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 […]
Tell me what inspired you to write for children? Two things really. First, I have two young children myself, 8 and 11 now, and over the past few years I have really enjoyed getting back into children’s literature and reading them stories at bedtime. There’s so much excellent new stuff nowadays! (although I also read them the books that I enjoyed as a child). I got excited about children’s books […]
Tell me what inspired you to write Brightstorm? I’ve always loved real-life stories of exploration like Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition to Antarctica. My initial idea for Brightstorm came from Shackleton’s advert to find his crew. I also love Amelia Earhart for how she influenced so many females to pursue their dreams – she inspired the captain of the main sky-ship in Brightstorm, Harriet Culpepper. How hard was it to get […]
Tell me what inspired you to write crime books? When I was a kid I lived in Africa. My parents used to go to sleep for an hour or two every afternoon because it was so hot. I never could, so I worked my way through their green-backed Penguins. I think boredom is a great motivator! What can you tell us about your books currently published? In paperback I have […]