Louise Ellis-Barrett recently had the pleasure of interviewing Liz Kessler about her beautiful and recently published North of Nowhere, read on to hear more about this and Liz's other magical stories.
You have
written a number of books now, many with a nautical theme, is this inspired by
your location or does it have a more longstanding connection than that for you? I grew up in a seaside town and have
always had a sense of the hugeness and the power of the ocean somewhere nearby.
I love the sea and I love boats and always have done, so I know that this
inspires a lot of my writing. The fact that I now live by the sea once again
does inspire my writing – but yes, this love for the sea is also pretty deep
for me and is part of what makes me tick.
North of
Nowhere is not your only standalone novel but I believe that it is unusual for
you to write stand alone books. Do you
find series easier or did this story just lend itself to being a one off? I love doing both. I love Emily Windsnap,
as she started everything off for me, and I love revisiting her story and
writing books in that series. And Philippa Fisher was such fun to write, and
moved me into new areas with the kind of subject matter I covered. But I also
wanted to write some standalone books, and am very grateful that Orion have let
me do that too! I absolutely love time slip stories, and my intention is that
there will be three of these in total over the next few years, each dealing
with time slip issues in a different way
When you
set out to write a story how much do you plan in advance and how much is left
to the whims and fancies or even personalities of the characters themselves? I am the biggest planner I know! I
spend a long time planning and I don’t begin writing my story until I’m happy
that I know what’s going on from start to finish. But that isn’t to say I don’t
let my characters have any part in determining the plot. They are part of what
guides me through the whole process – they just do more of it in the planning
stage than the stage where I write the first draft. But even then, they do
still surprise me along the way!
North of
Nowhere is a very accomplished story of entwined lives and histories, read and
understood on one level, I think, by adults, and on another by children. Did you feel this as you wrote it? Thank you. I didn’t think about whether
it would be read and understood on different levels by adults and children. I
just wrote it in the way that felt right for me, and for the story. But I know
that adult friends have enjoyed A Year
Without Autumn, so I’d be absolutely delighted if they enjoy North of Nowhere in the same way.
There is
one narrator in the story, Mia, and she speaks for herself, and I feel
Dee. how easy was it to create their
voices, making them unique and yet similar? The important thing is to get to know
the characters as well as possible. I do quite a lot of work on this before I
start writing. Once I’m as familiar as possible with my characters, their
voices tend to come quite naturally. If it’s worked in the way that I hope for
it to do so then that’s great!
I love
the way in which you have chosen to use narrative and diary entries to tell the
story, it is real time and yet also not.
Which was the hardest part to write?
The hardest part of this story was
getting the continuity right. With a quite complicated time travel situation, I
made lots of mistakes and left lots of loose ends trailing, originally.
Thankfully I have a wonderful editor (Amber Caravéo at Orion Children’s Books)
and she hopefully spotted all of these before we went to publication.
Were you
a diary keeper as a child, or did you ever, as Mia, feel that you just needed a
friend who was coming from the same place as you - if that is not too personal
a question? I think this is a key element of the book and one that young
readers will very much warm too, it is a theme and a feeling that I think most
will have at some point whilst growing up. I started writing a diary when I was
about nine or ten, and continued to do so for about ten years. It was a massive
part of this period for me and was the way that I tended to organise and
understand my feelings about a lot of things. As to the second question, I
probably did feel that I wanted to be understood and wanted someone coming from
the same place as me. But then, I think most of us do!
Do you
put much of yourself or your own experiences, friends and places you know into
your writing or do you try to keep it as depersonalised as possible? I think somewhere between the two. I
never intend to put people I know into my characters, but the odd trait does
creep in. And I never intend that my characters are a reflection of myself, but
I often get told that certain ones are! For me, writing a book isn’t an
autobiographical experience, but it is one that involves putting something of
yourself into it. Margaret Atwood once said ‘There’s always a drop of blood in
the cookie’ and whilst I don’t think I’ve ever actually cut myself whilst
baking cookies, I understand what she means and I think she’s right.
Was the
story difficult to write and plan? How
long did it take you to get it all right?
I am trying I suppose to ask you about the plot twist at the end without
giving the story away! It was very difficult to write and plan.
Probably the hardest yet – and I remember feeling pretty drained and exhausted
once it was done! It just took so much thinking to make it all work. The plot
twist at the end was always part of it for me. One thing that I love about time
travel is the circularity (if that’s a word!) of it. It’s not about time moving
forward in a linear way, but about the past, present and future all being able
to affect and impinge on each other, and that’s what I hope you really feel
happening in this book.
Have you
ever considered writing for adults or are you very happy with children's
fiction? Is there more scope for the
imagination and storytelling with a children's book? I love what I do and I love the
audience I write for. Right now, I don’t have any plans to change it. I can’t
really compare how much scope there is compared to a book for adults, because I
haven’t tried to write a book for adults! But what I do know is that writing
for children allows me to write with the imagination, plot and characters that
I really enjoy.
Do you
take inspiration from the people you meet in your author capacity or more from
the world around you, where you live and stories or folk tales that you hear? I can take inspiration from anything and anyone! In terms of
stories, it’s quite often a place that I visit that inspires an idea for a
book. This has happened at least three or four times. But it can also be a
memory, a tale that someone tells me, a person I pass in the street – anything. The
important thing is to keep your author antennae fresh and in good working order
so that you spot these moments of inspiration when they come along!
I found
myself drawn to Mia and to an extent Dee but I felt that the adults were very
much on the periphery of the story, there because children need them and they
were an important part of the back story but not needed for the main
action. Do you like to have an adult
voice in your stories to remind children they need adults? No not at all. I try to have all the
characters in a book that feel right for the story. In a children’s book, I
think it’s important that the children are at the centre of the action, but if
there are adults who are relevant to the story then I don’t have a problem with
them being there too.
Mia
seemed to me to be older than her years in her reading f situations and yet
very young too. Her age is not given but I imagined her to be
11 or 12. Do you purposefully avoid
being too prescriptive about ages?
I didn’t realise Mia’s age is never
mentioned. I thought it was! She is thirteen, and as she says early on, is in
Year 8 at school. I don’t try to avoid anything about ages – I actually try to
be quite clear about it!
Are you a
big reader of children's fiction or do you prefer to keep it safely as your day
job and then resort to adult literature? I read all sorts – children’s, YA,
adult. As long as it’s got a good story and is well-written and holds my
interest, I don’t mind what it is.
North of
Nowhere is a clever and intriguing title.
What came first, the story or the title? The story, by a long way. It took a
year of driving all my friends and fellow writers mad before one of them
finally came up with the perfect title for me. (And she has a thank you in the
book for doing so!)
Do you
have a title in mind that you would one day love to use? Do you have a favourite book title from a
book written by someone else? Gosh. Short answer is no on both
counts!
Who is
your favourite author from childhood and what is your favourite childhood
book? Did you read the type of books you
write? I didn’t really have a favourite author
as such, although I did love a lot of Enid Blyton books. A couple of favourite
books from my childhood would be The
Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster, and The Wishing Chair, by Enid Blyton. I don’t know if they are the
kind of books I write, although I think there is quite a bit in common.
Ordinary children living in a contemporary world but with a bit of magic coming
into their lives in one way or another.
Who is
your favourite author now and what book is currently on the top of your reading
pile? I still don’t really have a favourite
author! I just like reading whatever I want to read at the time. Right now, I’m
reading a YA book, How to Save a Life by
Sara Zarr, as a bookshop friend recommended it. Before that, I read Eat, Pray, Love (Elizabeth Gilbert) and
next in line will probably be one of the books given to me in a book swap with
some fellow children’s authors!
Thank you for all your great questions,
and thank you for having me here at Armadillo J
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