First forest residency for award-winning author

An award-winning children’s novelist will be the first author-in-residence at the Forest Holidays site in Sherwood Pines, near Edwinstowe.

Sita Brahmachari, who wrote Artichoke Hearts and Jasmine Skies, was the winner of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2011. She takes up her position from Monday to a week on Monday.

While there, she will work on her latest book.

She will conduct interviews, hold a writer’s workshop for aspiring authors and host a reading of extracts from her novels.

Sita won the Waterstones prize for her debut novel, Artichoke Hearts, which was described by children’s laureate Anthony Browne as: “A beautifully written book about family, friendship, grief and hope, which made me laugh and cry — sometimes at the same time.”

Inspired by the author’s ‘beautiful and bohemian’ mother-in-law, whose long battle with cancer was heart-breaking for her family, Sita started writing the book as a way of dealing with her grief.

Artichoke Hearts was praised by the judging panel for the way it tackles the issue of death head on, treating it as part of the cycle of life and of growing up.

Her latest book, Jasmine Skies, published by Macmillan Children’s Books, explores ideas of home, family and heritage through her heroine Mira’s first trip to India.

It is a love story, a personal journey and much more.

Actress Meera Syal said: “I really wish Sita had been writing when I was growing up as this beautiful heartfelt book explores so eloquently the need to find your history in order to find yourself.”

Sita, who was born in Derby in 1966, has a BA in English Literature and an MA in Arts Education.

Her many projects and writing commissions have been produced in theatres, universities, schools and community groups throughout Britain and America.

Forest Holidays offer families a chance to discover the great outdoors in luxury cabins set on Forestry Commission estates, including Sherwood.