British SCBWI's 2nd Conference for Writers and Illustrators
November 21 to 22, 2009 • West Downs Campus, University of Winchester SO22 4NR
Non Pratt
Non Pratt started out in publishing a year out of university. She worked at Usborne publishing, writing and editing children's non-fiction as Leonie Pratt, where she co-wrote and edited Science Things to make and do winner of the Junior Royal Society Prize for Science Books. During her five years there she pestered the fiction department for extra work, which gave her the grounding in she needed to move to Catnip Publishing to work in children's fiction. She has been there since January 2009 and is working with Andrea Reece and Robert Snuggs building on the strong foundation of new editions of old favourites, first class fiction from overseas as well as exciting original fiction.
As commissioning editor, Non reads submissions from authors and agents and discusses the ones she thinks have potential with her colleagues. Once a manuscript is taken on, Non is the one who will see it through its 'heavy edit' - where she examines the plot, the characters and the pace; nothing is too big for her to question! After that she does a copyedit, checking for consistency, repeated phrases and grammar, then briefs a designer for laying it out and proofreads the result. Once it's ready, Non will be the one to see it through production, checking pdfs and plotter proofs and passing them for press.
Catnip has been publishing books for children of all ages - from pictures books to teen - for the last four 
years. We hunt out books that no home should be without that are out of print and give them a new lease of life , as well as look at what people are doing overseas, before buying the rights to publish the ones we love. Original fiction is becoming an increasingly large part of our list and we have a good track record with new authors; our small size works in their favour as we are able to invest more in their continued success.
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