I am very excited to welcome Michelle Lovric to Bookbabblers today. I am a huge fan of Michelle’s writing and i’ll be reviewing her latest book ‘The Fate in the Box’ later this week.

I wanted to start the interview by asking you about Venice. Venice is one of my favourite places and visiting the city as a teenager was one of the reasons why I chose to study Italian as part of my degree. What is your connection with Venice?

I first saw Venice when I was eighteen – but of course I was already addicted because of all the reading I’d done and all the pictures I’d seen. I have a visual sixth sense, a sense of beauty. Venice answers to that, fully and perfectly. Maybe it’s a Libran thing. Tiziano Scarpa, a famous Venetian writer talks about Venice’s dangerously high levels of beauty as ‘Pulchroactivity’ – suggesting that the obscenely gorgeous buildings have to be covered up in scaffolding periodically because otherwise Venetians might perish from exposure to too much beauty. I know what Tiziano means. And I think he is only half joking.

Like you, I speak Italian and love to do that. Even the most everyday chore becomes rather picturesque when it must be done in Italian. Venice is not a comfortable city to inhabit. There are lots of unusual chores to deal with, such as getting the rat man on side or buying a device that can scrape the seaweed off your walls. My latest is that some insensitive or careless operaio from the Comune has just stuck a pole in the canal outside one of my windows, blocking the view. I cannot imagine how many phone calls to the Magistrato alle Acque and other entities I shall have to make to get it moved one foot away. Sigh. With my current deadlines, it’s going to have to wait.

Your latest book ‘The Fate in the Box’ is set in eighteenth century Venice. How did you research this period?

I have set three of my adult novels in this period: Carnevale, The Remedy and The Book of Human Skin. So I have a lot of research already embedded in my head and great folders full of photocopies of relevant texts. I also research by looking at paintings. Not so much Canaletto but Francesco Guardi, whose details of everyday happenings in Venice are amazingly useful. They are easy to translate into words. The state of the fishing boats, the costumes of the poor and rich, the number of dogs prowling around Venice: all these beautiful and vital details are to be found in his paintings.

The Fate in the Box is set in a late eighteenth century Venice, at a time with automata existed but when electric power was unknown, so everything that ticked or walked or clicked had to be wound up by hand. This introduced the idea of a slave race to perform that function, and allowed me to vent about the iniquity of such a situation. (In fact, centuries before, there really was a market in slaves in Venice, but this is an aspect of her history that has not received very much attention. I might work on it some time.) I married the idea of automata and slavery with the Venetians’ well-known addiction to novelty and their equally well-known indolence. And then put the solution in the hands of some children from both sides of the social divide. It’s not a formula but it is a dynamic that plays off known truths or tropes against an imaginative construct. Having set up that storyline, my next job was to charm and amuse, but in a strictly ‘period’ way. So again I had recourse to paintings – those of Gabriel Bella and Pietro Longhi in particular, to give me ideas for situations that would appeal to children, such as the painful pulling of Maffeo’s teeth when he is cat-cursed by Shaveling, Baffi and Grillo, three of my feline characters.

There is also a scene of Chinese whispers from one statue to another, going all the way down the Grand Canal. Venice’s built environment provided all the research I needed for that. A couple of vaporetto rides down the canal with my camera captured the images I needed. I could study them at leisure at home and work out what kinds of words those particular stone faces would utter.

One of my favourite books is ‘The Book of Human Skin’, which is adult fiction. How do you find writing for both adults and children?
I am so glad you liked that book. I was in a very, happy, confident place when I wrote it, and I think it shows. I was up for taking on the Catholic church, Spanish colonialism in South America, racism , sexism, the medical profession and the complicity of the reader! It seemed to work, because it was my best-selling book so far, enormously helped by being chosen as a Channel Four TV Book Club summer read and getting rave review from Meera Syal and her colleagues. But I think people liked Human Skin because it was a bit outrageous and a bit different, and quite naughty. I had broken out from the slightly decorous trope of the historical novel. The book I am finishing now is also quite different, but in a different way again. Instead of a chorus of voices there is a single central narrator. an Irish woman who is in love with words, and this time I am taking on our attitudes not to skin, but to hair. It is about bodily performativity, fetish, quack medicine and sibling rivalries taken to an extraordinary extent. But I think my viewpoint comes from a place with more humility.

With adult books you know you’ll be working on them for two years and that you need to find a subject that can keep you interested and committed for all that time. You also need to find a subject that will detain the interest of a fickle market. It is good to take on something people think they know about, and then to deploy the difference in attitude of a hundred or two hundred years ago to show both how far we have come and how little we have changed. It is a tightwire act, but, when it works, it is so rewarding.

A children’s book, in contrast is all about pace and humour. This is an especial challenge in an historical novel, and particularly historical fantasy of the kind I write, because there is so much background to tuck into the crevices of the story. World-building is not hard. It is just hard to quietly erect the scaffolding and the nuts-and-bolts of it, so that they never get in the way of entertainment.

With both children’s and adult’s books I love creating different voices. You could actually say that each different voice is a world, perfumed with the character’s past, environment, private issues, passions, grievances. Children’s books give me the special present of talking animals and statues and ghosts, all of whom can have very amusing private dialects.

I am lucky to work in both genres – adult and child – because each informs the other. Whether for children or adults, I am always writing for an intelligent reader who is happy to be challenged with a beautiful new word or a far-fetched image, or some very black humour.

What are you working on now?
I am finishing my next adult novel, which is called The Swiney Godivas, and will be out next summer with Bloomsbury. I am also working on two more children’s books for Orion for next year, and the year after. I am very regretfully just about to finish teaching at the Courtauld Institute of Art, where I have been a Royal Literary Fund Fellow for the past three years. I do structural edits on other people’s novels for The Writers’ Workshop. I am preparing for a couple of events with readers, including the Essex Festival in June, and next week I am filming something in Venice but I don’t think I’m supposed to talk about that yet.

What do you like to do outside of writing?

I love cooking for friends, talking with my friends, going for walks with friends … did I mention that I am extremely fond of my friends? I read voraciously. I attend poetry workshops as a kind of language gym, often working through a character or a situation in poetry before smoothing it out to prose. Oh dear, I realize that I am talking about writing again. I guess I don’t have much life outside of writing, especially as most of the people closest to me are also writers or creative in some way. I love looking at art, but again that too is a source for words …

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview Michelle.

You can find out more about Michelle on her website: http://www.michellelovric.com/

Look out for my review of The Fate in the Box, which is coming soon.

I am so excited to welcome Emily Murdoch to Bookbabblers today. Emily’s debut novel ‘If You Find Me’ is one of my favourite books of the year so far.

Please tell us a little about yourself

I’m a writer; a poet; a thinker; a person who feels things deeply. I was born a writer. I’ve known all my life that I’d be here eventually, writing books, and I plan to write until my last breath.
I’m also a person who doesn’t take life for granted, therefore I take my writing very seriously. Each morning brings a whole new chance to write again, and in my mind there’s nothing luckier than to be here, alive and possessing a brain that’s up for the task.
We’re all human (one can only hope!) and share common feelings and experiences. The writer’s job is one of interpreter, entrusted with decoding what others may not be able to capture in words for themselves.
So I see writing as a sacred act, and a gift for the giving.

Please tell us about ‘If You Find Me’ and your inspiration for the book.

I’m learning as I go along that there are so many answers to this question; some I didn’t even know of consciously at the time of writing If You Find Me.
Such as how easy it was to write a portrait of an abused child, having been one, myself. The psychology of fooling myself in order to write dark and deep, and, as I’m seeing, something so necessary to the world as it stands today …
I’m honored if my darkness can shed some light for others. Isn’t that what the darkness is about? Finding the words, and in that, flipping on the light of understanding. As people have been quoting from the novel, “words are weapons”. They can also be weapons of profound and lasting change.

What are you working on now?

Oh, the loaded author question! I’m working on everything! A memoir-ish sort of behind-the-scenes of IF YOU FIND ME tangled with my life and the writerly life; a few YA contemporaries; I have an idea for mainstream fiction, and there’s always a poem or two in there, being written or revised at any given time.

What was your journey to publication like?

Great question. Looking at it one way, it was probably easier than many. It didn’t feel easier to me, though, nor was it easy. It took approximately three years from query to agent offer to publisher’s offer.
I’m the worrying type, so, having such great agents has been a godsend.
Looking at it another way, I’ve been writing for decades; a lifetime. A lifetime of developing the skills of writing, story, voice. Even though my talent was noticed by others when I was young, it wasn’t enough without the practice and the time needed for life’s seasoning.
My advice to aspiring authors (you’re already a writer, you need no one’s permission!) is to keep writing. When the time is right, when the manuscript is right, when the conditions are right and the stars align, when you’ve put in the practice, the heart, the time, you’ll break through if you’re traveling in that direction.
But for that to happen, you need to write. You’ll get better and better, as you do.

What do you like to do outside of writing?

Live life! Sun and wind, flowers and dogs and horses. Riding. Reading. Movies that tug on my heartstrings.
Lending a hand or a shoulder or an ear where I can.
But I’d have to admit that the writing is my centering, my forever north. Whenever I need to seek out the calm in life’s storms, I always return to the page.

Thank you so much for having me today. I’ve truly enjoyed your company!

You can read my review of If You Find Me here: http://bookbabblers.co.uk/2013/05/review-of-if-you-find-me-by-emily-murdoch/

I am delighted to welcome Andrew Lane to Bookbabblers as our May Author of the month. Here is our interview with Andrew…

Please tell us a little about yourself
I’m a physicist by training, rather than a writer, although I’ve been writing for twenty seven years now. During that time I have written seventeen novels (including three that were ghost-written for another writer), nine non-fiction books about film and TV subjects, and one TV novelisation for a 1990s series that few people remember. Writers sometimes say that their books are like their children, but I actually do have a child who is nothing like my books. His name is Robbie, he’s 13 and he’s more interested in XBox games than in reading anything that I have written.

Please tell us about Lost Worlds and your inspiration for the book
‘Lost Worlds’ is an adventure story, but it’s a travel adventure – a genre that was popular in the 1960s and 1970s but has fallen out of favour in the past twenty years or so. It’s set very firmly in today’s world (or possibly tomorrow’s world) with no vampires, angels or werewolves, and it’s about a group of teenage friends who travel to exotic places around the globe, searching for creatures that are supposed to be extinct but still exist, or for creatures that science has not discovered yet. The reason the kids are searching for these creatures is that there may be, in their DNA, ways to treat diseases, extend lifespans or regrow nerve tissue. The dilemma they face, of course, is that by finding these creatures they may bring them to the attention of unscrupulous pharamcology companies who will exploit them, perhaps wiping out fragile ecosystems just so they can make money off the back of the DNA samples. Is it better to leave these creatures where they are, and pretend they haven’t been found, or to tell everyone? The thing that drives the kids is their “leader”, Calum Challenger, who has been left partially paralysed after a car crash. He desperately wants a cure for his condition, and he knows there is one out there somewhere.

What are you working on now?
At the moment I am just finishing the sixth book in the Young Sherlock Holmes series – ‘Knife Edge’. After that I need to start work on the second ‘Lost Worlds’ book, but I also want to have a go at an adult crime novel and a book for younger kids. Oh, and I’m meant to be writing a script for a ‘Doctor Who’-related audio drama, which will be recorded for CD. It’s a busy life, being a writer…

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
I have two bits of advice. First, read as much as you can – if you want to be a writer you need to know what’s already been done, and you’ll also absorb things like style and grammar as you read. The second piece of advice is not to just read “good” books – i.e. books that have been reviewed well, or recommended by people. Read bad books. There’s nothing that can teach you to write better than a book that’s been badly written – as long as you think about the book and try to work out why it’s bad. Are the characters unbelievable? Are the situations unrealistic? Is the writing slow and fat and boring? By doing that, you’ll learn how to make your own writing better. Oh, and the third piece of advice is: don’t give up. It’ll take you longer than you think to be a success.

What do you like to do outside of writing?
I’d like to say that I’m an expert skier and scuba diver, but that’s sadly not the truth. Between writing and bringing up a son, there’s not much time left. I like things I can do sitting down and not moving much, like eating and watching movies. Or preferably both, at the same time.

What are your top five books?
In no particular order: The Myster of Doctor Fu Manchu, by Sax Rohmer; The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle; The Anubis Gates, by Tim Powers; The Dancing Floor, by John Buchan; and The Land of Laughs, by Jonathan Carroll.

Thanks Andrew!

Look out for our review coming soon.

We have a copy of Lost Worlds by Andrew Lane to giveaway. The giveaway is open to UK residents only and closes on 31st May 2013. To enter, please retweet this post or leave a comment below.

I am delighted to welcome Pippa Goodhart to Bookbabblers as our April Author in Residence. Pippa’s book ‘Finding Fortune’ is published by Cat Nip Publishing and is released on the 15th April.

Please tell us a little about yourself
My name is Pippa Goodhart, and I’ve been writing stories for children for almost exactly twenty years (I wrote my first story on a holiday in May in 1993). I enjoy writing different kinds of books, so I sometimes write picture books, sometimes early reader books, sometimes novels, and even one book for adults. I’m a very lucky person because I earn my living doing something I really enjoy, and I also have a lovely home and family.

Please tell us about Finding Fortune and your inspiration for the book
I can tell you exactly what inspired Finding Fortune; it was a ring. My mother had a ring made of gold, set with a stone which had a streak of gold within it. My mother’s mother, my Granny, had given it to her, and my Granny had been given it by her mother, my Great-Granny, and her mother had been given it by her mother, my Great-Great-Granny, who had been given it by
her brother when he came back from the Klondike Gold Rush. I began reading about the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897 when over a hundred thousand people travelled thousands of miles into almost Arctic wilderness in the hopes of finding gold. There are wonderful photos of it all. And a story began to form in my mind about a girl, Ida, who insists on going with her father on
that search for gold. The ring does feature in the story … and the real ring is now mine, given to me by my mother, thank you, Mum!

What are you working on now?
I’m working on more Winnie the Witch storybooks. I write those books under the name Laura Owen, and I’ve already written sixty-four stories about Winnie and her cat Wilbur. The publishers want eight more stories from me now, so I’m scratching about for new ideas! But it’s always fun to play with magic.

Where is your favourite place to write?
Aha! For most of the twenty years I’ve been writing I wrote on the kitchen table, or sitting on the sofa, or at the computer in a corner of a bedroom. I didn’t have a ‘proper’ writing place. But last year we moved into a beautiful new house that we designed and built ourselves (my husband is an architect), so now I have a lovely room to work in, overlooking the garden.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
Yes, and it is to read and read and read, and then to think about what you have read. If the book was boring, think about why it was boring. Was it because it was just like something you’ve already read? Or you didn’t care about the characters? Or there were too many long descriptions? If what you read was brilliant, think about what it was that made it brilliant. Was
it because it made you laugh, or it surprised you in a good way? Was it because it described something that mattered to you in just the right way? Or what? Discover those things, and you’ll know how you should do your own writing.

What do you like to do outside of writing?
All the usual things – being with my family and friends, walking the dog, doing gardening, eating nice food, listening to good music, watching wonderful plays or films, reading good books – but also just lying in a deep hot bath and letting my mind drift into stories.

Thanks Pippa!

Look out for our review of Finding Fortune, which is coming soon.

I am delighted to welcome Erin Lange to Bookbabblers today, as part of Butter blog tour.

Please tell us a little about yourself
I was born and raised in the Midwestern U.S. surrounded by rivers and corn fields. I now live in the desert, with my fiancé and a very badly behaved Pug named Lucky. I’m an only child, which meant I had to entertain myself a lot as a kid. It’s probably why I became a writer.

Please tell us a little about ‘Butter’ and your inspiration for the book
Butter is the story of an obese teenage boy who announces a plan to eat himself to death live on the internet. His plot catches the attention of his classmates, and soon he finds himself with friends, fans and a lot to live for. But if he doesn’t go through with the deadly plan, he’ll lose all of his new fame.
In addition to writing novels for teens, I also work as a TV News Producer. The stories I cover as a journalist – such as teen suicide, childhood obesity and internet bullying – definitely influenced Butter.

What was your journey to publication like?
I was very very very lucky. Although I had been writing my entire life, I didn’t decide to try to publish a novel until a few years ago. I spent a year working on a book that wasn’t very good and doing my research on publishing. The next year, I wrote a new book (Butter) in less than two months. I submitted it to agents and had to revise it a few times before one of them took me on, but within 6 months from that first draft, I had an agent. Less than 6 months after that, she had sold it to a publisher. Of course, it was another 2 years before the book came out, but the entire journey was still incredibly fast. The timing just seemed to be right.

What are you working on now?
My second book comes out in the U.S. this September. It’s called “Dead Ends,” and it’s about the unlikely friendship between a bully and a younger teenager with Down syndrome.

What do you like to do outside of writing?
Lately, I spend most of my free time planning my wedding! I also like to snowboard (which I’m really bad at) and play guitar (which I’m really really terrible at). I watch a lot less TV these days, but Sunday nights, you’ll still find me on the couch watching Walking Dead!

Do you have any tips for aspiring writers?
Do your research, and get connected! Web forums like Absolute Write or Verla Kay’s blue boards are a gold mine of information on everything from writing tips to publishing how-tos. If I had not found sites like these, I would have made a lot of mistakes that could have kept me from getting published.
Also, practice your craft. Write as often as you can and remember to write for your own enjoyment and not for the purpose of publishing. Above all, you must love the writing process.

Thanks Erin. Butter is available to buy now. Look out for my review coming later today.

I am delighted to welcome Sarah Naughton to Bookbabblers today. Here is our interview with Sarah…

Please tell us a little about yourself
I live in London with my husband and two sons. I came here at the age of 17 to study English and then went on to write adverts for ten years, which was a lot of fun. Like most authors I’ve been writing for years but it took having children to make me knuckle down and get on with it seriously; when they were babies I’d cram in an hour or so after they’d gone to bed. Apparently it’s illegal to leave them in the house while you go to the pub.

Please tell us about The Hanged Man Rises and your inspiration for the book
London is my inspiration, although I must admit we’ve had our ups and downs. There are aspects of the city that I’m madly in love with, and other aspects that make me want to run screaming back to Dorset. I’ve tried to capture something of this dichotomy in the book: London’s intoxicating atmosphere and vibrancy versus its violence and squalor. Victorian London vividly illustrates the extremes of these highs and lows: these days we can rely on the welfare state to help us when we fall on hard times, then there was the workhouse or starvation. Setting Titus’s story in those harsh, unforgiving days added a sense of urgency to his plight.

I loved your description of Victorian London. How did you research this period?
I tended to do my research as I went along, reading up on things like spiritualism, the workhouse and the police when I was writing the passages that dealt with those subjects. Victorian London is a pretty popular topic and it seems as if most authors have tackled it at some time or other, so there was lots of material to immerse myself in (although I have to confess I’ve never got through an entire Dickens…). And for accuracy of costume and props you can usually rely on the BBC.

What are you working on now?
I’ve got a lot of ideas buzzing around my head at the moment. They’ve mostly got either supernatural or historical elements or both. I’ve recently finished a grisly horror story that I hope will get your flesh crawling, and have begun something for slightly older teens, featuring a time-jump romance (with all the difficulties that entails…). I’m a sucker for romance, as long as it’s tortured, bloody and preferably doomed.

Where is your favourite place to write?
My favourite place to write would be a tumbledown bothy overlooking a storm-tossed sea with my trusty wolfhound dozing by the fire. Unfortunately I have to make do with my kitchen table, accompanied by chocolate hobnobs and gallons of green tea.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
I have loads of advice for aspiring writers. Most importantly of all: write every day, even when you’d rather be bleaching the toilet seat. Write in a genre you like (I thought I could make a fast buck writing Mills and Boons but my heroes were too tortured and effeminate). Avoid using verbs like ‘persuaded’, ‘cajoled’, etc – ‘said’ is far less clunky and the rest should be communicated by the dialogue itself. Some advice I’ve chosen to ignore is write for your readers not yourself. I write for me: I couldn’t do it any other way. My final tip is: choose very carefully whose advice you listen to. My friend Dave is always telling me to ‘put a dragon in it.’ Come to think of it, maybe he’s right.

Thanks Sarah! The Hanged Man Rises is available to buy now. Scroll down to read my review.

I am delighted to welcome Jane Hissey to Bookbabblers today. Here is our interview with Jane…

Please tell us a little about yourselfI trained as an illustrator and designer at Brighton Art College and taught art for five years before leaving to bring up children. I now have 3 grown up children and one grandchild and I live in East Sussex with my husband, Ivan, who is also an illustrator.
I have written over 20 picture books for young children and 40 episodes of the BAFTA award winning television animation series of ‘Old Bear Stories.’
I was born and brought up in Norfolk where my aunt (who will soon be 100 and who taught me to draw,) still lives.
I work in coloured pencils and each illustration takes many hours to complete; a whole book can take a year.

Please tell us a little about Ruby, Blue and Blanket
My latest book, ‘Ruby, Blue and Blanket’ is about dressing up and the ‘what shall I wear’ dilemma. The book features a whole new set of toy characters and I have tried to make it very colourful, lively and fun. I wanted the dressing up costumes that the toys wear to look home-made and infinitely adaptable (to slightly get away from the mass produced, and often ‘Disneyfied’ costumes available today and go back to a ghost costume being an old sheet with eye holes!)
When Ruby the little mouse, can’t make a decision, Blanket, the horse, finds a way to help her and have a lot of fun at the same time.

Do you read your stories out aloud to see how they sound for parents reading to children?
Yes I always read my stories aloud when I am writing them; they are designed to be read aloud. My latest book is written in verse to give it a lively, rhythmic text and I remember working on a few lines on a long train journey. I wasn’t in the quiet coach but soon found I ended up with a table to myself; I am sure people find it odd when you mutter not quite under your breath for two hours, largely repeating the same few lines!!
When I visit schools I am constantly testing how the books work when read aloud and have recently slightly shortened some longer texts to improve the rhythm and to allow the illustrations to be larger. This came about as a result of reading the books aloud many hundreds of times.

What are you working on now?
I am working on a follow-up to ‘Ruby, Blue and Blanket’ featuring the same characters (as I have become very fond of them and have enjoyed drawing them so much)

Where is your favourite place to write?
I can draw anywhere and at any time of day or night but I can only write when I am wide-awake and have no distractions!
As I mentioned, a train journey is good (as long as I don’t sit next to someone interesting!) or my studio if nobody is around. I have even been known to pack a flask of tea, leave my mobile phone behind, and drive to a local beauty spot car park to sit for most of the day thrashing out ideas!

What do you like to do outside of writing?
When I am not writing or drawing I really love gardening, cooking or walking in the peaceful lanes near where we live. I also now really enjoy spending time with my little Granddaughter, who is 16 months old. I am hoping she will give me lots of lovely ideas for future books.

Thanks Jane! Ruby, Blue and Blanket is available to buy now. Look out for our review coming soon.

I’m thrilled to be taking part in the blog tour today for CJ Flood’s fantastic debut novel, Infinite Sky. Here is our interview with CJ Flood…

Please tell us a little about yourself
My name is Chelsey Jeri-lee Flood, and I write under C. J. Flood. I am 29, and I live in Bristol. I grew up in Derby, where Infinite Sky is set.

Please tell us a little about ‘Infinite Sky’ and your inspiration for the book
Infinite Sky is a coming of age novel, told from the persepctive of Iris Dancy who is 13 years old. The story centres on a conflict between a settled family and a family of Irish Travellers, and takes place in the English countryside. It’s about first love, prejudice, loyalty and betrayal, and there’s a chance it will make you cry.
The story was inspired by my dad’s house, which the farmhouse in the book is based on. I had some wonderful summer holidays there, and I took a lot from these. I also drew from the experience of my parents splitting up, and my relationship with my older brother – though it is all heavily fictionalised.

What was your journey to publication like?
The journey to publication felt long, and had the occasional victory between the onslaught of rejection. I started writing for publication when I was 21, and didn’t really get anywhere until I was 26. That’s when I was accepted onto the University of East Anglia (UEA) Creative Writing MA and soon after, onto the Jerwood/Arvon Mentoring Scheme. I met my agent at UEA in 2010, and sold my book in 2011, so the last bit of the journey was actually quite fast.

What are you working on now?
I am working on a novel along the same lines as Infinite Sky. It has a female teen protagonist again, and is about her quest to find her soldier brother. He hasn’t returned home when he was supposed to after his first tour of Afghanistan, and after hearing a rumour that he has been spotted in the woods where they used to play as kids, she sets off to try and find him and bring him home. It’s a story about friendship and adventure and heroism.

What do you like to do outside of writing?
When I’m not writing or reading, I like to watch films or TV series, see my friends and go for walks. I am also a little obsessed with table tennis because it is the most relaxing thing in the world. I also play guitar badly and do yoga from time to time.

Maudie Smith is our February Author in Residence, here is our interview with Maudie…

Please tell us a little about yourself
I used to be an actor and so spent a lot of time riding around in transit vans, perched on scenery. I started writing for children a few years ago, when my own two daughters were walking and talking without assistance from me. I live with my family in a village near Bath where we have a huge, unmanageable garden, two cats, two chickens and a smattering of stick insects.

Please tell us a little about ‘About Zooming Time, Opal Moonbaby!’
Zooming!, as I call it for short, is the second book about Opal Moonbaby. If you haven’t already met her, Opal is an alien from the planet Carnelia. She was supposed to go back there at the end of the first book but she flunked her challenge and now she’s coming back to Earth to have another go. Martha, Opal’s favourite human, is really looking forward to going to school with Opal and looking after her there, but Opal being Opal, things don’t work out exactly as Martha expects – and that’s putting it mildly!

What are you working on now?
No surprises here. I’m working on the third Opal Moonbaby book! I’m also putting the finishing touches to a picture book called Milly and the Mermaids which is being illustrated by Antonia Woodward. Both books are due to be published in 2014, and I can hardly wait.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
• Carry a notebook wherever you go because the seeds of ideas are always out there.
• Write about something you want to write about, not what you think the market wants you to write about.
• When you get to the end of your book you’re probably just beginning, but don’t despair because you will have made a beautiful big canvas on which to work.
• If your finished draft looks like a jumper with three sleeves, don’t be afraid to chop one of them off. I usually have to do that.

What do you like to do outside of writing?
Gardening, reading, crosswords, knitting, gardening, yoga, tennis, gardening, going to the theatre, gardening, cooking, eating chocolate and er…gardening.

What are your top five childhood books?
I could name a huge number because I read loads when I was young. Here’s a selection that come immediately to mind but please don’t make me choose!
• Five Children and It by E Nesbit
• Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• The Famous Five books by Enid Blyton
• A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• Vermilion by Norah G Shaw. No one will know that one – it’s about a young and independent-minded ogress with bright red hair who goes around with a drummer boy called Ratapan and a dragon called Spooflunks.

Thanks Maudie!

About Zooming Time, Opal Moonbaby is available to buy now.

Please tell us a little about THE PREY.
I’m so hopeless when it comes to describing my books, I’m tempted to simply let the professionals handle this question (they’re so good at it, I swear, they must have a PhD in Book-Synopsis-ing). But instead of just giving you the jacket copy, let me give you my best shot!

THE PREY continues the journey of Gene and the remaining humans. They’re being chased down by the hungry err… creatures of the night, and things are not looking good. Surviving attack after attack, they’re finally able to find safety in a mountain commune of humans. But after initially feeling safe, they begin to realize something is a little amiss about this place. I wanted to continue the sense of paranoia, dread, and claustrophobia begun in THE HUNT, while developing the relationships between Gene and the other dome hepers. Also quite important to me was to look into Gene’s growth as a person as he grapples with what it means to be human. So there’s lots going on in this really action-packed emotional roller coaster of a book (hmm…blatant self-promotion – sorry!).

What is your favourite scene in THE PREY?
Oh, no you didn’t! Did you just ask me to choose favourites among my children?! Actually, I do have a few favourite scenes. One of them, which comes towards the end of the book, is an absolute tear-jerker. It’s also a really scary scene, too, so I’m pretty pleased with this feat: making the reader both sob with sadness while trembling with fear. Hint: it’s the one with . . . argh! I can’t give away a single clue without giving it away. Just read the book, you’ll know which scene I’m talking about!

What are you working on now?
Book Three of THE HUNT series! I’m doing some pretty detailed revisions on it right now, but I’m happy to say that things are going well! My editor has already told me how much she loved the first draft. Can’t wait for fans of THE HUNT series to read it. It’s quite awesome, if I do say so myself.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
Being an aspiring writer is good, but better yet is being a perspiring reader. What I mean by that – and yes, it is a clumsy way of putting it – is that you really need to be a serious voracious reader before you can even hope to write well. So read, read, read! Learn the craft until words, stories, ideas flow in your subconscious.

What are you currently reading?
When I’m in deep writing mode (as I am now), I’ve found the only way I can relax is if I read outside the genre I’m writing in. So no YA (for now!). Instead, I’ve been making my way through VAN GOGH: THE LIFE by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith. It is soooo good. Really transporting, very riveting. Makes me really want to see a Van Gogh exhibit once I’m done with this deadline!

Thanks Andrew! THE PREY is available to buy now.

You can find out more about Andrew Fukuda and THE PREY on his website: http://andrewfukuda.com/