Interview: Jaclyn Moriarty talks creativity, characters and mad scientists with Darlo PS

Jaclyn Moriarty writes wonderful, award-winning books for children, teenagers and adults including, Feeling Sorry for Celia, The Year of Secret Assignments, the Colours of Madeleine trilogy and the Kingdom and Empires series. 

Press Gang: I feel creative when I’m in the shower playing or playing with Lego or listening to a song. When do you feel most creative? 

Jaclyn: Those are really good examples of times to feel creative. I think I always, especially in the shower, I know a lot of people who get their ideas when they’re in the shower. Anywhere near water makes me feel creative. So I like to go for a walk, uh, by the sea. 

Press Gang: What inspired you to start writing? 

Jaclyn: I always liked writing stories from when I was little. As soon as I started having stories read to me when I was four or five,I liked making up stories. I grew up in a family of six children and a lot of us like to tell stories. So instead of giving us pocket money, our dad used to commission us to write stories because he knew we liked telling stories. 

Press Gang: When is your next book coming out?

Jaclyn: My next book is coming out in a few months. It’s about a new character named Lilian Velvet who lives in our world. And for her birthday she receives a pickle jar filled with gold coins and she starts to find herself being transported into the kingdoms and empires for short adventures. And she meet different members of the Mestone families

Press Gang: Where did you come up with the idea for The Incredibly Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Stein?

Jaclyn: Somebody wrote me an email and she said that she was drinking a cup of Cloudberry tea as she was writing the email. And when I replied, I said, ‘I have never heard of Cloudberry tea before. That sounds like something from some kind of magical children’s book’. And I said, ‘I’m, I’m gonna write a book with Cloudberry Tea, Cloudberry tea in it’. And then years later I remembered that I made that promise that I was gonna write about Cloudberry tea.

Press Gang: why is it important that kids have an access of, to a wide range of books? 

Jaclyn: I just think, if you want to evolve and find yourself, you need to be able to open up different parts of your mind in unexpected ways. Both as a creative person and to think more broadly. 

Press Gang: Out all the characters you have created, which one  is your favourite?

Jaclyn: My favourite character at the moment is Lilian Velvet. 

Press Gang: What’s the best thing you’ve like ever made up? 

Jaclyn: My favourite thing to write is the water sprites. I thought they were fun and I like the shadow realms. They go on a train through the realms. That was fun for me.

Press Gang:  My mum says there are different types of writers. There are architects who plan out everything then write it or gardeners who just let it grow. I’m a Mad scientist that just makes it up. Which one are you? 

Jaclyn: That’s a great question. And I like your mom’s descriptions for those styles of writing. I like gardener much more than the term pants, which means authors who just write by the seat of your pants – they make it up as they go along. I prefer gardener to pantser. That’s a much more picture expression.

When I was growing up, I used to just make things up as they went along, just like a gardener. But then as I’ve become a professional author, I’ve planned my books and each time the plan has got longer and longer. So I wrote a trilogy fantasy called The Colors of Madeline. And I had a 200 page plan for it. 

But with these kingdoms and empires books, I decided that I was going to start writing the way I used to when I was a child. And so I didn’t plan it all. I waited to see what would happen.