Years of persistence landed Becky Orwin an astonishing deal for her debut children’s novel. Now, as Michelle Gately learns, Becky hopes that sharing the highs and lows of writing life will inspire a whole new generation of creatives
Becky Orwin spent more than a decade writing novels and pitching them to publishers.
Each time she was met with a flurry of rejections.
“At the heart of it I always believed that I would get there,” Becky says. “Whether that was straight up delusion is a bit of a question mark.”
Looking back on the journey, the Chesterfield-raised writer admits she was ready to say yes to just about anything to get her book on shelves.
But Becky’s eventual publishing deal with Puffin, part of Penguin Random House Children’s UK, was a dream come true in more ways than one.
The six-figure advance she was offered for two children’s books sits well above the £2000 and £10,000 norm for first-time authors in the UK.
“It was absolutely crackers,” says Becky, whose debut children’s novel hit shelves in January. “It took a long, long time to really sink in.
“It’s the exception to the rule and I was very aware of that, because I’ve been in this world of submitting and being rejected for such a long time.”
The Monsters at the End of the World imagines a future where the land is poisoned and the ocean is filled with terrifying, violent monsters.
The story follows 12-year-old Sunny, who begins to question everything she’s been taught about the sea creatures after a chance encounter with baby monster, Mo.
Sunny and Mo communicate through touch, which activates “a sort of psychic connection”.
“Part of the idea behind that was that you have to be literally open-minded to be able to communicate at all,” Becky explains.
This relationship between the pair counters the post-apocalyptic themes – although Becky never worried about the story being too dark for young readers.
“I think what’s great about books as opposed to films is that children are limited by their own understanding,” she explains. “They can only (imagine something) as dark as they know already exists in the world.”
There’s another crucial ingredient that Becky weaves into all her stories: hope.
“We get so much more cynical as we get older,” Becky says. “I think that hope is something that is really tied into childhood and kids are naturally hopeful in a way that adults aren’t. So I don’t think it’s hard to tell them this story where hope is the foundation that you build from.”
School visits around the region have become part of Becky’s working life since publication – including a World Book Day event with students from her Chesterfield primary school, Holme Hall.
“I knew that I would enjoy it once I got into it, but I was terrified going into my first school visit,” she says. “I’ve been writing children’s books this whole time … you’re editing it, you’re pitching it and at no point was this book in the hands of a child.
“The actual presentation makes me nervous, but afterwards when I’m talking to the kids and signing books is so lovely.”
Becky’s school events come at a time when reading for enjoyment amongst children is at its lowest in two decades. Research from the National Literary Trust found just one in three children aged eight to 18 said they enjoyed reading “very much” or “quite a lot” in 2025 – a 36% drop from 2005 figures.
The Trust has partnered with the Department of Education to launch the National Year of Reading in 2026 – a campaign designed to encourage all ages to bring books into their everyday life.
Becky’s school events are all about inspiring creativity in a bid to encourage the next generation of readers and writers.
“One of the things I’ve really loved about doing school visits is these kids get to see you as a real person, you’re not just a name on a book,” she says. “Not all schools are able to bring in authors, which I think is something that needs addressing.
“It’s great for the kids to see that being an author is a real job … and also how much perseverance it takes.
“It’s really good for me as well – it’s really nice to actually see real kids and see them with a book and see how they’re responding to it.”
Perseverance is at the heart of Becky’s publication journey. “I started writing a novel when I was 13 or 14 and I just thought I’d keep going until I got bored,” she says. “I just didn’t bored. I just really enjoyed it and then by the time I finished, I knew I could do it.”
By 15, Becky had a novel manuscript under her belt and big dreams for getting published.
“I sent it off everywhere thinking, ‘I’m going to be a famous, fabulous author, this is it’ and it just got rejected everywhere,” Becky says. “I wrote another book, sent that off, got rejected everywhere. That became the pattern all the way through my 20s.”
During this time Becky moved from Chesterfield to Newcastle for university, where she would live for nearly a decade and meet her husband.
“I enjoyed writing the books, but then when I sent them off I’d always think ‘this is just so demoralising’,” she says. “Often what pushed me onwards is that while I was submitting one book, I would start writing the next one.”
Around 2020, Becky was signed by her agent after working with Writer’s Block North East.
This was a writing milestone, but an agent doesn’t guarantee a publisher – the difference this time was Becky wasn’t going through the process alone. “It made such a difference having the vote of confidence,” she says. “I think each book I wrote was better than the previous one. I mean, the first one I wrote when I was 15, I look back on it with love. But I think if I actually sat down and read it I would be cringing myself inside out.”
It wasn’t until the autumn of 2023 that Becky sent her agent the draft of Monsters – and the reaction was the opposite of everything she’d experienced before.
Publishers were immediately interested and then came the six-figure deal, but still the path to finished book wouldn’t be smooth.
When Becky found out she was pregnant with her first child, publication was pushed back by a year.
“Initially I was gutted about the delay,” she says. “But everyone said to me this was absolutely the right thing.
“I was incredibly lucky to get the book deal and I was so lucky to have a baby, but I have to say I wouldn’t recommend doing both at the same time. These lifelong dreams of mine could have just paced themselves a bit better.”
Becky, who now lives in Sheffield, is working on a sequel to Monsters, due to be published early next year.