Tell me what inspired you to write your debut novel? The characters? The setting? A clock. When I came across it in a shop in a back alley in Istanbul, I was intrigued to discover that it was made in Leadenhall St, London, in 1752. The clock cast a spell over me, making me want to find out why it was made, and what brought it to the city. That […]
Tell me what inspired you to write for children? Kick-starting a child’s passion for reading or writing is definitely a huge inspiration for me. I was book-obsessed when I was younger so the thought of being that author for a child is something that drives me to write and research my stories as best as possible. How hard was it to get your first book published? I have the privilege […]
Tell me what inspired you to write for children?Honor is dyslexic but always loved stories and so for the whole of her childhood, we were reading together and listening to books too. There’s a freedom and a joy (or at least a hopefulness) about children’s books that is irresistible. More directly, our first books (the Waiting for Callback series) came about because Honor dipped her toe into the world of […]
Tell me what inspired you to write for children? My initial impulse is to tell you that I was inspired to write this story and it just so happened to be a children’s story. However, I think the truth is that I still feel connected to who I was as a child and love the magic of children’s stories and still read them all the time. They’re not bogged down […]
Tell me what inspired you to write for children? As a teacher and parent of two young boys, I’m around children all the time. I love sharing stories with kids so I suppose at some point I must have thought I’d give it a go myself. I can’t really pin-point the exact moment that I first sat down to write. How hard was it to get your first book published? […]
Tell me what inspired you to write for children? As a child, I loved books. The wonderment, the characters I met, the places I travelled to. I have beautiful, fond memories of books and the magic of stories from my childhood. As I writer, I’ve always wanted to create books that provide that same wonderment for children. How hard was it to get your first book published? Getting anything published […]
What inspired you to write crime set in Turkey? I’ve always been a crime fiction fan. But when I wanted to read something set in a country I’d been going to all my life, I couldn’t find anything at the time (1990s) except the 1950s espionage novels of Eric Ambler. And so, first of all as a way of relaxing after my stressful job in a psychiatric hospital, I decided […]
Tell me what inspired you to write The Mystery of The Colour Thief? I was volunteering as a school governor at an inner city primary school, where the headteacher had recently introduced an in-school counselling service. She was telling us about its positive effects, and mentioned a pupil who had come to her office saying the sessions had made ‘the colours return’ in her life. Her words stayed with me […]