Interview: Andrew McDonald, Real Pigeons Author, Talks Funny Books With Press Gang
By GEPS Press Gang
Andrew McDonald is the author of the Real Pigeons and Hello Twigs books. He Zoomed in to GEPS to answer questions from the Press Gang.
When did you first know that you wanted to be a writer?
I liked writing stories when I was your age at primary school, but I never really thought about becoming a writer. It was just something that I loved doing. It was only maybe when I was a grownup I thought, oh, maybe I could be a full-time writer.
How long does it take to write a book?
One of these real pigeons books takes me about five or six months to write, and that’s because I do about 10 drafts and the stories often can change quite a lot from draft one to draft eight or nine or 10. So that takes quite a long time.
Where do you get your ideas from?
My ideas usually come from asking questions, being curious and trying to be silly. The idea for real pigeons came about because I was walking through a park and I was noticing how pigeons were everywhere, but how humans don’t notice them. I thought that would make pigeons pretty good at crime fighting because they just fly under the radar and nobody notices them. I started thinking, what if they were crime fighters? What if they were secretly all in communication? What if they had pigeon powers? And the ideas went from there.
Why did you want your books to be funny?
I just love funny books. love characters who do surprising things. Real pigeons is basically just like a sitcom that you might see on TV, but it’s in a book and it’s about pigeons fighting crime.
If you could be any book character who would you be?
It would be pretty cool to be Charlie and Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. I’d like to visit the chocolate factory
itself and eat all of the sweets and chocolate.
What kind of books do you like reading?
I like funny books and I like mysteries. They’re probably the two genres that I’ve always been attracted to. But I like any book where when I open it and start reading, I get the unexpected.
Who is your favorite illustrator?
I think I’m contractually obliged to say Ben Wood, who does real pigeons with me, but you know who I really like. I really like Remi Lai, who does Cinemagraphic novels. She, she’s Australian as well.
