HB Pencil

Susanna Mattiangeli won the 2018 Andersen Award as Best Writer of the Year

«I am HB Pencil, which in pencil language means Hard Black, in other words a bit hard and a bit black. My real name is different, but here in my notebook I’m Pencil. It’s a nickname, a pen-name, like Lewis Carroll or Lady Gaga.»

In her hilariously honest – and sometimes surreal – notebook HB Pencil tells us about her life at school, her heartthrob Jacob, as well as her favourite writing spot (the fridge), the legendary marathon in Ancient Greece she ran with Jacob, and her favourite comic strip, Powercat.

Penned by Strega award-finalist Susanna Mattiangeli, HB Pencil, the book and its daydreaming protagonist, takes readers through a cavalcade of genres, flipping seamlessly between poetry, script, science fiction and comics, and revealing beautifully how easy it is to inhabit both real and imaginary worlds.