I must say, for me, it's been a startling week for shortlists.  After making the shortlist of the very excellent Booktrust Teenage Prize, just this morning The Knife of Never Letting Go was put on the shortlist for the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize.

Nothing like this has ever happened to me before, so it's all quite perky and sparkling, isn't it?  The Guardian shortlist is only four books long, too, and the other three are extremely good (and this isn't the usual I'm-just-grateful-to-be-nominated bullshit, the other books are incredible).  So that makes it doubly nice, to be in such strong company. 

What an honor, eh?  I'm so pleased for the book and pleased, too, for my publishers for all the work they've put into it.  The last thing I was ever shortlisted for was a Wandsworth Council short story prize 8 years ago (I came in second, won 60 quid, and I gotta tell ya, was just as happy about that as I am about this, which is to say: very happy indeed).