inflections, they know the extracts which will entice readers the most, and it is wonderful to see the passion they have for their work. I also appreciated the slight nerves on show - for me, that demonstrates how much the authors care about how their work will be received.

I also want to say how much I love the YA genre for its ability to embrace all arenas of fiction - crime, thrillers, romance (paranormal and otherwise), contemporary, historical.... Honestly, I think YA bloggers are having all the fun! They can say that they concentrate on one area of publishing and yet get to read something from every sphere of genre!

After the readings we were able to mingle with the authors and other bloggers. There was a real atmosphere of excitement at seeing the birth of this imprint, and discussing the great books that have been chosen to showcase what it intends in the future.

I had a wonderful chat with Kate Harrison (I've read her adult novels) - she was so, so friendly and willing to talk about how chick lit has been changing recently and how her experiences in journalism led partially to the story within Soul Beach.

Also, cupcakes and champagne! Big win there.

Armed with some lovely advance copies that I wanted to dive into immediately - all of them, all at once, some of them now signed - I travelled home and reflected that INDIGO can go STRATOSPHERIC.