The announcement of a book tour to America in November meant I am making use of a lifetime of contacts to promote One Year One Night by S L Roman.

It was published in N America last year by Red Chair Press and one idea was to go back to my old school on East 79th street in Manhattan.

I arrived at the Rudolf Steiner School in New York City in November ’67.

It was a big change for me as I had been taught in a village school in a clifftop community, overlooking the English Channel.

My father had got the job of the first news organiser for the BBC in Manhattan.

There was no comparison between the two educational systems and I joined 4^th grade to find the class studying fractions with Mr Koppel.

But my writing and reading stood me in good stead. I was proud of my ability to deliver a book report to the rest of the class and I chose my favourite children’s story – The Children Who Stayed Behind by Bruce Carter. This was the tale of 2 rival gangs of kids who got left behind in Brighton, on the southern coast of Britain, when it was evacuated in World War 2.

I remember the normally precocious Manhattan children being absorbed in my report and asking me, with some amazement, if the events had really happened.

I never forgot this story and when I found a true account of an evacuated child from Brighton in WW2 I thought it would be worth writing up.

But I didn’t imagine that it would lead to international publication with my writing partner Laura Meloni Bywaters.

I had previously worked under my family name Sarah Onions and this was the name I was known by as a child at Steiner. But Laura and I thought our surnames sounded like a vegetable delivery service so our pen-name S L Roman was created, reflecting Laura’s home city.

The publishing deal came out of the blue on International Women’s Day in 2023; I had entered the manuscript for the Page Turner writing competition and I think one of the judges, the U.S. publisher Keith Garton spotted it there. And I’d reviewed one of his middle grade books Into the Wind by William Loizeaux, where I confessed I was a sucker for American children’s literature including All Kind of A Family Uptown by Sydney Taylor, Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh and A Horse Named Summer by Karen Bendick.

So now I am looking forward to returning to the eastern seaboard for a book tour later this year from November 28-December 18, starting in Boston. And I hope to return to my old school near Central Park, to give another talk to the children at the Steiner school – more than 50 years on.

Note to editor. SL Roman is the pen-name of Sarah Onions and Laura Meloni Bywaters who both live in the borough of Kingston in SW London. Sarah was born in Brighton in southern England and Laura was born in Rome.

Now on sale in the US : https://www.amazon.com/One-Year-Night-2nd/dp/194715981X.Also, at Barnes and Noble in North America.

And in the UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Year-Night-S-L-Roman/dp/B09GZPYRJ4