| 1. You have spoken about the importance of excitement levels, stating that you watch a lot of fast-moving TV, and are interested in adapting the art of televisual cutaways and intercutting scenes to the art of fiction. Can you point to any direct influences of film/TV on specific scenes in any of your books? |
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ER
is an influence – love the intercuts between storylines, the continuous
trolley shots and unusual angles. This relates to a snappy narrative
pace and brisk change of scenes. Also love to try to take a Dickensian
‘bird’s eye’ view at times, as in the last scene of Weather
Eye. |
  2.
Philip Pullman wrote of Mister Spaceman: "The deadpan humour
and the offhand compassion make this, I think, her best book since
the award-winning MapHead". What notice do you take of reviewers'
comments? |
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You
get a warm glow when they’re nice and they’ve noticed what you
have tried to do; generally don’t take too much notice, however,
unless the reviewer has said something that chimes with something
you feel you can improve on. |
 3.
Mister Spaceman features extensive use of the internet
and e-mail. Did this content come naturally to you |
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Addressing something that’s part of everyday life comes naturally to any storyteller. I wanted the Net to be a presence in the story, originally represented by an external dialler with a symbol which annoys Thomas Moon – this later disappeared as the technology overtook the story - everyone has internal diallers, now! |
 4.
The main character in Mister Spaceman has an obsession
with becoming an astronaut. But in the end he realises that being
in control of his own imagination is "better than steering a starship...
He might make up whole new worlds for himself and other people,
out of the everyday stuff around him that wasn't fantastical at
all. That was a job for a real space cadet. Inner space." I take
it you think being a writer is like being this. So is it all right
to think of you as 'Lesley Howarth - Space Cadet'? |
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Um,
not sure about that one! Of course the story is very directly
an allegory about the internal life of a writer, and is one of
the most ‘personal’ stories I’ve written. |
 5.
In Paulina you took a conventional story-structure (time-slip
ghost story) and breathed new life into it. It's a haunting, compelling
and extremely fast-paced novel. Based on a house-exchange, it's
set in a very well-realised New England. I presume there's some
element of real-life experience behind this book? |
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Yup,
a home-swap we did three years ago – there really was a plastic
belt left beside the pool, and a couple of other spooky things!
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| 6.
Many of your books seem to be written for that readership (of
about 10+) that falls between junior fiction and teenage or young
adult fiction. In Paulina, for example, the ‘tide of blood’
near the book’s end is substantial enough to shock 10/11 year
olds but not, one fancies, teenagers already into horror a la
Stephen King. Do you consciously address your books to this sub-teenage
audience? |
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I don’t consciously ‘address’ a book at all – I do avoid dwelling on morbid themes, because that’s not the kind of thing I write. I’m not about to try to compete with really gory stories – that doesn’t interest me. ‘The Turn of the Screw’ is much more frightening than gore, in any case.
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 7.
One of the most striking things about your writing--and this is
evident in both MapHead novels and in Mister Spaceman in
particular--is the very accurate take you have on contemporary
childhood and adolescence. Many children's authors never get away
from writing about characters who behave as if they were in another
time or place (i.e. that of the author's own childhood). To what
do you attribute your ability to tune in so accurately to the
mental processes of characters much younger than yourself?
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Empathy, children of my own, television. |
 8.
You achieved success and recognition for your work very quickly.
Your first novel, The Flower King, was shortlisted for
the Whitbread and the Guardian Awards, and your second book actually
won the Guardian Award. The quality of writing in such early work
is exceptionally high, and one suspects that there were several
earlier, unpublished attempts behind this 'overnight' success.
Is that correct? |
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Three
novels before The Flower King – they were a bit weird and unstructured,
with occasional flashes of good stuff. To arrive at a compact
and meaningful structure was a pretty steep learning curve. |
 9.
So far, you have written almost exclusively for Walker Books,
with the exception of the 'Takeaway Tales' series and 'Quirk'
titles from Hodder, plus a short book for Barrington Stoke. Does
this indicate that you are happy to see your career develop mainly
within one publishing house, or is your loyalty to an editor rather
than a firm? |
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My loyalty is to my readers – I have to give them the best story that I can possibly produce – hopefully something no one else has thought of! My late editor, Wendy Boase, was a huge influence, and instantly knew what would work. I’ve written for several publishers, and will be having my next stories published by Puffin. |
 10.
I believe your first book, The Flower King, emanated to
a degree from a time when you worked for a market garden. You
have said in a previous interview (BfK Nov 1996) that you have
always enjoyed physical labour. Did the experience of helping
your husband build your own house spill over into your fiction
in any way? |
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It
spilled over by making me completely exhausted and ready for a
spot of writing! |
 11.
As the reviewer (Nicola Robinson) in the Australian journal, Viewpoint,
observed, there is a marked difference in atmospheres between
MapHead and Maphead 2: "The first book opens in an abundant greenhouse,
the second in a gloomy, graffitied, multistorey car park." What
other differences do you hope the reader will pick up on? |
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The
crux of the (slightly) more mature MapHead’s dilemma – to be all-powerful,
yet ordinary, and accepted! Another allegory for the illimitable
power and imagination inside all of us. |
 12.
The Australian reviewer mentioned above quotes you as saying:
"I wonder what's happening to fiction today, I really do. It's
getting very fragmented... I don't see why a children's book should
show you the children. There's no reason not to show them in context,
and how they relate to their own environment." What lay behind
this comment? |
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I suspect that this is a misquote – I’m quite likely to have commented that ‘I don’t see why an adult’s book shouldn’t show you the children’ – as in a novel of Dickens, where the children are part of the wider scene, not fragmented into their own separate fiction compartment. After all, children’s fiction shows adults – it has to. Separation is an artificial thing, and can only be decided by the reader. Is 'The Turn of the Screw' for children, because they’re foregrounded in it? |
| 13. Apparently, to prepare yourself for the scene in MapHead2 in which MapHead envies the penguins huddled together in companionship, you immersed yourself in emperor penguin culture, and while writing Mister Spaceman spent months surrounded by pictures of the moon. What subject is dominating your thoughts at present, and in preparation for what type of fiction? |
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The
sun is in my thoughts at the moment, in preparation for a new
story, ‘Ultraviolet’. |
| 14.
Many writers remain suspicious of the computer, especially for
first drafts. I know that you do all your writing straight to
screen. Do you ever try and persuade writing colleagues to do
the same? |
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Everyone
has their own way of working – I wouldn’t presume to persuade
anyone! |
| 15. When you're redrafting work, do you work from the screen also, or from printouts? If from the screen, how do you preserve the first draft ideas in case you wish to return to them?
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I
print out at the end of each day, as it helps to see things on
paper. |
| 16. Are there ways, other than searching for background information, in which the Internet has influenced you as a writer?
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It's
a wonderful source of information. |
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