What do you hope for in your future as an author?
I can’t wait to get into doing school visits once it’s safe to do so – that’s one part of being an author I have missed out on this year! Long term, a dream project would be to write a book for World Book Day.
How do cope with writing about such emotionally challenging contexts, such as a young boy constantly searching unsuccessfully for his younger brother?
All stories need some sad or scary bits for the characters to overcome. I think the trick is to be mean enough to make them suffer, but have enough heart to give the reader hope.
Are there any books already published, that you wish you could have written?
So many! Jennifer Killick’s Crater Lake, Kirsty Applebaum’s Troofriend, Elle McNichol’s A Kind of Spark, Nick Tomlinson’s Ghouls of Howlfair, HS Norup’s The Hungry Ghost and the out-in-January Darwin’s Dragons by Lindsay Galvin have all made me feel very jealous of their skills.
Do you have any writing routines?
I have a day job and two children so I have to be very flexible about when and where I write – any moment of quiet is a good opportunity! A luxury is to go and write in a coffee shop – something about the background noise and peace makes it so easy to write.
How do you construct your story arc? Do you plan, or just see what happens?
I have to plan because I tie myself in knots easily. Often the plan gets changed quite a bit as I write and realise things don’t quite work. I’m amazed by anyone who can just start typing and end up with a whole book!
If teachers wanted to use your book in the classroom, do you have any top ideas for how to do this?
This is a hard one because I’m not a teacher and I’m sure my ideas wouldn’t be anywhere near as good as theirs. Authorfy very kindly put together a scheme of work for The Vanishing Trick which looks amazing. You can find it here:
Thank you to Jenni for taking the time to answer my questions!
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