Local author nominated for Christian Book Awards

 

 

Andrea Skevington saw the result of three years of hard labour almost a year ago, when Lion published her re-telling of the Bible for older children and teenagers. Andrea has just heard the book has been short-listed for the 2012 Christian Book Award in the children’s section.

 

Now translated into German and Finnish, in addition to the production of a Gift Edition, the Lion Classic Bible has spent many weeks in the Amazon bestsellers list and has, to date, sold more than 6,000 copies. Over half of these have been purchased overseas.

 

Andrea, at heart a poet, overcame personal adversity, to become a best-selling Christian author. Not enjoying early schooldays, battling with issues now known as dyslexia, she remembers spending much of the time staring out of the window and daydreaming. However, it was then, drawing on these daydreams, that she began to write long, badly spelled stories of heroism and bravery in secret notebooks. Loving stories, she found books that inspired her to read.  With the help of thoughtful and original teachers in secondary school, she went on to defeat her early problems and graduate from Cambridge with a degree in English Literature. 

 

With seven other publications, all still in print, Lion approached her in 2007 asking her to produce a re-telling of the Bible in 12 chapters focusing on it as a continuous story in 55,000 words.  Andrea's reaction of 'why me?' received the reply from Lion, 'because you are not afraid!' 

 

It is with this boldness that Andrea approached the daunting task of what to include and what to leave out, having been given an academic year to come up with a manuscript. She started by reading, often several versions, of the Bible and then began to write. Andrea says 'I loved it, immersing myself in the Bible, I learnt so much. I was only able to do this prayerfully and felt led by God'.

 

Having achieved this first goal she submitted it to Lion and the six month process of editing began. This saw a low point for Andrea; editing can feel like a very negative process, looking at sections in minute detail that aren't right or could be bettered. Several paragraphs had to go and some took many re-writes before satisfaction was achieved on both sides.

 

For a full year Andrea heard nothing more, but in that time Lion were having the script beautifully and sympathetically illustrated by Sophy Williams. Final work began on the layout in July 2010, fitting the areas of script around the illustrations and in March 2011 it was ready. Nominated for the award in January 2012 Andrea eagerly awaits the outcome of the public vote.