About Me
People sometimes ask me how I became an author, and occasionally, various social and community groups ask me to speak to them about my writing life.
Here are a few questions that often come up on such occasions, which I will answer briefly here. If you have any questions you would like to add, you can send me an email, and I will try to answer them.
About Me
People sometimes ask me how I became an author and occasionally various social and community groups as me to speak to them about my writing life.
Here are a few questions that often come up on such occasions which I will answer briefly here. If you have any questions you would like to add you can send me an email and I will try and answer them.
What was your inspiration to write?
I lived on the outskirts of a town in the North of England, surrounded by beautiful countryside that, for much of the year, was filled with birdsong. It was impossible to go for a walk without noticing the birds, from wrens and robins to skylarks, lapwings, and curlews. I began keeping a nature diary at about the age of twelve, and so a writing life of sorts developed.
The highest point of a canal that crosses Northern England is situated deep in our countryside and is served by five reservoirs to keep the waterway open. In those days, these places teemed with grebes, ducks, and a range of other wildfowl. I discovered The Mereside Chronicle in our local library, written by a birdwatcher who visited similar stretches of water further south, called the Cheshire Meres. I also used the book as a guide to set out my nature records.
How did your first book come about?
I was Head of Biology in a newly formed high school that did not have a budget for books, so I wrote worksheets for my biology classes.
A publisher saw them and said I was writing like a teacher talking to a class. He sent me some of the science books he had published and asked me to look at how his authors wrote. Each had a particular style or voice, and he encouraged me to develop my own. He then asked me to send in a chapter to see what he thought.
He liked the first one, encouraged the second, and each month I sent him a chapter—until he rang me up to say he was delighted to offer me a contract!
This first book was called Life Science.
How difficult was it for you to write your second book?
No difficulty at all! Life Science contained a chapter on microscopes, and when a company that made chemistry sets for children saw it, they asked me to devise a microscope set and write a book to go with it.
How did you move on from the microscope set to other books?
Micro World became a star prize on a children’s television programme of the time called Crackerjack. It also sold widely around the world and even appeared in our local toy shop! When I saw all this, I thought I might try writing a book about microscopes, so I contacted a publisher with the idea. They agreed, and I wrote Looking at Microscopes.
How did you follow that?
In Looking at Microscopes, I wrote about the application of microscopes across a wide range of science topics, and the publisher asked me to develop it into a series called Signpost to Science. And so, my writing career took off.
What is your favourite book?
I always say that the book I am working on has to be my favourite, but I think my first book will always have a special place. There is nothing like opening a box on a sunny spring morning in 1981 and seeing the covers of your first book looking up at you.
When you are writing do you have a routine?
If I have a lot of projects on the go, then I follow a routine of an hour and a half before coffee, an hour after that before lunch, and then the afternoon depends on how things went in the morning.
Sometimes, ideas just come to me, so I keep a writing pad by my bedside to jot them down in the middle of the night. Another resting place is the conservatory, so I have a pad in there just in case.
Why do you think you have written so many books?
I have met some very encouraging publishers and worked with excellent editors, illustrators, picture researchers, and project managers. Without them, it would not have happened. I also had the support and wisdom of my agent, Rosemary Bromley of Juvenilia, who sadly is no longer here.
What advice can you give to aspiring authors?
I joined the Society of Authors early in my career and became a member of the committee of their first local group, Authors North. We organised two meetings a year, usually around a lunch, and two residential weekends at Rydal Hall in the Lake District.
It is great to meet up with other authors, as writing can be a solitary activity, and share experiences. I would suggest that an aspiring author should contact the Society of Authors or at least visit their website:
https://societyofauthors.org
Do you plan to retire?
No. I hope to continue as long as I can. When I won the TES School Book Award for Science, the journalist who interviewed me for The Times Educational Supplement gave the article about me the heading Passion to Explain — and this remains undiminished.
