The Kidlit Interview Series
Children's literature encompasses some of the most imaginative, entertaining, well-written fiction out there, so every Tuesday I shine a spotlight on it by interviewing a different middle-grade author. Come back regularly to find writers answering crucial questions like who they'd want riding alongside come the zombie apocalypse...
This week's guest is Aoife Walsh (who is totally my daemon soulmate). Here's what she had to say: "My first book, Look After Me, was published by Andersen in February this year which was exciting, especially as I’ve been sitting in my house looking after kids and waiting to make my impact on the world for a really long time. It’s about two children who get left with a baby and decide that the best thing to do is to keep her in the garden shed."
THE HERE BE DRAGONS 8 KILLER QUESTIONS
1) Uh oh, it’s the zombie apocalypse. Which author (living or dead) do you want riding shotgun?
Ernest Hemingway. I think of him as a gun-toting badass, who also probably wouldn’t have any qualms about blowing me away if I got zombified. And he is responsible for the best fictional sleeping bag ever and could catch us a big fish.
2) Look, I got a time machine on eBay! Where do you want to go? (Said time machine may possibly malfunction and leave you there. Possibly. It was *very* cheap.)
Rome in the first century AD, as long as I was middle class and could keep out of the way of those crazy emperors. But just a day, please, I’m not great with pain and wouldn’t want to take a risk on staying there so long I had to give birth, or deal with sunburn.
3) What’s your favourite thing about writing for kids?
I think books are more important to kids. I also think kids have truer responses and get more involved with stories. I love the idea of building a world for a child to live in for a while.
4) A witch has cast a spell on you (sorry about that) and you’ve woken up as a character in a children’s book – what’s your special talent or power?
I suppose it would be nice to be one of those winning-goal-scoring Enid Blyton heroines for the length of a lacrosse match. That’s probably the farthest from any experience I will ever actually have.
5) What’s the scariest or strangest thing you’ve ever done?
Possibly getting married quite early in life. Scariest and strangest. It’s worked out all right though.
6) What’s something you wish you’d known about writing when you started out? What’s something you wish you’d known about publishing?
To combine the two, I could have done with knowing that the editorial process, not to mention criticism, is seriously worthwhile and useful in terms of making your book better. But I’m not sure that would really have stopped me going mad over it. We’ll see next time round.
7) What would your daemon be?
A sloth. A torpid one.
8) My book doesn’t have dragons, but it does have... indefensibly bossy older brothers.
Ernest Hemingway. I think of him as a gun-toting badass, who also probably wouldn’t have any qualms about blowing me away if I got zombified. And he is responsible for the best fictional sleeping bag ever and could catch us a big fish.
2) Look, I got a time machine on eBay! Where do you want to go? (Said time machine may possibly malfunction and leave you there. Possibly. It was *very* cheap.)
Rome in the first century AD, as long as I was middle class and could keep out of the way of those crazy emperors. But just a day, please, I’m not great with pain and wouldn’t want to take a risk on staying there so long I had to give birth, or deal with sunburn.
3) What’s your favourite thing about writing for kids?
I think books are more important to kids. I also think kids have truer responses and get more involved with stories. I love the idea of building a world for a child to live in for a while.
4) A witch has cast a spell on you (sorry about that) and you’ve woken up as a character in a children’s book – what’s your special talent or power?
I suppose it would be nice to be one of those winning-goal-scoring Enid Blyton heroines for the length of a lacrosse match. That’s probably the farthest from any experience I will ever actually have.
5) What’s the scariest or strangest thing you’ve ever done?
Possibly getting married quite early in life. Scariest and strangest. It’s worked out all right though.
6) What’s something you wish you’d known about writing when you started out? What’s something you wish you’d known about publishing?
To combine the two, I could have done with knowing that the editorial process, not to mention criticism, is seriously worthwhile and useful in terms of making your book better. But I’m not sure that would really have stopped me going mad over it. We’ll see next time round.
7) What would your daemon be?
A sloth. A torpid one.
8) My book doesn’t have dragons, but it does have... indefensibly bossy older brothers.
Hemingway is proving pretty popular as Zombie Partner-in-Crime! I can feel him smiling smugly from the afterlife... If you want to find out more about Aoife, you can follow her on Twitter, and you can find Look After Me on Goodreads.
Come back next Tuesday for the Here Be Dragons interview with
Jeramey Kraatz, author of The Cloak Society!
Jeramey Kraatz, author of The Cloak Society!
