Daniel Morden Q & A

We are delighted to be today’s stop on the Strange Tales Blog Tour, and more than a little bit pleased to be featuring author and storyteller Daniel Morden in a Q and A. Strange Tales is a collection of nine short stories inspired by world myths and folklore – full of intrigue, mystery, magic and mayhem. Presented in a hardback gift edition by Firefly Press, it is a thing of beauty publishing on 28th September 2023.

Congratulations on Strange Tales.
Thank you! I am proud of the book. It contains some of my favourite stories: stories that have been such fun to tell, and stories that niggle at me, like a pebble in my shoe.

What are the main differences between speaking stories and writing stories?

When you tell a story you can colour the words. Your intonation, gesture, rhythm and facial expression inform the audience’s response. If you say something in a sarcastic tone, the audience will understand it to be a joke. If you write the same words, without the sarcastic tone of voice it could become confusing or even offensive.

Your intonation, gesture etc., means it is obvious which character is speaking, so you don’t have to say, he said. On the page you have to explicitly state who is speaking, especially if there are more than two characters in the scene, which means you have to interrupt the flow of the dialogue with he saids and she saids. Often the dialogue in a spoken version of a story is quickfire and rhythmical, and this is lost because of the scaffolding.

But books are lovely! They are always beside you for you to enjoy, unlike a storyteller. And they travel to more places than I can visit in one lifetime.

How do you go about making the transition from performing a story to writing it down? What are the challenges?

First I write it exactly as I would tell it. Then I send it it to my editor, who replies with comments such as, Who is speaking here? Why does she say this? Give us some adverbs!, the scales fall from my eyes and I realise that the story needs more description and context because the reader cannot hear my voice as they read. The challenge is to try to retain the propulsive momentum of a spoken telling despite the additional contextualising.

Tell us about Daniel Crowley – where and when did you first hear his tale?

I first encountered the story as part of a play called SAVAGE JUSTICE back in the eighties. Because it was a play, they could have great fun with the ghostly party. One actor mimed peeling off his skin, and playing his ribs like a xylophone!

How have you changed the version you first came upon?

The ending felt abrupt: next morning Daniel’s apprentices found him lying amongst the chaos of his workshop. What happened to him then? did this experience change him? So I added a little coda – you will have to read the book to discover if it is an improvement!

Some of the Strange Tales have a gruesome and unnerving aspect. Do you find yourself tempering (or even amplifying) your words for an audience?

When I am performing, I can show the character’s disgusted/appalled/horrified response to what they are seeing, without having to explicitly describe the sight that provoked this extreme response. I have to spell out the horror in the written version, so inevitably it can feel more disturbing! I trusted my editor to rein me in when necessary. 

The book is called STRANGE TALES and the cover is ominous. It is very clear what you are getting! My main concern is that the stories are not creepy enough to meet the expectations set up by the cover…

You are twice the winner of the Tir na nOg Award for books with a Welsh context. Does winning awards and recognition have an impact on your craft?

It helps to raise the profile of the book. A writer once said publishing a book is like throwing a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and expecting to hear it land. At this time of year there is always a deluge of new books, most of which disappear very quickly. Winning an award gives the book a second chance to reach an audience.

You often combine storytelling with music. When is this most successful?

Music is very powerful. It can make us feel emotion very quickly. Just think of the JAWS theme. The teller has to adapt their performance to allow the musicians to work their magic. Often I realise I don’t need to say whole paragraphs because in a few moments the music has evoked what I was trying to convey. I think the teller has to behave as if they are another musician contributing to an overall sound, rather than assuming they have to dominate.

Who are amongst your favourite storytellers?

Jan Blake is the real deal. Big hearted, funny, exuberant, shocking, thrilling… you never know what she is going to say next!

What other books can you recommend to readers who have enjoyed your stories?

The Red Gloves by Catherine Fisher – a wonderful collection of eerie stories that will haunt you long after you have finished the book.
Clockwork by Phillip Pullman. You can read it in a single (winter’s) evening. Full of magic, mystery and suspense.

Strange Tales is published by Firefly Press on 28.09.2023. Huge thanks to Daniel Morden for answering our questions and to Lucy Mohan at Firefly Press for inviting us. Buy a copy of the book here and also check out links to Daniel’s website and Twitter.

The Shadow Order by Rebecca F. John

The Shadow Order by Rebecca F. John

We are delighted to conclude the blog tour for Rebecca F. John’s first novel for children, The Shadow Order. The book has been hotly anticipated and most definitely does not disappoint. Beginning with a unique premise, that shadows begin to show people’s real character rather than an outline of their shape, this is a book that has many curious twists and turns. Those in power ban citizens from going out in the daytime, thus passing ‘The Shadow Order’. From the outset it is pacey and intriguing – the fantasy world is built with care and skill, and the characters are immediately believable and totally likeable. There is a threat that hangs over the characters throughout and these ingredients make for a thrilling and edgy pageturner – authored by a writer with serious talent. Whilst there are pertinent central messages about government control and confinement, the power of rebellion and the will for change, there is an overriding sense of hope. It’s a brilliant read, and we’d say that even if we weren’t in the blog tour.

As with all #TheShadowOrder blog tour posts, we have some exclusive content from Rebecca. First, in a series of posts about the world of Copperwell, we get to know one of the alleys of this fantasy world. (Do visit the other stops on the blog tour to find out more about this wonderfully realised world).

Judge Marlow’s Way   Before it was renamed, Judge Marlow’s Way was called Runaway Alley. It was where all the petty criminals of Copperwell lived, stacked together in houses where nothing was safe. Men and women tricked and stole from one another, and no law-abiding citizen dared to set foot there… Except for Judge Marlow, who strode onto the alley one rainy autumn day and declared that from then on Runaway Alley would be made honest, Judge Marlow’s way. Betsy was only a tiny bit of a girl that day, but, cowering in a doorway, she had laughed at Judge Marlow’s declaration. People could not be changed so easily, she’d thought. But that was before the Shadow Order, before she met Teddy and Effie, and before she understood that people really can be changed entirely.

We are also very pleased to bring you this Q and A with author, editor and publisher, Rebecca F. John. Thanks so much to Rebecca for answering our questions with such care – a lot of work goes into organising a blog tour and we are extremely grateful to Rebecca and to Karen at Firefly Press.


What are you reading at the moment?

As usual, I’m reading more than one book. My work as an editor means that I’m always reading several as-yet-unpublished books, in various stages of the editing process. But beyond that, I tend to be partway through two or three published books simultaneously. At the moment, those books are Liz Hyder’s middle-grade novel Bearmouth (which I’m really excited about as I ADORED Liz’s adult novel, The Gifts), and a proof of a novel called The Circus Train, by Amita Parikh, which is due to publish in the UK in 2023 but which I think has been a bestseller elsewhere in the world. I’ve only just started reading both, but I’m equally entranced by the two completely different stories.

Where and when do you write?

Anywhere and everywhere. I’m busier than I ever have been: I started working as an editor for Firefly Press very recently; I set up my own publisher, Aderyn Press, last year; I have published three of my own books this year, and I’m currently working on edits for another which will publish next year; and I had a baby four months ago. So at the moment, I write in bed for about ten minutes between the time when the baby falls asleep and I do! I’ve always felt able to write just about anywhere, though, luckily: at a desk in my study preferably, yes, but also in doctors’ waiting rooms, or in car parks, or hotel rooms, or at the beach. Once I’m writing, it’s very easy to tune out from the rest of the world and exist instead within the one I’m creating.

What was the seed that began The Shadow Order?

As I wrote The Shadow Order, it became apparent that it was being shaped by a number of different ideas, memories, books and more. There was a specific moment, though, when the concept for the central idea – the shifted shadows – came to me. I was walking my dogs, Betsy, Teddy, and Effie, along the beach one early morning. It was cold, just after sunrise, and I noticed that our shadows were very clearly cast across the sand, but also that they were quite distorted: stretched long. With that observation came the inciting incident for The Shadow Order – what would happen, I wondered, if our shadows suddenly started revealing our secret feelings? – and also the characters. It was the presence of the dogs as I had this thought, I suppose, which caused them to become integral to the idea in my mind. Or versions of them, at least. I didn’t start writing the novel for another year or two, but that idea stuck with me, and the world of Copperwell started to build around it, so I knew I had to write it.

You have written for adults and this is your first book for children. Was The Shadow Order always a children’s book?

I never really thought about writing for children, though I’ve long stated that it was a children’s book that made me decide to become a writer. When I read Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights, aged roughly ten, I was so blown away by the characters, the world, (and jealous, of course, of the animal daemons), that I decided immediately that I would become a writer. For some reason, I always imagined I’d be a novelist for adult readers – and I have been and will continue to be. But when the idea for The Shadow Order came to me, I knew it was supposed to be a children’s book. I never questioned that. The concept and the characters came to me quite completely, and, as with all my best story ideas, my task was then to transcribe what was already so well realised in my mind. I ‘see’ my stories in that way: like films, almost; as though they already exist. I was fairly nervous about writing for children. I thought of them as a tougher audience – I still do. But the story existed for me by the time I finished that beach walk, and so I had to tell it.

In terms of the writing process, was writing ‘The Shadow Order’ different to your other

books?

Not really in terms of process. I’m not a great planner and I’m not a great plotter (though I’m a better one now, having written a children’s book!). The story tends to play for me like a film – though not as neatly of course – which I desperately try to get down on paper. I think most writers will say, however, that none of it is ever as good, as vivid, as it is in your mind by the time is reaches the page… I suppose I’m quite a simple writer in that sense, though. I start at the beginning and write to the end, stopping to research when I reach a sticky point. What did feel slightly different was the editing process, which was often focussing on not holding the young reader up, through description, but also through punctuation, for instance. That was a learning curve for me.

Do you have a writing routine?

Absolutely not. I wish I did, but I genuinely don’t have the time. I snatch writing minutes or hours whenever I can. Perhaps if I were a full-time writer, I might develop a routine, but I’m not sure that would suit me particularly. I think those aspects of routine which, by necessity, I lack, are made up for with industriousness. I work incredibly hard, whenever I’m able. And I LOVE the time I spend writing, so I’m always looking forward to it. One of my favourite things to do is get up very early and write while everyone else in the house (dogs included) is still asleep… I suppose there is one aspect of my life which is routine driven, and which certainly feeds into my writing, and that’s my daily walk. I start almost every day with a dog walk and, like many writers, I find that the act of walking allows my ideas to grow and settle in ways I might never have expected. I don’t know whether it’s something to do with the rhythm of footsteps, or being out exploring and experiencing nature, but whatever it is, I don’t feel that I’d be the same writer if I wasn’t able to walk along the coast or amongst trees.

The Shadow Order has a very unique, almost sci-fi idea at its core which is to do with

space, time and horology. Is this something that interests you? (and how on earth did you

come up with it!?)

It does now! Really the idea grew from that one moment I described on the beach. As I wrote further into the novel, the world obviously needed to be more and more realised, it needed to have its own set of rules – a fantasy novel can’t work otherwise. And as the world grew, so too did these ideas around space, time, and horology. I soon realised that Betsy was a keen amateur astronomer and that added another layer to those developing ideas. I won’t pretend to know very much about any of it. I was learning along with the characters. But it certainly was fascinating to write… As for how I came up with it… Who knows? Writing is so often exploration of a question or an idea the writer wants to know more about, and probably that’s what I was doing with this novel – exploring and musing on the human relationship with the natural world and all that we cannot control.

The main characters of the book are inspired by your dogs, not just in name but in

personality too. Did this lead to any confusion for you?

It actually helped me to develop the characters. Oftentimes, characters begin as a true blank slate. But with Betsy, Teddy, and Effie, I had their funny little ways to refer to, to flesh out the characters which would, inevitably, grow apart from their canine counterparts as human concerns increasingly shaped their thoughts and actions. Still, the characters have retained the essence of Betsy, Teddy, and Effie’s personalities, I think. Betsy remains the apparent leader of the pack, but with a need to lean on her friends for support. Teddy still lacks confidence compared to the others, but is loyal and true. And Effie’s mature and more sensible nature reflects that of the real Effie-cocker-spaniel. It was a lot of fun to humanise them in that way.

The world you have created is fantastically realised. What is the key to making it so tangible?

Thank you… Practise! World building is just another facet of writing – like character development or description – and hopefully, the more we do it, the better we get at it. There are techniques, of course: writing the senses, moving your characters with attention through the space, allowing yourself to develop aspects of that world that will never belong on the page, so that you can know and feel them. But really what I’m saying is you have to believe in it. You need to be able to envisage what your characters might do off the page. Just knowing those things, even if they never leave your mind, will enable you to write more convincingly.

You are a keen walker. How important is walking to your writing process – if at all?

Ah, I touched on this earlier! I think it’s hugely important. So many writers walk, and that can’t be coincidental. There might be something to the rhythm of just putting one foot in front of the other which, I don’t know, encourages ideas to … solidify, almost. Perhaps being in nature nurtures creativity. Maybe it is simply that doing something physical, as opposed to sitting still with your thoughts, helps to shape them. I really don’t know; it’s probably all of those things. What I do know, though, is if I don’t walk, I experience the same feeling I get if I can’t write: an itchy, uncomfortable, discontent which can’t be assuaged by any other means.

What do you hope young readers will get out of The Shadow Order? Particularly, what do

you hope they might learn from Betsy, Teddy and Effie’s journey?

I hope The Shadow Order will encourage young readers to explore and adore the natural world, to challenge the systems they live within, and to nurture their true talents, whatever they might be. Those ideas are central to this novel for me. I hope, too, that they will learn to accept themselves, as Betsy, Teddy, and Effie do. That is something I came to later, after I turned thirty, and something which I think we could talk to young people about more, rather than expecting them to figure it out by themselves. Self-acceptance is not necessarily something we all just arrive at over time.

Which of your characters is most like you?

Betsy, probably. She’s the one who reveals the least of herself, and I think that’s one of my traits. I’m very self-contained. I like to be perceived as always calm, always capable, and so does Betsy. I think, though, that we are forever mining different parts of ourselves for characters. They are perhaps all variations on who the writer is or might be.

Tell us about working with Firefly Press.

Working with Firefly Press has been amazing. Penny Thomas is an incredible editor: experienced, wise, and sensitive. She’s taught me a lot about writing for children and in a completely unobtrusive way. I’ve admired Firefly’s books for a long, long time, so when I had the idea for The Shadow Order, I knew exactly where I wanted it to be published. I’m so pleased the Firefly team were willing to take a chance on me as a first-time children’s writer.

You recently set up Aderyn Press. Why did you feel there was a need and will there be

children’s books?

Aderyn is dedicated to adult books – specifically spooky, historical, and speculative stories. There were a lot of reasons for setting up Aderyn. I wanted to help prove that books of wonderful quality, with global appeal, can be produced in Wales. I wanted to offer a home to those stories which ought to be told, but perhaps don’t quite fit within the parameters of big-five publishing. I wanted to be a female business owner. I wanted to publish first-time authors and really support them through the process. I could go on… I decided, though, that this big project needed to have quite a narrow focus for it to work, so I came to the conclusion that I should publish the kind of books I most like to read. ‘Spooky, historical, and speculative’ best summed that up. Aderyn will publish only three titles a year, since I’m going it alone and there really is SO MUCH involved in publishing a book. I’m scheduled up to the end of 2023 with novels which are completely different which all tell compelling, intricate, and heart-breaking and/or hopeful stories.

What books can you recommend for fans of The Shadow Order?

Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights. Anything by Kiran Millwood Hargrave: The Way Past Winter is a favourite of mine. Eloise Williams’ Gaslight. Catherine Fisher’s The Clockwork Crow. October October by Katya Balen. I loved all of these books.

What are you excited about right now?

So much! The Shadow Order publishing, of course. The book I’m publishing next year being announced. The new ideas I have that I want to write. The huge stack of books I have yet to read. Winter – I LOVE the winter. And planning what comes next. I’m not much of a planner when it comes to narrative, but I love planning for life: little excursions; big ambitions. I try to make the most of every minute.

How would your 10 year old self react to what you do now?

My ten-year-old self would be seeing her dream come true! And actually, I think that’s really important to reflect on every now and then. It’s incredibly easy in this industry to always be comparing yourself to someone else and finding yourself lacking. I published a book, but why didn’t a bigger publisher want it? Or… I sold a book, but not in a big auction. Or… why didn’t my book win a major prize? I’m pretty sure everyone falls into those traps now and then, and I definitely include myself in that. But I do try to remind myself that I have fulfilled my ten-year-old self’s dream. I have published books. They exist in the world for people to pick up and read and find their own dreams or comfort or hope in. My ten-year-old self would be ecstatic about that!

Will there be more books for children?

I hope so. I would like The Shadow Order to become a trilogy, as I don’t think Betsy, Teddy, and Effie have finished with me yet, and I do have an idea for their next adventure. But we’ll see!

If you weren’t an author what would you be?

My first dream was to become a tennis player. I was a very practical child, however, and I soon realised that I really wasn’t very good at tennis. Still, I love to watch it and, in my heart of hearts, I can still quite easily envisage myself on centre court at Wimbledon. Ha! I’m a good dreamer, aren’t I? … Like many writers, there are a hundred things I’d like to be. Perhaps that’s part of the reason we’re writers. I’d like to be a historian, a psychologist, an artist. But at the top of the list is a desire to work with animals. I’d love to offer a retirement home to elderly unwanted dogs – as many of them as possible – and see them live out their days happy.

Thanks again to Rebecca for the content and to Karen for organising. The Shadow Order is available to buy now from your local bookshop or direct from Firefly Press.

The Boy in The Post by Holly Rivers

The Boy in The Post by Holly Rivers

What’s the strangest thing to be sent through the post? Well, after a few hours down several internet rabbit holes, I can tell you that there are no limits to the things that people have attempted to send through our beloved Royal Mail. Pets, children, suffragettes, bricks, shepherd’s pie (warm), game (just a label around the neck will do) and a severed ear have all been wrapped and sent in the history of the international postal service. “Mail artists” have sought to push the envelope (thank you very much) and write addresses on unwrapped items such as leaves, apples, potatoes and a piece of toast.

It appears Holly Rivers was inspired by these tales to write The Boy in The Post (charming and funny with a golden heart), her second novel with Chicken House. The book features children mailing themselves to New York in order to solve their problem. You see, the Shalloo siblings have taken on a job for the summer holidays. Their mum is too wrapped up in her second-hand car business to give them her attention and so they answer the call of Grandy Brock to help him establish a new kind of postal service. The kind of postal service that has animals delivering the mail. Animails. Yes that’s right – Grandy Brock has a menagerie of feathers and furs (as well as a rather impressive number of his own children) and is trying to get his new business venture off the ground.

Taber, the youngest of the Shalloo siblings, is responsible for training Geronimo, a pelican, to find it’s way home. Using inbuilt navigation systems, this all goes rather swimmingly (soaringly?) and the bird becomes the best homing pelican you can imagine. However, following an international flight, the bird fails to return home and Taber holds himself responsible. The young boy takes off in the middle of the night, posting himself with a shipment to New York. Taber’s brother and sister become very concerned for him and crate themselves off in a similar manner, embarking on the adventure of a lifetime.

The book has a very classic, vintage feel. The characters are brilliant – written with so much joy you can’t fail to fall in love with them. Grandy Brock is a favourite. He’s eccentric and peculiar but has “a mischievous twinkle in his eyes that hinted at adventure and excitement and fun.” He’s warm and generous and shows kindness that the Shalloo siblings have rarely seen. The book is also laden with some of the best postal-related puns you are ever likely to feast on (it’s all in the delivery!) Now that’s definitely something to write home about.

We’re delighted to be able to share this Q and A with Holly Rivers which delves a bit further into the inspiration behind the book:

Tell us a little about your new novel, The Boy in the Post

The Boy in the Post is a postal-themed adventure story set across land, sea and sky! It follows the Shalloo siblings — adventurous twelve year old Orinthia; nature-loving five year old Taber; and sensible middle child Séafra.

During the summer holidays the three siblings accept a summer job from an eccentric old man called Grandy Brock who lives in a tumbledown windmill. He and his five adopted children are opening a very special postal service called The Mailbox Menagerie, which is to be staffed entirely by animals and birds! The Shalloo siblings become especially fond of Geronimo, a homing pelican. But when the big bird fails to return from a delivery to New York, the Shalloo siblings have no choice but to post themselves across the Atlantic to find her…

What inspired the story?

The story was inspired by a fascinating article published by The Smithsonian Institute, about children who were sent through the mail in the 1900s.  Yes, back then it was legal to send your kids through the post! The first child delivered by the U.S. parcel post service was a boy in Ohio, in 1913 — his parents paid 15 cents for the stamps and insured their son for $50, who was then delivered to his Grandmother’s house a few miles away. Even though these children weren’t technically stuffed into mailbags (and instead travelled in the mail vans of trusted postmen) I couldn’t help but start imagining prospective characters being wrapped in brown paper and stamps being stuck to their foreheads; and the idea for The Boy in the Post was born!

What was your favourite piece of information that you uncovered in your research?

I loved reading about loads of other weird and wonderful things that have been sent through the post and intercepted over the years — a turnip with the recipient’s address carved into its flesh; a hive of live bees; false teeth; jars of scorpions; prosthetic limbs; a pair of underpants with an address scrawled across the crotch; a first edition copy of Ulysses deemed ‘obscene’; a brace of game birds; a tree trunk; a building’s worth of bricks; and two suffragettes hoping to get to Herbert Asquith! The bizarre and eccentric side of humanity never fails to inspire and entertain me!

Who were your favourite characters to write?

I had a hoot (excuse the pun) coming up with ideas for my animails — the animals and birds that work at The Mailbox Menagerie. I really let my imagination run wild and ended up penning a homing pelican who gets paid in sardines; a fruit bat who will only work the night shift; a pair of Sphynx cats in charge of licking stamps; an octopus who can deliver 8 parcels at a time; and snakes who cane spell out postcodes with their bodies. All the while I had my own pet chihuahua, Silver snuggled up on my lap — whose snores and farts and woofs made the experience all the richer! She even turns up in the last chapter of the book…..

What do you think the key message is to take away from the book?

I hope that the story inspires readers to embrace more old-school ways of communicating in their post-pandemic lives. During lockdown — a time dominated by zoom calls and emails — sending and receiving  letters from family and friends during brought me so much joy; and there was nothing lovelier than hearing the postman coming up the garden path. I hope the book inspires children to switch off their screens, go buy some stamps and put pen to paper. I’m always open to receiving letters from new pen-pals!

You wrote the book during lockdown, how was that as an experience compared to writing your first novel Demelza and the Spectre Detectors?

When I was working on Demelza I was able to take my laptop to so many different locations to write — libraries, cosy pubs, cafes, parks, the northbound Piccadilly line, number 91 bus! But because of lockdown and the fact that all of our worlds had suddenly become a lot smaller, the entirety of The Boy in The Post was written at an antique desk gifted to me by Grandma. I was surprisingly focused and motivated during lockdown and managed to write the first draft of the book fairly quickly. Penning an epic transatlantic adventure also meant that I could travel the world and go on a journey even though I wasn’t allowed to leave the house — it felt like a real tonic!

You work as a children’s workshop facilitator, does this help to inform your writing?

As you can see from the acknowledgments sections of both Demelza and The Boy In The Post, the children I work with are a huge inspiration to me and my writing. They buoy me with their ideas, energy, humour, warmth and imagination, and I’m  always jotting down the unusual and funny things they come out with! Being around children so much reminds me to remain playful, and they stop me from turning into too much of a grumpy old grown-up!

Thank you to Holly and Laura for the Q and A and for allowing us to host today’s post on the Blog Tour. The Boy in The Post is available now to buy in your local independent bookshop, published by Chicken House. You can follow Holly on Twitter.

Thimble and the Girl from Mars Blog Tour

It’s a totally bonkers feeling that we get to celebrate the publication day of Thimble and the Girl from Mars with you. An honour and a pleasure to be kicking off this blog tour.

We first met Thimble, the anarchic Monkey Superstar, around 4 years ago. The debut was a fresh and funny madcap adventure full of hilarious slapstick episodes. Plenty of toilet humour and unbelievable escapades, with the parents (particularly Douglas, the dad) ending up as the ‘butt’ of the joke. Our children have laughed out loud with Thimble and Jams and have grown up loving this favourite series.

That first book was rightly nominated for the Lollies Laugh Out Loud Award, at which point Jon Blake wrote us a rather wonderful blog introducing Thimble to the nation. Do check it out.

Subsequent books, Holiday Havoc and Wonga Bonkers, continued to thrill new generations of the Bookworms family and even inspired one to commit an outrageous act in a branch of IKEA.

All this brings us to Thimble and the Girl from Mars, the newly published installment featuring an extremely unlikeable girl who wants to claim Thimble as her own. This feisty and intelligent foster child, with fantastic football skills, is a mean match for Jams as she manipulates his family and charms his primate pal. Jams needs to use all his wits to keep Thimble on his side. Just like the rest of the series, this is great fun, fast-paced, light-hearted and ever so slightly unhinged!

Jon Blake has written over 60 books for children (and many more radio scripts and books for adults). He is well used to questions, having regularly carried out school visits. Indeed he answered our Q and A back in 2017. But “What are the best questions that children have asked Jon Blake?” we hear you call through the Internet. Here is some exclusive Blog Tour content:

We are very grateful to Jon for sharing this video with us and look forward to finishing Thimble and the Girl from Mars as our current bedtime read. The book is out now and you can buy signed copies from Jon here. Follow Jon and illustrator Martin on Twitter, and check out Jon’s website because there is plenty to explore!

Blog Tour: His Royal Hopeless

We are very happy to be part of the blog tour for His Royal Hopeless, the debut novel from Chloë Perrin, published by Chicken House. We heard that Chloë had been brought up in North Wales so were keen to support them and find out more.

His Royal Hopeless is funny, tender and wise, centering on Robbie – the heir to the Sinistevils – the most wicked dynasty in the world. He can’t wait to pledge his heart to the menacing power of the family Sceptre and embark on his bloodthirsty future. The thing is, Robbie is … well … nice. And when he discovers his heart has been swapped for clockwork, he’s incapable of believing Mother had dark intentions. Instead, he embarks on a quest to retrieve his heart, claim his wicked destiny, and secure Mother’s pride at last. But Mother has other ideas …

Billed as ‘Despicable Me’ meets ‘The Descendants’, this is a fun and absorbing fairy tale from a new voice in middle-grade fiction.

What are you reading at the moment?

I’m reading The Peculiar Tale of the Tentacle Boy by Richard Pickard at the moment – it’s an offbeat adventure about a girl and a mysterious boy with tentacles for hair and crab claws for hands. It’s really heartfelt, funny and wonderfully twisted (all my favourite things in a book).

What are your favourite books?

I absolutely LOVE Terry Pratchett and the Discworld series, his “fantasy-gone-wrong” tone really influenced me as a writer! I also love Diana Wynne Jones’ Howl’s Moving Castle, for the wonderful and hilarious characters but also for the complete Welsh-ness of it all.

Where and when do you write? Do you have a routine?

My writing routine is woefully non-existent!! I tend to end up writing in any spare moment I have, usually late at night fuelled by dangerous amounts of coffee and toast (would not recommend).

What was your journey to publication?

My journey to publication was quite a fun one. I entered His Royal Hopeless in the Times Chicken House competition in 2019 and was longlisted, which was amazing! However, when I didn’t make the shortlist I assumed HRH’s journey was over for the time being- until I got a phone call from Chicken House saying that while HRH wasn’t right for the competition they still wanted to have a chat about it. A coffee-shop meeting and several panicked emails to my university lecturers with the subject header “what do I do what do I do???” later, and HRH was on its way to publication!

You are a “North Walian writer who currently lives in London”. Tell us about your Welsh upbringing.

I grew up in the tourist town of Llandudno and lived there for most of my life. Llandudno isn’t such a rural area but there’s still mountains whichever way you look, castle ruins down the road and wild goats wandering the streets completely nonplussed by the people. And, of course, there’s Snowdon, Yr Wyddfa, less than an hour away. I love the history you see walking around London, but nothing will beat the wildness of North Wales for me.

Does Wales or coming from Wales, have any influence on your writing?

I think all the things I mentioned about North Wales in the previous question pretty much set me up to write fantasy-adventure stories. The fact that Robbie and Layla need to traverse through deep forests and treacherous mountains is a very Welsh influence on HRH. I also used to work as a storyteller, which involved reciting Welsh folklore by heart, and the constant practice of retelling exciting and often frightening stories about castles and magic and devious villains really moulded what I’d eventually end up writing down.

In His Royal Hopeless, there is an optimistic message for readers about forging your own path and accepting yourself for who you are. How deliberate and planned was this?

Without giving anything away, I always wanted HRH to be a book about understanding yourself in spite of what the world around you is telling you to be, so it was very deliberate. The optimism, I went back and forth on- I appreciate children’s books that give layers of reality to the lessons they teach, and I definitely didn’t want to completely sugar coat the ending of HRH. Hopefully I struck the right balance, but we’ll see what people think!

What are your hopes for His Royal Hopeless?

I hope that HRH will give perspective to people who may be in Robbie’s situation without realising it. It’s SO easy for us to get stuck trying to be something that’s actually harming us, and no one is immune to Robbie’s level of obliviousness. But honestly, I’ll just be happy if the readers laugh at the jokes!

What’s the best piece of writing advice you have received?

Have projects ready. They don’t need to be polished, but when competitions start calling for submissions you don’t want to be stuck with only a third of a first draft to hand.

The book is brilliantly illustrated by George Ermos, including some internal illustrations. What were your thoughts when you first saw them?

I ADORED them!! My biggest anxiety around HRH wasn’t “what if people don’t like it?”, but “what if it has a bad cover?” The moment I was told George Ermos was designing it, however, I never had that worry again. I was honestly stunned by the final design. George Ermos has done an absolutely amazing job. And Robbie’s crown! I very much want that crown.

Could you recommend any other books for those who enjoy His Royal Hopeless?

The books I mentioned before – any of Pratchett’s middle grade work or Diana Wynne Jones’ Howl’s Moving Castle. I wouldn’t dare put myself on their level but we do share a “this is fantasy but not quite how you remember it” tone I know children will love. Also, they’re hilarious.

Do you have any other projects on the horizon?

A few little things, but I’ll also be starting my Creative Writing MA at Brunel University London this year so I’m going to be busy either way!

What question have we forgotten to ask you?

What my favourite sweet is, and it’s Terry’s Chocolate Oranges. And yes, if you see me in the street you should definitely hand me one and I will graciously accept it.

HIS ROYAL HOPELESS by Chloë Perrin is out now in paperback (£6.99, Chicken House), available from all good bookshops including your local independent store.

Thank you to Chloë for answering our questions. Follow Chloë on Instagram @chloeperrin_author and Twitter @ChloePerrinUK 

TNNO2021: Jess Butterworth Interview

The Tir na n-Og Award is an annual award for children’s books with an authentic Welsh context. Sponsored by CILIP in Wales and organised by Books Council Wales, the 2021 shortlist, announced in March, features three brilliant books:

The winner of the award will be announced at the end of May. In the meantime, we are all encouraged to shadow the awards and get to know these books in more detail. At Family Bookworms HQ, we have been privileged to interview the three authors about their shortlisted book.

Jess Butterworth is well-known for her series of adventure books for ‘middle grade’ readers. Jess spent her childhood between the UK and India, and grew up hearing stories about the Himalayas from her Grandmother. As soon as she was old enough, she went on her own adventures in search of story ideas. Jess studied a creative writing masters at Bath Spa University and now lives between the USA and the UK.

Where The Wilderness Lives was Jess’s fourth novel, published in April 2020. Her fifth book, Into The Volcano, has just been released.

Where The Wilderness Lives is a brilliant adventure that weaves folklore, survival, friendship issues and family together to make a fantastically enjoyable read. From a canal boat in the West Country to the deepest wilds of Wales, Cara and her siblings escape a thief as they embark on a heart-stopping adventure to solve the mystery of a locked safe. Soon they’re in the wild forests of the Preseli Hills and are lost. Will they escape the wilderness? It’s thrilling stuff!

We were pleased to catch up with Jess and ask her a few questions.

Cover by Rob Biddulph

Where The Wilderness Lives is packed full of adventure and action but also focuses on themes of courage and friendship. Was there an initial spark of an idea for the book? I’m interested in what came first.

For me, it’s always the setting and a sense of place that comes first with a story. After that I imagine the characters in the setting, what kind of adventures they go on and how they interact with their environment, and then, as I get to know the characters more, I build the themes and emotional threads.

I wrote Where the Wilderness Lives when I was living in the States and very much missing the UK and the places I love here. One part of the story was sparked by my time living on a narrowboat on the canal; I remember a section of canal was drained and all sorts of rusty bits and bobs were found in the empty bottom. Another part of the story was inspired by a visit to stay with family in Wales and the discovery that the forest I loved there was actually a Celtic temperate rainforest.   

The landscapes and wildlife of the Preseli hills are vividly described. What advice do you have for creating such realistic descriptions?

Image from jessbutterworth.com

Thank you! As you can probably tell, I love writing about nature. I always try and use all the senses to describe settings. I find writing about specific details in a setting really brings it alive too; things like naming an old oak tree rather than only stating that there’s a tree. I also like to weave descriptions into movement and action as well. For example; how does the ground feel underneath your feet as you step? Is it mossy, muddy, pebbly?

Which aspect of Welsh wildlife intrigues you the most?

I’m a huge fan of lichen, not just because of the weird and wonderful shapes and colours they are, but also because they’re symbiotic organisms and good indicators of air pollution. Wales actually has the highest diversity of lichen species!

I also love spotting seals off the Welsh coast, seeing bats at dusk, and searching for signs of dormice. Once I saw puffins during their breeding season from the Welsh cliffs, which I thought was amazing.   

You mention in the author’s note at the back of the book that some of your family are from the area – are they far from Coed Ty Canol? How did they help with the research?

Image from Jess’s Website

My cousins grew up and still live in south Ceredigion in the Teifi valley, quite close to Coed Ty Canol. As children, whenever I visited them, we would walk over the Preseli hills together and explore the coast and the ancient forests in the area. Their house always felt like a second home to me. When I mentioned I wanted to set a book in the Celtic rainforest they spent time looking at maps with me, and showing me other places in the area like the Pentre Ifan burial chamber and Nevern church, which ended up sparking lots more story ideas!   

The story features a locked safe with Ogham symbols (an early medieval alphabet). Tell us about how you discovered the Ogham alphabet.

My younger cousin has always been very interested in it and would write secret messages using the Ogham alphabet which is how I first learnt about it. He also showed me a huge stone from the 5th century in Nevern church that has Ogham script carved into it which I found fascinating.

Ogham Inscription on a sill at St. Brynach’s Church, Nevern, Pembrokeshire.

There is a folk tale threaded through the story – are you a fan of Welsh folklore?

I’m a huge fan of Welsh folklore. I’m really looking forward to reading Claire Fayers’ new book of Welsh Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends, and very excited about the publication of The Mab, a collection of retellings of the Mabinogion, edited by Matt Brown and Eloise Williams.

In Where the Wilderness Lives, I took parts from, and reimagined, two of my favourite Welsh folk tales, Gwion and the Witch and The Battle of the Trees. The latter inspired the title of the story too.

Sounds intriguing. Can you tell us more?

I, TTThom, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

‘The Battle of the Trees’ or ‘Cad Goddeu’ is a medieval Welsh poem set during a war. In it, the magician Gwydion uses his staff to transform trees into warriors to help fight. I’ve always loved the imagery of trees coming to life in a human sense, like the Ents in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and after reading a section of the poem as a child, it stayed with me. 

How are your survival skills? Have they ever been tested?

My dad was a trek leader in the Himalayas and as a child I lived partly there in the mountains, so I grew up with the survival skills needed for trekking and being in the mountains, such as finding drinking water, and as an adult, I’ve been trained in first aid.  

However … my skills were tested in a completely different climate; in the heat of the Australian desert when a snake fell on my head and bit my thumb as I swatted it away! I know what to do if you come across a bear or a leopard, but in my panic, I couldn’t remember what to do if you are bitten by a snake. Luckily, I was able to get someone’s attention and then I finally remembered that you’re supposed to lie down and stay still to stop any venom being pumped around your body, so I did that and someone bandaged my arm to stop the spread too. Then I was airlifted to the nearest hospital where the anti-venom was kept. It was definitely one of the scariest moments of my life!

I’m very grateful I didn’t have to worry about venomous snakes during my research in Wales! 

The setting feels very authentic. How important is authenticity?

This is lovely to hear – thank you! I’m constantly in awe of the wonderful wild places that exist within our world and seek to represent this in my writing. I’ve always been interested in the relationship between people and places too, which is why I love to look at the mythology, folklore, culture, and history of a landscape, as well as its role as a setting. 

Readers can learn a lot from Cara – she is a model of courage and determination. When her body gives up she recalls her mother’s mantra A camino largo, pass corto. There’s an important message about mindset in the book isn’t there?

Yes, definitely. The mantra means ‘one step at a time’ and it partly made it into the story because before I wrote the book I knew that I wanted to weave different story threads that all met at the end. I often felt overwhelmed with how much there was to do to make the story work, so I wrote this saying on a post-it note and stuck it to my laptop and it helped me write the book, one sentence at a time! With Cara, when she’s faced with the impossible task of trekking through the snow in freezing conditions, it’s this saying that helps her not give up: if she can keep going, one step at a time, then she has a chance of making it through the snow and helping her brother.  

Do you think Cara is changed by her adventure?

Very much so. Being out in nature and overcoming the challenges of the wilderness gives Cara more self belief and confidence to be herself. She also considers the things that are important to her, what matters most, and who she is, and by the end she’s made a new friend and grown even closer with her siblings. 

The book will be read in schools across Wales and beyond as a result of your Tir na n-Og Award shortlisting. What do you hope young readers will get out of the book?

I hope readers will enjoy this fast paced race for survival in the Welsh wilderness as they work out the mystery of the locked safe alongside the characters. I hope readers come away feeling excited about the Celtic rainforest, comforted by Cara’s journey to make friends, and feeling not alone in the world.  

Many of your books have hazardous moments as part of the adventures. Some of them can shock and surprise. Do you temper your words for your audience?

I’ve always had a very wild imagination and one of the wonderful things about books is that readers can go on adventures from the safety of their own homes. Often the journeys my characters take can be dangerous and I try to reflect this with my writing. I do always think about my choice of language carefully, alongside considering the emotional connection between the reader and protagonist.  

Could you recommend some other books that readers of Where The Wilderness Lives might like?

I’d love to! There are so many brilliant adventure stories that I love. A few of my favourites that readers of Where the Wilderness Lives might enjoy are: 

  • Holes by Louis Sachar
  • Wilde by Eloise Williams
  • The Girl Who Stole an Elephant by Nizrana Farook
  • The Valley of Lost Secrets by Lesley Parr
  • Storm Hound by Claire Fayers
  • Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce
  • The Last Bear by Hannah Gold

Amazingly, you’ve published a book every year since 2017. Into The Volcano, your fifth novel, has just hit the shops. What can you tell us about it and can we expect this publishing phenomenon to continue? 

I still can’t quite believe that Into the Volcano has made it into the world as it was written during lockdowns which meant a completely new way of writing for me (usually I spend lots of time outside). It’s an adventure set on top of a super volcano, and is a book about coming to terms with grief, letting go of anger at the world and finding hope and joy in the most unexpected of places. The story is told through a dual narrative which was really fun to write. It follows Seb from Colorado, and Vivi from London, whose lives collide after a tragic event and they end up on a journey in search of a rainbow pool in Yellowstone National Park. Along their way they meet wolves and bears, all the while dodging bubbling pools and steaming geysers. 

My next middle grade book won’t be published until 2023 BUT I have a very exciting new illustrated series for readers aged 7 and up launching in July this year. The first book in The Adventure Club series is called Red Panda Rescue. Each story is filled with travelling the world, protecting endangered animals, and adventuring! 

I am really grateful to Jess for her diligence and patience in answering these questions. Diolch Jess.

Buy yourself a copy of Where The Wilderness Lives from your local bookshop. You can follow Jess on Twitter or visit her website. The winner of the English Language Tir na n-Og Award for 2021 will be announced on the BBC Radio Wales Art Show on Friday 21 May.

TNN2021: Elen Caldecott Interview

The Tir na n-Og Award is an annual award for children’s books with an authentic Welsh context. The shortlist, announced in March, features three brilliant books:

The winner of the award will be announced at the end of May. In the meantime, we are all encouraged to shadow the awards and get to know these books in more detail. We are delighted to be bringing you interviews with the shortlisted authors, and our first is with Dr. Elen Caldecott, author of The Short Knife.

Elen was born and raised near Llangollen, where her family still lives. She has published many books for children; her debut novel, How Kirsty Jenkins Stole the Elephant, was shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Children’s Prize and longlisted for the 2010 Carnegie Award. The Short Knife was written as part of her PhD in Creative Writing and was longlisted for the Carnegie. It is a story set in the early middle ages, 454, at a time when Welsh identity was just starting to emerge, when the Romans had left and the Britons and Saxons were battling to take hold of different territories. Young Mai and her sister, Haf, are suspicious of the Saxon soldiers arriving in their village. Proved rightly so by a brutal attack on their family home, the sisters must seek a new place to belong, encountering betrayal, love, and everything in between. This is a celebration of difference and finding your own way, when even speaking your mother tongue can be dangerous. 

What was the seed that began The Short Knife?

I was curious about language, primarily. In an earlier book (Diamonds and Daggers), I had written a Polish character and the copyeditor had asked ‘Isn’t their English really good?’ and the answer was, ‘No, they’re speaking Polish to the other Polish characters.’ But, of course, the words on the page were English. So, I had a creative problem: How can you give the impression of one language when writing in another? It felt like a puzzle. I wanted to try to solve it. As I speak only two languages well enough to be able to write in them – Welsh and English – it was a puzzle I could only try to solve using those languages. Therefore, the voice and style of The Short Knife came first and the plot afterwards. It was great to turn that puzzle into a research question for my PhD as it gave me the time and space I needed to play.

You were an archaeologist – does this have any bearing on the way you approached the story?

Definitely. I studied Roman Britain as an undergraduate, and I’ve always been fascinated by the end of the empire. It would have been a very different experience, depending on where you lived (If you were in modern Turkey, for example, you might not even have noticed). Britain was probably the worst affected province. So, I knew it was a time of tumult, which is always good for a story. In a more practical sense, I was able to read site reports for excavations which had happened in the locations I was using, so I can justify some of the decisions I made – for example, having Gwrtheyrn resettle an Iron Age fort.

Were there any specific sites that provided inspiration or breakthrough moments?

Yes, absolutely. Even though it’s historical fiction, and there’s no 100% accurate way to know what life was like then, I found some approximations which were really inspirational. Leigh Woods in Bristol is woodland with a hill fort within it. I took my laptop and my dog up there a lot. We’d walk for an hour and I’d do my best to notice details of the landscape, then I’d write.

I also visited ‘reconstruction’ sites – St Fagans in Cardiff has a small village of roundhouses, and West Stow, near Peterborough has some Anglo-Saxon halls. It was genuinely amazing to visit these sites and talk to the people who worked there. My pen rushed over my notebook. I felt as though the sounds, smells and sensations were a way to get closer to my characters. I also visited Newport Wetlands and Cadbury Congresbury hill fort for more details about the landscape.

Where is the farm of Mai, Haf and Tad located and would they have considered themselves Welsh, British or something else?

Most readers have assumed that their farm is in modern Wales, but it isn’t. It’s actually nearer to modern Bristol, (though that city hasn’t been established at this time period). There are clues to the location – for example they talk about walking to the Severn and the crossing being dangerous. But I call the river by its Welsh name, the Hafren, and I don’t think most people are familiar with that name. Its funny, really, you’d think that two neighbouring countries would know what the other called the boundary between them, but we don’t. It reflects the enormous power imbalance between the languages, I suspect.

In terms of what Mai and her family would consider themselves, they are British. However, there’s a generational divide between what they mean by that. Tad, who was a boy at the end of empire, might think of himself as a citizen of the Roman Province of Britannia, at least nostalgically. Mai and Haf, on the other hand, have no such nostalgia. They speak Brittonic, a language family that spread from Edinburgh to Exeter at the time. Having said that, daily life was likely so disrupted, I doubt there was any sense of a ‘national people’, the societies were likely much more regional.

Do you see yourself as Welsh, British or something else?

Yes, I absolutely do think of myself as Welsh – that’s what I’d reply if someone asked me where I’m from. I haven’t lived there since I left to go to university, but my family is still there. I visit regularly (or did, you know, before). My PhD was part supervised at Aberystwyth University and I ended up working at Cardiff Uni for nearly two years afterwards. I rarely think of ‘British’ other than as a legal term – like on your passport or when applying for a job. It’s something I am, but it doesn’t hold quite the same resonance, in the way that watching a Lions tour isn’t quite the same as watching the Six Nations…

Whilst the landscape is beyond Wales, the book has Welsh influences and a strong Welsh current. This comes from the language you use.

Yes, absolutely. The language Mai speaks, and thinks in, is inspired by Welsh. I tried to give her a Welsh mindset (as much as one can, given that the book is set in an ancient past). So, the language is important, but there are other ideas about being bilingual, fitting in or standing out, being part of a community that can feel on the edge of things, on the edge of attention. There are also themes of betrayal in the book – about whether or not one should stick with a community one is born into, or whether there are things to be gained by leaving, which are also inspired by my own connection with Wales.

The language is exquisite. I understand you created a database of idioms directly translated from Welsh. How did you hit upon this idea and did you have any favourite phrases?

I’m not sure where the idea came from now. I think I was looking at ways other writers have approached working between languages and I was listening to talks by people like Xiaolu Guo and Nicholas Jose who work between languages. The idea might have come from there. Once I’d had the idea I bought a copy of ‘A Dictionary of Welsh & English Idiomatic Phrases’ by Alun Cowrie and translated it. There are thousands! Some really wonderful ones are ‘to grow small bones’ and ‘to see your apron strings grow short’ for being pregnant. I also really enjoy some of the euphemisms for death, like ‘to go and get your answer’ or to ‘to go and sleep outside’.

How did you find Mai’s voice (and Welsh mindset)?

The technical limitations I set myself dictated her voice a lot – the idioms, for example, tend to be quite ‘earthy’ so she had to be someone close to the land. It was tricky to imagine what a teenager might have sounded like back then. I made her dad a storyteller, so that she could legitimately have more wider frames of reference (like history, religion etc) than an illiterate farmgirl might otherwise have had. After that, there are elements of the plot which I think push her closer to a ‘Welsh mindset’, so things like being bilingual, living close to more powerful communities, and worrying about betraying the community she came from by adapting to her new circumstance.

The problem of the power imbalance between English and Welsh is an interesting one, does the answer lie in education? Did a welsh-medium education give you a perspective on this?

There is definitely a power imbalance between the languages. One is a World Language, the lingua franca of half the world. The other is one of the oldest spoken languages, still clinging on at the edge of Europe.

There are a few things I’d like to see happen. The first is that people stop trying to see them as equivalents. So often people say, ‘What’s the point of learning Welsh? Why not learn a useful language like Spanish?’ But, *if you already speak one World Language* then all bets are off. English will serve you well anywhere you go; you’ve got your useful language. So, your second (or third, etc) language should be anything that gives you pleasure, be that Welsh or Klingon (or Spanish, sure!). And, connecting with a language that stretches back thousands of years has got to be pretty pleasurable. It’s like visiting a National Park, or a gallery or theatre, it can just be a thing you do because you think it’s cool.

The second thing I’d like to see is for everyone to worry less about ‘fluency’ (including myself!). The ability to speak a language is a spectrum; no-one knows all the words of a language. So, if all you know is ‘diolch’ and ‘bore da’, then use those and feel fine about saying ‘I’m a beginner’. Or, if you get tangled up with mutations, power through, knowing you’ll be understood just fine. Perfection is the enemy of done, after all.

I don’t think I thought very much about these things when I was at school. A Welsh medium education was just, you know, my life. It was only when I was older that I realised that my parents had made something of a political choice with the school they chose.

How important is authenticity and how far should a writer go to achieve this?

It’s important that your reader believes in the world you’ve created. It’s actually half the battle – if a reader 100% believes the setting, then they will suspend their disbelief for the rest of the story/characters. The easiest way to write a believable setting is to do good research and simply describe whatever it is you’ve found out. If there are obvious anachronisms, then the reader might notice it’s *all* made up. Having said that, it can be really interesting to deliberately use anachronisms in historical fiction – I’m thinking of something like Alex Wheatle’s ‘Cane Warriors’ which uses current London vernacular in an 18th century West Indies setting; it does this – I think – to highlight that we just don’t know what the ‘authentic’ voices would have sounded like; they have been erased. So the ‘inauthenticity’ points to the violence that was done. At the end of the day, the duty of the writer is to the needs of the book they are writing, not to historical accuracy.

The split narrative creates real mystery and intrigue. Were there any difficulties in composing a non-chronological narrative and what spurred you to write it in this way?

It was actually just a really practical solution to a writing problem. The finale of the story is based on a traditional legend called ‘The Treachery of the Long Knives’. The legend is a very male story. If I’d ended the book with that legend, it would have taken the spotlight off Mai, which I didn’t want at all. BUT, it’s such a dramatic story, it would have been weird to put it in the middle of the book. My solution was to write a really long epilogue and spread it out through the book. The reader moves between before-the-treachery and after-the-treachery with the actual moment of treachery where you would expect it to be, at the end. I don’t know if I’ve explained it well, but it wasn’t that I set out to compose a non-chronological narrative per se. The narrative was actually a solution to a different problem I had.

By Noel Sylvestre (1847-1915)

Is the legend of Gwrtheyrn something you were aware of from school?

To be honest, I couldn’t tell you when I first heard about it. We definitely read all kinds of Welsh legends while I was in school. I learned to read using a reading scheme called ‘stori a chwedl’ which was jam-packed with quite gory stuff (the horse’s eyelids story from Branwen was particularly disturbing when I was in primary school). I was reminded of it in conversation with Cathy Butler, a children’s writer who is also a lecturer in Cardiff. She reminded me of the story when we were talking about the lack of female characters in early medieval literature – though Gwrtheyrn is called Vortigern in the version she knew. My version of him evolved to fit the story. He’s the person I needed him to be, rather than me trying to capture a ‘real’ version.

So many brilliant books from Wales use a folk tale as a seed or even framework for their stories. The Snow Spider, The Owl Service, Cantre’r Gwaelod. Many people see folk tales as holding a mirror up to society so that our values and principles can be taught/preserved. Does The Short Knife hold a mirror up to Wales (and England) / Britain?

Oh and don’t forget The Grey King, I love that book! I really hope The Short Knife holds up a mirror, for sure. I want us to remember how much the kingdom has evolved over the centuries, and how much of what we consider as ‘English’ or ‘British’ are actually imported ideas. We are an island nation formed by the movement of people.

The book has many parallels to today – were these deliberately planned from the outset?

I’d say yes, and no. They weren’t planned right from the outset, but early on during the writing, the Brexit vote happened, and all the aftermath of that like the rise in reports of racists attacks. I couldn’t help but think about the island’s relationship with the continent – how we often think of ourselves as separate, but actually have a rich and complex shared history. I also wanted to hold a mirror up to all the people I heard saying rubbish like, ‘England for the English’ and remind people that the English were once ‘invaders’ too (and I use that word very advisedly!).

It seems that you approached The Short Knife very differently to previous books. Has The Short Knife changed you as a writer?

I think so, yes. I’m working on a book just now, and I’m much more willing to write about Wales than I was. I’m also much more aware of language and playfulness of style, whereas I think in the past I thought plot was the most important thing. I’m more interested in seeing where exploration takes me, without worrying right from the beginning whether something is a good idea or not.

The book seems suited to a YA audience – was this audience in mind when you were writing and what do you hope young readers get out of it?

Yes, the themes of identity and community – as well as betrayal, which is quite a big part of it – were just a bit too mature for Middle Grade readers. Also, there’s a fair chance that the language would alienate young readers. So, it was always intended as YA. Having said that, a lot of adults have enjoyed it too. I’m certain that what we bring to a piece of art (be it books, films, music etc) has a huge impact on what we get out of it. So, I think that, for example, a young person who speaks one language at home and a different one outside will get something from the book which is quite different to what a monolingual speaker would get. But I hope that there are ideas about not reaching for easy answers to complex problems in there. I also hope that the wide range of female characters model female power in lots of different ways – there isn’t just one way to use your voice. I hope young readers see those ideas there, at least!

And what do you think your readers will learn from Mai?

For me, I think she comes to understand that the world is more complex than she thought at the beginning. Initially, everything is so black and white. But, over time, she sees that everyone can make stupid or thoughtless decisions; that even ‘villains’ can be loved by their families. That’s what I see in Mai’s development, and that’s what I’d like young people to take away from the book, really. Mai does come out of the trauma with a stronger sense of self, but she also has a better understanding of other people’s minds too.

The Short Knife was longlisted for the Carnegie and is now shortlisted for the Tir na n-Og. What is the significance of awards for you?

A writer friend of mine often plays a game: ‘Would you prefer tonnes of sales or good reviews – you can’t have both?’ It’s a brutal, but fun game. With some books I’d choose sales, with others reviews, it depends on what I was trying to do when I wrote the book. Good reviews, and, being nominated for awards like the Tir na n-Og, mean that people have read and reflected on your work – on whether it’s been bold and pushed at the boundaries of the field. I guess award nominations can validate risk taking.

So do you feel validated? And what was the biggest risk for you?

It’s a huge accolade for me, for sure. I grew up seeing books with ‘Tir na n-Og Winner’ stickers on their cover, so it feels really close to home. I’m thrilled about it. In terms of risk, there are lots of ways that The Short Knife was a risk. Two of the biggest are the language and the period. The rules I made for myself risk alienating a reader (and I know some readers have been alienated, I get that), it might simply be *too weird*. And the period is not one we study much. If you’re writing historical fiction, people are much more comfortable with the Tudors, or the second World War, and so on. the periods that are on the school curriculum. The 5th century was way leftfield, but *shrugs* it’s a time I’m really curious about.

Along with RS Thomas and Islwyn Ffowc Elis, you must be among the most renowned literary exports from North East Wales. Is your writing, and in particular The Short Knife, influenced by any Welsh writers?

Aw, my mum loves RS, so she’d be chuffed to hear you say that. There were three writers that were actually very influential. As I did this as a PhD I ended up writing a lot about them! Two are uncontroversial (and brilliant), G R Gemin and Catherine Johnson – I love the exploration of transnational identities in their own work. The third is much more controversial – Caradoc Evans. He wrote ‘My People’ in the early 20th century, which is a collection of short stories that do not reflect well on the Welsh. He was pretty much shunned thereafter, for airing Wales’ dirty laundry before an English public. For someone wanting to write in the space between Wales and England he was a guide – and a warning!

Tell me about the title. Was it always thus?

I *think* so. I can’t remember it ever having a different title. I think as soon as I knew the Treachery of the Long Knives was going to be a major component, I liked the idea of Mai being a ‘short knife’ in contrast to the men. Back then everyone would have had their own knife, worn on their belt, for all kinds of simple domestic tasks. I liked the idea of something innocuous coming to be significant.

I wonder if you could recommend other books. A kind of “If you enjoyed The Short Knife then you will love…”

Ooh, yes please! There are some amazing YA historical fiction writers working just now. The voice in ‘Cane Warriors’ by Alex Wheatle is just amazing. Everything Tanya Landman has ever written is fire. I also love Catherine Johnson’s work, especially ‘The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo’.

What’s next for Elen Caldecott?

I’m working on a novel for middle grade readers just now. It’s set in North Wales, but has a big dollop of fantasy in it, as well as the village life I saw as I grew up. I’m really enjoying bringing in more Wales into my writing than I ever have before.

This interview took place between Elen Caldecott and Simon Fisher over a number of months. I am really grateful to Elen for her patience (not least with my questions) and for her generous and thoughtful answers. Diolch Elen.

Do get yourself a copy of The Short Knife from your local bookshop. You can follow Elen on Twitter or visit her website. If you enjoyed this interview, I can strongly recommend the Just Imagine podcast that features Elen talking in more detail about this extraordinary book.

Q and A: Cathy Fisher

Cathy Fisher is the illustrator of the visually stunning collaboration with Nicola Davies, The New Girl. A tender and emotive artist, this is the third such collaboration published by Graffeg, following on from The Pond and Perfect.

Cathy has also illustrated Nicola’s Country Tales series, bringing their total output to 8 books, with more to come.

The New Girl addresses bullying, acceptance and inclusion through a simple yet powerful story of a young girl moving schools. The gorgeously sympathetic and thought-provoking compositions add to the narrative; the child who looks different is singled out, but the girl remains faceless and nameless, as do the bullies lurking in the shadows.

An act of kindness crosses a cultural divide, causes intrigue and invokes fascination and interest – the children watch and listen. Then kindness is given a face and a name. The beauty unfurls as the pages are turned – Cathy turns shadows to light, colours brighten and hard edges soften as Kiku warms cold hearts and opens closed minds; the transformation is evident through the change in palette and tones. The New Girl is a truly stunning picturebook.

You can see images from the book and hear Nicola Davies read an extract in this film made by publisher Graffeg.

We are thrilled to welcome Cathy Fisher to the bookworms’ blog today and have the opportunity to celebrate this superb book.

Hello Cathy, What are you reading at the moment?

I’ve just read When The Whales Leave, by Yuri Rytkheu, (translated by Ilona Yazhbin,) published by Milkweed Editions – and I am half way through This is Happiness, by Niall Williams, published by Bloomsbury

Can you tell us a bit about how you started in illustration?

I trained in fashion and textile design (a very long time ago) and soon after was lucky to be teaching foundation art and design, a course to prepare students for an art degree. During this time I got my first commission to illustrate a series of book covers for stories for teens.

I left the UK to teach in an art school in the Seychelles and 4 years later moved to Australia, where I became a busy mum, while working as an artist. It wasn’t until my kids were older and we had moved back to the UK that I started illustrating again. I worked for a graphics company, illustrating small pictures for school books and educational resources.

I have always drawn and painted, but I have never been much good at selling my work. One day though, about 6 years ago, I met the lovely Nicola Davies. She had seen one of my pictures on my friend’s wall and had asked my friend for my details. The first time I met her I knew I had a lifelong friend and collaborator… she is amazing! Nicola introduced me to Graffeg Publishing and a year later Perfect was published – my first proper children’s picture book! Then the next year The Pond followed and so we continue to work together!

How do you describe your illustration process?

First I read the story over and over again and do a lot of thinking and research. I spend as much time thinking about the pictures as I do painting them. I try to imagine I am each of the characters, including the wildlife, and how that feels.

I draw lots of sketches, work out the page spreads in a roughly drawn storyboard, think about the space for the words and space for thought. I then send roughs to publishers.

For the final illustrations I prefer large sheets of heavyweight watercolour paper. I draw and paint with pencil, charcoal, watercolour paints, inks and crayons. I paint in layers of tone and colour with the different media, and sometimes make quite a mess. It is not always easy and I often have to struggle through a pain barrier, but, if I’m lucky, a picture will eventually start to sing. I sometimes find it difficult to know when to stop!

You’ve had a very successful picturebook partnership with the amazing Nicola Davies – what’s it like working with her?

It is always brilliant working with Nicola. She is a genius! She is a scientist as well as writer and artist. She knows so much! Her writing is so skilled. She can say so much, with so few words, with such perception and imagination. When thinking about pictures we are often on the same wave length, which makes working with her very easy as she trusts my illustrative response to her writing. She is a brilliant artist herself so won’t always need me, but I hope we will continue to collaborate together for a long time. We are currently very close to each other in Pembrokeshire, so I am very lucky to be able to see her frequently.

How did the latest book, The New Girl, come to fruition?

Nicola read me the story of The New Girl and asked if I’d like to illustrate it – of course I did! I was in Australia when I received the contract from Graffeg, so I starting thinking about the story then. I came to Pembrokeshire early this year and was staying with Jackie Morris when UK first went into lock-down. Jackie was wonderful and very kindly gave me the space and time to work in her home, while I worked on the New Girl every day. I would talk to Nicola and send her photos from my phone of the pictures as I did them. I finished the illustrations just as the first lockdown ended.

The book deals with unkindness and ostracisation at school. You become aware of this through the empathy-filled illustrations as well as the text. What techniques do you use to portray these strong emotions?

I purposely gave each double-page spread a lot of space, exaggerating the school walls and stairs, to illustrate the isolation Kiku, the new girl, might feel coming from another country to a strange new school. I thought about her posture and body language. I conveyed the unkindness of the other children with long shadows. I purposely kept the colours in the early spreads fairly minimal, then slowly added more colour and detail, as the new girl began to warm the hearts of the other children. I also used symbols, like the broken vase, which on the last page has been put back together again, (in Japanese it is called Kintsugi,) as a metaphor that something broken can be mended and made beautiful.

Growing up with 8 brothers and sisters you must have some good tips for dealing with conflict?

I was in the middle of my siblings, as the fourth child of nine, and learnt I could make myself almost invisible. This was sometimes a very useful trick, as it kept me out of trouble. But now, being invisible is no longer helpful to me, so perhaps it is not a good tip! I grew up in a fairly chaotic, noisy environment – but we lived by fields and woods and ran wild amongst nature. Although it could be difficult at home sometimes, there was escape and freedom in our surroundings and always a place outside to find peace. It is where I found my love of nature, which has always helped me when I feel troubled.

Previous picture-books The Pond and Perfect have also dealt with serious and important issues; the death of a parent and sibling disability. What is the place of picturebooks in tackling such themes?

I am quite old now with quite a lot of experience. The most important thing we adults can do is to truly celebrate our children. To gently nurture them with love and kindness and share a joy for life and the natural world, teaching them all beings are equal and need looking after.

But we also have a duty to help them understand that life is not always fun and easy. I do not believe we are protecting our children by shielding them from the truth of serious and important issues – we need to be honest. Reading stories, sharing with them a love of words and pictures, and giving children the time to read, listen and talk, is one of the best gifts we can give our children. Picture books are incredibly important as they can teach empathy at an early age and help children understand difficult emotions. A good picture book can help children feel something that isn’t easy to say in words. Talking about death, grief, differences in each other, things we might feel bad about, painful emotions, is very important and needs to be approached with kindness and sensitivity… this is where good stories and pictures help.

There are a lot of hands in the book which are notoriously difficult to draw. Any tips?

I love children’s drawings. I love watching them draw. Hands are so expressive, that is why I drew a lot of them! I wanted to express joy, in the shape of a flower, with all the children’s hands in Kiku’s class. There are stories in the hands!

The only tip I can give is not to be scared of drawing!.. and do not care what other people think about your drawing! If I am finding something difficult to draw I try to forget the object or subject I am drawing and think of it more abstractly, looking at the negative shapes around it and thinking of it as patterns and tones and colours. If you like drawing keep drawing! I believe everyone can draw, they just think they can’t. Drawing doesn’t always have to look like something, it can be patterns or about feeling.

Handwriting is drawing. We all learn to write and each person’s handwriting is unique. The only difference between drawing and handwriting is you are taking handwriting on an adventure…into other shapes and places, all over the paper and sometimes filling it with colour…. Joy!

You’ve also worked with Nicola on the Country Tales series. Which has been your favourite to illustrate?

Hmm. That’s a hard question. I enjoyed doing all the covers. I illustrated the series while I was in Australia. There is still one more book to do. I think my favourite to illustrate was probably Pretend Cows. The cover is my friend’s daughter and she’s in a gum tree, not an apple tree… but don’t tell anyone!

You normally spend your time between Australia and the UK, but we understand you’ve been locked down in Pembrokeshire. Has this been a blessing or a curse?

I really appreciate that lockdown is an extremely difficult time for so many people. But I count myself as one of the very lucky ones. I am lucky to be in a beautiful place in Pembrokeshire, which is such a blessing. I have since become a bit of a hermit and am very happy to be working in the studio all day long and not go anywhere, except for walks. The sad thing for me is that the pandemic has separated me from my husband, he’s on the other side of the world in Western Australia, so we haven’t seen each other since February but we do talk every day and will eventually be reunited! The happy thing is I see Jackie Morris every day and Nicola Davies quite a lot.

Could you recommend any favourite picturebooks?

Oh my goodness, that is such a difficult question! There are so many beautiful picture books. If I start listing them I am bound to miss a favourite out! This year alone has produced some beautiful books. When I’m painting pictures and start to feel stuck, I often look at John Burningham’s books or Brian Wildsmith’s pictures. I love the whimsy, freedom and textures in their art.

But my recent favourites, in no particular order are:

  • Dog, Shaun Tan
  • The Promise, Nicola Davies and Laura Carling
  • I Talk Like a River, Jordon Scott and Sydney Smith
  • The House by The Lake, Thomas Harding and Britta Teckentrp
  • Lost Spells, Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane (all of her books and collaborations with other illustrators)
  • Mrs Noah’s Garden, Jackie Morris and James Mayhew
  • Last, Nicola Davies, (all of her books and collaborations with other illustrators!)
  • The Best Place in the World, by Petr Horacek (all of his books)
  • The Girl Who became Tree, by Joseph Coelho and Kate Milner

Images from your Twitter account show pandas and cockatoos – are these clues to future books?

They are! The panda pictures are for a story called The Panda Child, which Jackie Morris has written. It is very beautiful timeless story, but it is a bit daunting to illustrate a book with Jackie  as she has such an amazing reputation as an author and illustrator, she is an absolutely brilliant artist. I am very fortunate to be collaborating with her. Her agent is currently finding the right publisher for the book.

The same goes for the pictures with a sulphur-crested cockatoo, (my best friends in Australia.) These are early illustrations for a picture book written by Nicola Davies, called Mr Horstman’s Parrot. Nicola has left a lot of space in the story for me to elaborate visually which I’m looking forward to doing. It is another of her beautiful, powerful stories.

Anything else to declare?

Hmmm?… Occasionally I have times of great doubt, and I wonder why the work of making pictures feels so important to me? Unless you are very famous, an illustrator doesn’t earn very much money. But, when I push passed my doubt and insecurity, I always come back to remembering the influence that picture books had on me in my young life. How they were a place to escape, made me feel so much part of the picture, and how much they taught me.  So I feel such joy when I hear a parent, teacher or child say that a book with my pictures has opened up conversation they have never had before, or have made them feel emotions that open a new door, or simply that they just love the pictures.

The only other thing to declare is that I intend to keep making pictures.

Thank you so very much to Cathy for taking the time to answer our questions with such care and attention. The New Girl is published by Graffeg and is available from your local independent bookshop.

Follow Cathy on Twitter to see beautiful examples of her work (and sneak previews of future books).

Pirate Nell’s Tale to Tell

A review and Q&A with Helen Docherty and Thomas Docherty.

Pirate Nell’s Tale to Tell is the latest collaboration between husband and wife team Helen and Thomas Docherty. The pair have separate successful careers but have often worked together with amazing results.

Helen has always loved stories and as a child would make her own books (you can see some fine examples on her website). Her early career was as a languages teacher both in the UK and in South America. In 2010, encouraged by Thomas, she began writing again and they published ‘Ruby Nettleship and the Ice Lolly’ together. This was followed in 2013 by her first rhyming text, The Snatchabook, since translated into 22 languages, nominated for many awards and considered a classic by everyone from Booktrust to CBeebies.

Since he was very young, Thomas has always enjoyed drawing and keeping sketchbooks. He was a big Asterix fan. His first book, Little Boat was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal in 2009. He has since written and illustrated 4 more solo works, 5 books with Helen and 5 books with other authors.

They live in Swansea with their two children and, through Storyopolis, enjoy helping children and young people to write their own Book in a Day.

Pirate Nell’s Tale to Tell (Sourcebooks) is a charming and colourful rhyming story about independent Nell. Beautifully detailed illustrations capture the tumbling waves, sea monsters and idiosyncratic shipmates. Our eponymous heroine, the newest member of the pirate crew, relies on knowledge, learning and books to chart the seas and live the pirate life. Captain Gnash is too proud, dismissive and closed to new ideas, and he certainly doesn’t approve of books being on board! Cue Nell showing him the error of his ways, the joy of books and reading, and finding life’s real treasure.

We are delighted that Helen and Thomas have answered some of our questions. Huge thanks to them both.

What are you reading at the moment?

Helen: I’ve just finished Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo, and I’m sorry it’s come to an end; it was a brilliant and absorbing read.

I still read to our girls (age 10 and 12) every night, though they’re both avid readers themselves. Over half term we enjoyed Carbonel by Barbara Sleigh – a Halloween gem from my own childhood. We’ve just started The Castle of Tangled Magic by Sophie Anderson and next up is Max Kowalski Didn’t Mean It by Susie Day.

Thomas: In an attempt to keep my Welsh up over lockdown (we’ve been learning for a number of years) I’ve got through most of my daughter’s Welsh teen novels, most recently the Yma trilogy by Lleucu Roberts, but also her brilliant adult novel Saith Oes Efa (challenging Welsh but very rewarding). Before that I read two books by Kathleen Jamie, Sightlines and Among Muslims, both beautifully observed and poetic real journeys in words.

As a husband and wife picturebook team you must have more opportunity to discuss your ideas together?

Helen: Yes, we’re very lucky in that we can brainstorm ideas for stories, give each other feedback on story drafts and develop characters or plots together. The first book we collaborated on, Ruby Nettleship and the Ice Lolly Adventure, was very much a joint effort. Having said that, when Tom is working flat out illustrating a book, he doesn’t have a lot of free time (or headspace) to discuss new ideas – it’s such a time-consuming job!

Do your own children input into your ideas?

Helen: A few years ago, a conversation with our youngest daughter directly inspired me to write a picture book text. She asked me whether it’s possible for a parent to love a new baby as much as their other children, and I reassured her that we’re not born with a limited amount of love to give, and that You Can Never Run Out of Love. As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew I was onto something, and I started working on the text that very night.

Similarly, our eldest daughter was feeling anxious at the beginning of lockdown this spring – as so many of us were – and missing her friends and grandparents. I wrote a new picture book text, All the Things We Carry, partly in response to this. The central message is that we don’t have to bear our worries alone; we carry one another, even when we are apart.

Thomas: I love our daughters’ pictures (all children’s pictures) and I sometimes wish my own illustrations could be as free and spontaneous as theirs. I’m still waiting for them to hand me a best seller on a plate though!

Helen, when you start to write a picturebook text, what are you hoping to achieve? (Do you have a set of overarching aims?)

Helen: Picture books are a child’s first encounter with books and stories. They can help to frame children’s understanding of the world, and they introduce them to new concepts and ideas. They can also be a vehicle for exploring different emotions and how we deal with them. That’s why writing picture books feels like such a privilege to me – and also a responsibility. I want each book I write to carry a positive message – not just for children, but for the adults reading it, too. I want children to care about the characters in each story. And, of course, I want to entertain my audience.

What, do you think, makes a successful picturebook?

Helen: There are so many different ways in which a picture book can be successful. I guess the ultimate litmus test is, do you want to read it – or have it read to you – again (and again)? The best picture books endure multiple readings, and become more loved over time.

Thomas, the endpapers are often a place of innovation, humour and thought-provocation. What is their importance?

Thomas: When creating the endpapers you are freed from the constraints of the story, but at the same time you have the chance to add something new or unexpected. It’s a chance to take the reader further into the visual world you have created, maybe in a different direction. I sometimes like the end papers more than the illustrations inside the book, possibly because they stand alone and speak for themselves.

Pirate Nell celebrates the power of reading. Sharing stories is also a central theme of The Knight Who Wouldn’t Fight and The Snatchabook. Are you on a mission?

Helen: Apparently so! Believe it or not, it’s never been intentional, in that I didn’t set out to write a series of ‘books about books.’ However, I’ve always been a bookworm and I strongly believe in the power of stories to bring people together and nurture empathy, so perhaps it’s no surprise that it’s become a recurring theme.

Captain Gnash is the ‘top dog’, yet he doesn’t listen and is quite arrogant. Is it too much to read a political message into the story?

Helen: What could a greedy, power-obsessed pirate captain with an over-inflated ego, a disdain for books and very few actual skills possibly have in common with any of the great political leaders of our time?

I hope our young readers will be more inspired by Pirate Nell’s example; she is brave, compassionate and eager to share and to help others.

Note: The character of Captain Gnash was first conceived in an earlier version of the story, Captain Gnash and the Wrong Treasure, which I started working on at the very end of 2016. Here are the opening verses:

Just two things mattered to Captain Gnash:

Making his fortune; and fame.

He was desperate to find some treasure,

And for all to know his name.

He worked very hard on his image

(He took selfies every day).

But woe betide any pirate

Who dared to get in his way.

His temper tantrums were famous;

You could hear them for miles around.

The other pirates did their best

To block out the terrible sound.

The book features some glorious seascapes and coastal illustrations. Are you inspired by your local Swansea shores?

Thomas: If I wasn’t a children’s book illustrator I would like to draw landscapes. In fact, I often sketch when we go out walking – so I’m definitely inspired by the Swansea shores. The Knight who Wouldn’t Fight is full of Brecon Beacons inspired hills, a nod to Castell Carreg Cennen and a twisty tree you can find half way up Skirrid Fawr.

Helen: Absolutely! I grew up by the sea (in Weymouth, Dorset) and I’m so happy that we live by the sea on the beautiful Gower peninsula now. Knowing how much Tom loves to draw the sea, I wrote Pirate Nell’s Tale To Tell  for him to illustrate.

You’re both learning Welsh. Sut mae’n mynd?

Thomas: Da iawn diolch!

Helen: It’s been a real effort over many years, but we’re both so happy that we can now speak (and understand) Welsh – as can our daughters, who both attend Welsh medium schools. Cymraeg was my Granny’s first language, and she would be so proud – and pretty amazed – to see us all now. O bydded i’r hen iaith barhau!

Could you recommend any favourite picturebooks?

Thomas: Don’t Cross The Line! By Isabel Minhos Martins and Bernardo P. Carvalho

Anything illustrated by Christian Robinson

Helen: We have so many favourites in our house – too many to mention! Anything by Shirley Hughes. I would second Christian Robinson’s books – he’s a genius. When Tom and I first met, we found we had a favourite picture book from our respective childhoods in common: How Tom Beat Captain Najork and his Hired Sportsmen by Russell Hoban and Quentin Blake. One of the books which has most inspired me over time is The Sneetches by the great Dr Seuss. And a book I always return to is Leon and Bob by Simon James. So understated, so much heart – and the best last line in any picture book I’ve ever read. Gets me every time.

The Screen Thief is coming in 2021. What can you tell us about it? Is it a follow-up to The Snatchabook?

Helen: The Screen Thief is about a little creature called the Snaffle who arrives in the city hoping to make friends to play with. Unfortunately, everyone is too busy looking at their screens. When the Snaffle eats a stray mobile phone out of curiosity, she develops a taste for screens… But will they ever really satisfy her hunger? This story was so much fun to write, and I love the world that Thomas has created with his illustrations. It wasn’t intended as a follow-up to The Snatchabook, but there are obvious similarities. And Snatchabook fans might enjoy spotting Eliza and her friend on a couple of pages in The Screen Thief.

Do you have any other projects on the horizon?

Thomas: I’ve got a new book of my own out with Egmont in April called The Horse That Jumped – it’s full of landscapes! Helen and I are also working on a new book together for Sourcebooks in the US called Orange Moon, Blue Baboon and I’m just starting the illustrations for that now.

Helen: I have three other picture books commissioned by different publishers, all soon to be illustrated (by different illustrators, not Thomas): All the Things We Carry, The Bee Who Loved Words and Someone Just Like You. And of course, I’m always working on new story ideas… Watch this space!

Thanks again to Helen and Thomas for taking the time to answer our questions. Pirate Nell’s Tale to Tell is published by Sourcebooks and is available from your local independent bookshop.

Thomas’ new book, The Horse That Jumped is published in April 2021 by Egmont. The Screen Thief publishes with Alison Green Books in May 2021.

Follow Thomas on Twitter and visit his website. Follow Helen and click here for her website.

Q and A: Jack Meggitt-Phillips

The Beast and The Bethany by Cardiff-born writer Jack Meggitt-Phillips is published on 1 October 2020. This dastardly inventive and hilarious novel channels Dahl and Lemony Snicket in a tale about the Beast in the attic who’s hungry for, well, anything. It’s an absolute delight – brilliantly written so that it can be enjoyed by a wide range of ages (including adults!). Kit (aged 7) thought it was the “best book I’ve ever read”, and it was similarly devoured (gettit?) by 13-year-old Hobbit-loving Noah. The film rights have been snapped up so we’re at the start of something huge. It’s only proper that we should invite Jack to answer a few questions…

The Beast and The Bethany is the first book in a trilogy that was highly-sought after by publishers and has been snapped up by a film company too. These are exciting times for you…

It’s all delightfully bonkers, and I’m still trying to find a way of telling people I’m a children’s author without blushing purple and combusting into a flurry of awkwardness.

I’m very grateful for the chance that I’ve been given, and if there’s a chance that my books can give children the same feeling I experienced when reading The Bad Beginning for the first time, then I shall be brimming with ever greater quantities of delight.

The story has drawn comparisons to Roald Dahl, Despicable Me, Little Shop of Horrors, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Lemony Snicket. Which of these comparisons is the most accurate/helpful?

It’s a fabulous list of comparisons, isn’t it? May have to frame this question for my wall.

The plot probably shares most in common with Dorian Gray. It’s about a 511-year-old called Ebenezer Tweezer who keeps a beast he keeps in his attic. He feeds the beast all manner of things (hedgehogs, chandeliers, the occasional pet cat), and in return the beast vomits out presents, as well as potions which keep him young and beautiful.

One day, the beast announces that it wants to eat a child, and so Ebenezer brings a rebellious prankster into the house – one who will be a lot trickier to get into the beast’s belly than any cat or chandelier.  Enter Bethany . . .

The story seems delightfully bizarre featuring parrots who sing like Elvis and a blob who lives in the attic. What’s the most bonkers detail that you included?

There’s an exceptionally silly scene in Buckingham Palace involving a stand-off between Bethany, and the Queen’s chief under-butler, Perkins. Fully expecting to receive a firmly written letter of complaint from Her Majesty about it.

Were there any details considered too farout by your editor?

Unfortunately, my agent and editors have been terribly bad influences on my penchant for silliness There are now twice as many Elvis parrots, twelve more squashed muffin sandwiches, and a whole gaggle of villainous household appliances because of them.

Are you looking forward to seeing your creations come to life on film?

This was another moment when I squealed ungainly with delight. The beast and I couldn’t hope for better partners in Heyday Films and Warner Bros., in our quest to delight and terrify as many children as possible.

Do you have more of an affinity to The Beast or Bethany?

Both are far too ill-mannered for my tastes, and frankly I don’t think either of them would care to spend any time in my company unless they could chomp my head off, or pull some ghastly prank on me.

I have far more in common with Ebenezer Tweezer, and his obsession with velvet waistcoats and eccentric teas. He has better hair than me, and somewhat looser morals, but aside from that I think we’d get on very well.

Have you already completed the trilogy? What can you tell us about the other 2 books?

The series is essentially going to be about two misguided people trying, and miserably failing to become do-gooders. All whilst saving themselves and their friends from the beast’s dastardly, bone-crunching villainy. 

I’m currently in edits for book 2. After that, the beast, the Bethany, Ebenezer and I are going to have a long, serious think about what we can try and get away with for the next book.

You are a scriptwriter and podcast presenter – how did you get into writing for children?

I had been working on another book for a few months, which just sort of collapsed at the seams. The characters weren’t behaving themselves, the plot was pettily refusing to come together, and my interest in the thing was wilting faster than a dying daffodil.

I started The Beast and the Bethany, because I wanted to have some fun writing again, and because the idea had been scratching away in the back of my brain for a while.  I’ve now buried that other book in the back garden. 

What are you reading at the moment?

For years I’ve been struggling with a worrying habit for Victorian literature, and it only seems to be worsening. Currently I can be found wearing a cloak, carrying a candle, and cackling menacingly at The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins.  

Where and when do you write?

I write exclusively in my dressing gown, which can make my attempts to write on train journeys a little awkward.

My most productive times are before I’ve had breakfast, and before I go to bed. I’m like a needy puppy – I need the reward of a pain au chocolat or bedtime in order to get me writing.  

What are your favourite books for children?

The books I’ve enjoy most are the ones that feel like they’re too mischievous or macabre to be written for children. Books like those belonging to Mr Snicket and Mr Dahl deserve all the praise and plaudits that are heaped upon them, and I would also put in a very warm word for a book called ‘The Day My Bum Went Psycho’ by Andy Griffiths.

Can you tell us about your Welsh connections and inspirations?

Well, one of the biggest influences on my writing has to be the modern series of Doctor Who, and frankly anything written by Russell T Davies – what a legend.

My running/ out-of-breath stroll route in Wales also takes me past the Mrs Pratchett’s Sweetshop plaque – the one featured in Roald Dahl’s Boy, so that always cheers me up. It also gives me an urge for sweets, which immediately undoes any of the good work done by my attempt at exercise.   

We’ve heard that you’re fond of tea. Any thoughts on Welsh tea?

Several. Enough to bore even the most patient and indulgent of listeners to tears.

Waterloo Tea Gardens, Cardiff

However, I shall spare your readers the agony by confining my recommendation to any of the loose-leaf delights from Waterloo Tea Gardens. The Orange Blossom green tea is a personal favourite.

Can you tell us something about your next book/idea/future plans?

I’ve always loved horror stories with a supernatural tinge, and especially those that can make you jump between laughter and screams. So currently having a bash at one of those.

Huge thanks to Jack for answering our questions! You can follow him on Twitter. The Beast and The Bethany is published by Egmont and you can pick up a copy in your local independent bookshop.