NCBF
Northumberland (Nov 6th)
As a child
Nicola Morgan was born in a boys-only boarding school, and later attended a boys-only school until she was eleven years old. Consequently, she was brilliant at making bows and arrows, climbing trees and winning conker matches - none of which have been of any use to her whatsoever in later life. She loved writing though. She wrote her first ever actual story aged fourteen - in a public exam. She loved reading too, and spent most of holidays curled up with a book.
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| Blame My Brain Walker Books ISBN:0744583683 |
Leaving Home Survival Guide Walker Books ISBN:1844287718 |
Sleepwalking Hodder Children's Books ISBN:0340877332 |
As an adult
Nicola Morgan first knew she wanted to write for a living when she was at university. Before that, she had thought that all writers were dead. She studied classics and philosophy at Cambridge. "That doesn't sound very useful," she says, "but it was the most useful grounding for being a writer, because it taught me to look very closely at language and meaning." She became an English teacher, later specializing in reading/writing difficulties. She still runs the Child Literary Centre website. Her first novel was published after twenty-one years of rejections.
As an artist
Nicola writes full-time (when she is not staring out of the windows or playing Spider solitaire). She has written over seventy books: educational, teenage fiction, younger fiction and teenage non-fiction. She has even written some Thomas the Tank Engine books. She always uses a computer because she constantly changes everything she writes. When writing a novel, she has to listen to very loud music - but only a few bands have the right effect. REM is one. She has a new habit: every time she signs a new book deal, she buys a new pair of boots.
Things you didn't know about Nicola Morgan
1. She can do press-ups - and does, every evening. Well, usually.
2. She hates having her photo taken.
3. She goes for a walk with her dog when she is stuck on a story. The dog often helps.
4. She never plans her stories in advance (though she tells her editor that she does).
5. Her favourite colour is pale aqua. Her new study is painted that colour.
6. She is very forgetful but also very organised.
7. She links smells and colours and tastes and ideas together, but she doesn't have synaesthesia.
8. She once had a job plucking turkeys - she lasted one day.
9. She seriously loves sprouts and often eats them on their own.
10. She is allergic to people who drop litter. Don't do it: it makes the world ugly.
Publisher
Walker Books