Nicola's guest on this episode of Booky is Joanna Nadin, who wrote her first book in the basement of 10 Downing Street during summer recess. Around 100 books later for both children and adults, she's authored the Penny Dreadful series, the Flying Fergus series with Sir Chris Hoy and Joe All Alone (now a TV series).
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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 Welcome to Bookie, your new favorite, friendly, snob-free
00:10 podcast for readers and for writers.
00:12 This pod is brought to you by National World, which
00:15 runs many local news brands across the UK,
00:18 from the Sheffield Star to Derby World,
00:20 from the Yorkshire Evening Post to the Blackpool Gazette,
00:22 and many in between.
00:24 But why Bookie?
00:25 Well, it's books with a why.
00:27 See what we did there?
00:28 We are asking authors from across the genre divide
00:31 to spill the ups and downs of their journeys to publication.
00:34 Plus, they are sharing a few tips for budding authors
00:36 along the way.
00:38 I'm Nicola Adam.
00:39 I'm a journalist, a writer, and a presenter
00:42 who lives in the northern English countryside amid books
00:45 and sheep and rain.
00:47 When I'm not dealing with the day-to-day of regional news,
00:50 I love books.
00:51 I love writers, and I love stories.
00:53 And our starring authors in this podcast series
00:56 encapsulate all three.
00:58 This is Bookie.
00:59 So get a cuppa or a sneaky G&T and cosy up in your Bookie Nook.
01:04 Last week, we chatted to Millie Johnson.
01:06 And this time, we have the amazing Joanna Nadine.
01:11 Now, Essex-born Jo wrote her first ever children's book
01:14 in the basement at 10 Downing Street during summer recess
01:18 while she was working in her role as special advisor
01:20 to the then prime minister.
01:22 Around 100 books later-- and you heard that right--
01:26 for both children and for adults,
01:27 including a number under other names.
01:30 She has authored the Penny Dreadful series,
01:32 the Flying Fergus series with Sir Chris Hoy, no less,
01:35 and middle grade novel Jo All Alone,
01:37 which is now a BAFTA winning and an Emmy-nominated BBC TV series.
01:43 She's been a Richard and Judy Book Club pick,
01:46 a Radio 4 Book of the Year, and Blue Peter Book of the Month,
01:50 and shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize.
01:53 She also lectures on creative writing and publishing
01:57 at the University of Bristol.
02:00 Her latest novel, the Bridgeton, Downton Abbey-esque inspired
02:04 A Calamity of Manorings-- it's right here--
02:07 was Sunday Times Book of the Week over the summer.
02:09 And she has now been nominated for the Carnegie Medal.
02:12 It's the fourth time she's been nominated for the Carnegie
02:15 Medal.
02:16 And I can confirm that A Calamity of Manorings
02:19 is an absolute joy.
02:21 So a big bookie welcome to Jo Maiden.
02:24 I'm going to, with no further ado,
02:27 leave it to Jo to explain a little bit about herself
02:30 and her amazing and extremely prolific career as a writer.
02:34 Hi, Jo.
02:35 Hello.
02:36 Thank you for having me.
02:38 Yes, prolific is a word I would use.
02:42 It feels-- other people have called it overachieving.
02:45 I have written quite a lot of books in the last 20 years
02:50 since I became a writer.
02:51 Before that, I was in politics.
02:53 And before that, I was a broadcast journalist.
02:55 But I wrote my first book in the basement of 10 Downing Street.
03:00 And since then, I have written over 100 books.
03:06 100?
03:07 Oh, wow.
03:07 Yes.
03:09 I counted 40-something.
03:10 So I obviously am out of date.
03:14 Well, a lot of them are for very young children.
03:16 So they're very short.
03:19 So that will explain if you can't find some of them.
03:22 Some of them I have written under a pen name
03:24 because I also wrote tie-ins for Angry Birds at one point
03:29 under a different name.
03:31 But yes, many, many books ranging from the kind of books
03:35 you got in school, the Biff and Chip books for the reading
03:40 programs that I would have read in school,
03:43 up to adult novels as well.
03:46 So did you start originally writing for children?
03:50 Was that your starting?
03:51 Yes, I did.
03:52 Mainly because I didn't have that much time.
03:54 I was working in politics.
03:56 We had the period of recess in the summer,
04:00 which was a matter--
04:01 I mean, it was still quite long for a summer holiday.
04:03 Politicians have a few months off, unlike the rest of us.
04:07 But I knew I didn't have enough time to write for grown-ups.
04:10 And also, I still read a lot of children's books
04:12 at that point.
04:13 I still do.
04:15 So yeah, I started off writing for children.
04:17 And actually, it's only been in the last few years
04:19 that I've started writing for adults as well.
04:22 So let's just rewind a little bit
04:24 because you can't drop that little anecdote about writing
04:26 in the Downing Street basement without any context.
04:29 So tell us a little bit about your former career.
04:33 OK, so I started out as a journalist, a broadcast
04:37 journalist in mostly radio, having done a master's
04:42 in political communications.
04:43 And I did that master's during Bill Clinton's campaign
04:47 in '93, '94 election.
04:51 And I knew at that point I wanted
04:53 to go into politics, not because of the policy,
04:55 but because of campaigning.
04:58 I wanted to change people's minds.
05:00 I wanted to persuade them to go and vote.
05:04 So I worked for a few years as a journalist.
05:05 And eventually, an opening came up just after the 1997 election
05:11 that Labour won, looking for a campaigns writer.
05:15 And I had been writing professionally
05:18 as a journalist for a number of years.
05:19 And I applied for it.
05:21 And to my astonishment, having not
05:24 been able to answer any of the policy questions
05:26 in the interview, I got the job.
05:29 And I worked at Milbank for a few years, from '98, I think,
05:35 to 2001.
05:36 And then in 2001, I moved to Downing Street
05:40 after the election and became a special advisor.
05:43 I was-- my speciality, I suppose, was writing.
05:48 I wrote answers for the prime minister,
05:50 for prime minister's questions.
05:52 I wrote lines to take if he was doing television or radio
05:56 interviews.
05:56 That was my job.
05:59 Wow, that's amazing.
06:00 And now, how did that kind of lead you
06:02 into writing for children?
06:03 Or how did that inform your writing, I guess,
06:06 is the question.
06:08 I sort of-- it did both.
06:10 I mean, it led to it because the minute I moved to Downing
06:15 Street, everyone went on recess.
06:17 And I was bored.
06:18 I was sitting in the basement with nothing to do
06:21 and nothing to write.
06:23 And with that sort of folly of youth, I thought,
06:24 oh, I'll write a book.
06:26 How hard can that be?
06:29 And because I was writing a children's book,
06:31 it didn't take as long as it would have
06:32 done to write an adult one.
06:34 I knew nothing about the industry.
06:36 And I sent it off to every single children's publisher
06:39 and every single children's agent.
06:43 And incredibly, incredibly luckily,
06:46 I did get both a publisher and an agent off the back of that.
06:52 And I carried on writing a book every summer recess
06:55 for the next four years.
06:59 And it's not a dissimilar process
07:02 to writing speeches, which was my other sort of job.
07:05 You think hard about what the message is
07:07 that you want readers or audience to take away.
07:12 And you think about the obvious way and the most compelling way
07:16 to get there.
07:17 And because I learned rhetoric, the art of persuasion,
07:21 I tend to use a lot of those tricks in both my speech
07:25 writing and in my fiction writing as well.
07:29 So you mentioned that you sent out
07:32 to every agent and every publisher.
07:34 And I know we've got a lot of want-to-be writers listening.
07:38 So could you tell us, how long did that
07:39 take you to that process?
07:41 And how did you decide who to go with?
07:43 OK, so I'm going to tell you how I did it.
07:47 And then I'm going to say, do not do it this way.
07:49 This is not how you do it.
07:51 So the first thing I did was I got
07:54 a copy of the Children's Artists and Writers Yearbook.
07:57 And everyone should do that.
07:58 That is a brilliant book published by Bloomsbury.
08:01 And it's full of essays by writers about the industry.
08:06 But also, it lists every publisher and every agent
08:10 and the contact details for them.
08:13 Not knowing that I should do any research, I literally just--
08:17 and also because there was minimal internet then.
08:22 I printed out copies of the manuscript.
08:25 I typed up letters.
08:26 And I physically sent it in big brown envelopes
08:30 to every single one of these.
08:32 There were, I mean, over 80 in total.
08:35 And that is a lot of rejection letters to deal with.
08:38 That's what Ellen--
08:39 Yeah, it's a lot of postage as well.
08:42 Yes, a lot of postage.
08:45 What I would say to people now is still
08:47 get the Writers and Artists Yearbook.
08:49 And if you're writing for adults,
08:51 there is the Writers and Artists.
08:52 And then there's the Children's version
08:54 as well if you're writing for young people.
08:58 Read the essays at the beginning
08:59 because they're really helpful.
09:01 And then look at who represents the kind of work that you write.
09:05 So pick an author.
09:07 Say, for example, if you love Marian Keyes' work or Millie
09:13 Johnson's work, go and see who represents them.
09:17 And then go onto their website and see
09:19 if they're open for submissions.
09:21 And I would shortlist five agents
09:23 because you send to agents, not to publishers.
09:26 There's no point sending to publishers.
09:28 The agents will send your work to publishers
09:31 if they've signed you.
09:33 Pick five agents and send it to them.
09:35 And then wait.
09:37 And then maybe you'll be lucky, and one or even two
09:40 will come back, and they'll want to see the whole thing.
09:43 But if not, they might have feedback for you
09:45 to change the manuscript a bit.
09:47 And then you can do that work and then send it
09:49 to another five.
09:50 And you kind of work your way through them all in that way.
09:55 That is what I tell my students now.
09:57 That is not what I did, but I lucked out, basically.
10:01 I imagine that advice will be listened to carefully
10:04 by many, actually.
10:05 I think it's wise.
10:07 Now, I just wanted to talk a little bit about your new book.
10:10 Or is this your newest?
10:11 Is this your latest book because you're writing so quickly?
10:13 I'm like, ooh, "The Calamity of Manorings."
10:15 Is it this one?
10:15 Ooh, yes.
10:16 Is that the right one?
10:17 Now, I actually have--
10:18 I finished it.
10:19 I whizzed through it because, I mean, this is--
10:22 this is written for, I would say, like, older young adults.
10:26 Am I right in--
10:26 Yes.
10:27 Yes.
10:27 So, I mean--
10:28 It is.
10:29 It's-- you know, I didn't-- if-- unless I sort of knew that it
10:32 was written for older young adults,
10:33 I probably wouldn't have thought anything of it.
10:34 I would have thought it was an adult book.
10:36 It's not like a children's book, is it?
10:38 It is definitely not, no.
10:41 And I thought it was--
10:42 I was trying to think of ways to describe it.
10:44 And, you know, it's sort of like-- almost like Bridget Jones
10:47 stroke Bridgerton stroke Pride and Prejudice stroke--
10:52 oh, I don't know.
10:53 Like, it's got a bit of politics.
10:54 It's got, you know, very pro-women, very, you know--
10:58 it's about thinking women, young thinking women,
11:01 in a very difficult time to be a thinking woman, I think.
11:04 And it's fascinating.
11:06 So what-- how did you sort of come
11:07 to that point of writing A Calamity of Mannerings?
11:12 So I always describe it as Bridget Jones meets Downton
11:16 Abbey.
11:16 I think that sort of sums it up for me.
11:19 Yeah.
11:20 It was my lockdown novel.
11:22 I was in sort of March, April.
11:27 I was supposed to write a crime novel, a modern--
11:29 you know, a contemporary set crime novel for adults
11:33 because my first adult novel had been published.
11:35 My next one was due to come out.
11:37 And my agent wanted me to do something completely different
11:41 as a sort of second string to my adult writing bow.
11:45 And then the world went a bit weird, didn't it?
11:47 And it suddenly-- I suddenly sort of--
11:50 I didn't-- it was very hard to process
11:52 what was going on.
11:53 [MUSIC PLAYING]
11:56 And then the world went a bit weird, didn't it?
12:09 And it suddenly-- I suddenly sort of--
12:12 I didn't-- it was very hard to process what was going on.
12:15 And I also didn't know what kind of world
12:17 we were going to emerge into, if at all.
12:20 I had no idea.
12:21 And so the only thing that I could write about
12:24 was historical because I thought, well,
12:26 that way it's not going to change.
12:27 That's at least set in stone.
12:29 And I also didn't want to write anything serious.
12:32 And this happened, basically.
12:36 And it's a comic diary set in 1924.
12:39 It has some connections with what was going on at the time
12:43 because they've just come out of the flu pandemic.
12:46 So there was sort of a similar feeling, in a sense,
12:51 when a lot of people had died.
12:52 They'd just come out of First World War, as well.
12:54 So a lot of men were missing.
12:58 And the seed of the idea, though,
13:00 came from Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen's novel,
13:04 which I'd actually--
13:06 the previous year, I'd rewritten it for 9-
13:08 to 12-year-olds for Hachette.
13:11 And I loved that the premise of it
13:13 is that these three sisters lose their inherited--
13:17 what should be their inherited home because
13:19 of the law of entail, which means that girls can't inherit.
13:23 And so their-- I think its cousin inherits instead.
13:27 It's been a-- a lot of things were in my brain.
13:30 I don't retain all the facts.
13:33 And I was sort of-- so that's the prompt
13:35 for A Calamity of Mannerings.
13:36 And it was written, actually, as an adult novel.
13:40 But I wanted her to be 17, 18, on that sort of cusp
13:43 of coming out into society.
13:45 And so when it actually went out on submission,
13:47 it was a children's publisher that picked it up.
13:51 And so it is now published as a young adult novel.
13:55 But it's very much definitely--
13:56 Coming of age, isn't it?
13:57 Coming of age.
13:58 It's very much a coming of age novel.
14:00 And I think as many adults as teenagers are reading it,
14:06 I think the appeal goes across--
14:08 goes completely across that age group, really.
14:11 Also, it has to be said, animal lovers.
14:14 There's a lot of animals in this book.
14:16 There's a pig.
14:17 There's a cat.
14:19 There's a sheep called Siegfried.
14:21 Yeah.
14:22 So yes.
14:24 I'm imagining you--
14:25 I grew up with pets.
14:27 I have no pets at all at home.
14:30 We had rats for a while, my daughter and I.
14:32 But they smell a lot.
14:34 But I grew up working on a farm at school.
14:37 Our school had a working farm, which I thought was normal.
14:41 I worked at stables.
14:42 I grew up watching my family and other animals.
14:47 And the vet one, which has gone out of my head now,
14:52 James Herriot novels.
14:55 So I was obsessed with animals.
14:57 And I very much like Marigold.
14:59 He's the 10-year-old in the book.
15:00 I just wanted my own flock of sheep, horses, ducks.
15:05 I wanted all of that.
15:06 I'm not interested in small pets, particularly.
15:09 I just wanted livestock.
15:10 Maybe rabbits I'd cope with.
15:12 But it was outdoor livestock I was interested in.
15:15 Penguins.
15:17 Oh, yeah, and penguins.
15:20 That's based on a true story.
15:21 There's still a penguin in it from the zoo.
15:24 But that actually happened to my friend's father
15:27 when he was taking a school trip to a zoo when he was a teacher.
15:32 Oh, wow.
15:32 So what do you think is the biggest-- obviously,
15:38 you're a woman of many things.
15:39 Like you say, you're working with the university.
15:41 You're writing prolifically.
15:44 You've had your political element to your career.
15:47 But what's the biggest hurdle you've had to overcome?
15:50 It could be professionally, personally,
15:52 in your journey to being a writer.
15:54 I suppose, I mean, partly I never
15:59 thought of myself as a writer.
16:01 It was just something I accidentally
16:03 ended up doing as a day job and then realized
16:07 that was the bit I was good at.
16:09 I spent so long wanting life to be exciting, like to be a book.
16:14 I wanted to be the kind of person people
16:16 would write books about and slowly realize
16:20 that I'm just not.
16:21 I'm the quiet person who's observing everyone else.
16:25 And actually, that should be the thing that I do.
16:28 And the same in politics.
16:31 I learned very quickly that I was not the kind of person
16:33 to want to become an MP.
16:35 I quite-- I liked being backstage.
16:37 I like writing for them.
16:39 I did not want to be out front, I suppose.
16:45 The biggest hurdle was--
16:48 a genuine hurdle was when I first--
16:50 when I finished my master's and I first
16:53 decided I wanted to go and work in politics as a writer.
16:56 And I went to meet the then head of BBC Politics.
17:00 And he just said, OK, name me five backbench MPs
17:04 who could talk about this, this, this, and this.
17:06 And I just went blank.
17:08 I could not do it.
17:10 And it was a sort of--
17:12 and he's laughed at me.
17:13 He laughed me off as if I could never possibly then do the job.
17:18 And that has been-- but that, in everything that I've done,
17:21 has been the greatest impetus for me to then learn and go
17:24 and do it.
17:25 So I went immediately away.
17:26 I learned all this stuff.
17:28 I started studying cephalogy, which
17:31 is the art of electioneering.
17:32 And about two years later, I knew the swing
17:36 to gain in every constituency in the country.
17:39 So that's the percentage by which
17:41 Labour needed to beat--
17:43 needed to increase their vote in order to beat the Conservatives.
17:47 I became-- so it's a sort of hold my beer situation.
17:51 If you tell me I can't do it, I'm
17:52 going to go and learn to do it.
17:54 So the hurdles are actually helpful in the end,
17:58 because I don't like being told I can't
18:00 or I'm not capable of doing something.
18:03 That's all partially answers my next question.
18:05 But I was going to ask you, what is your kind of biggest fail,
18:10 the thing that you regret, that you regret doing,
18:12 that you think, right--
18:13 but it might have been that interview.
18:15 But you thought, why did I do that?
18:18 And perhaps then moved on from that.
18:22 No.
18:24 My worst fail was when I started working at Milbank.
18:29 And in my first week or so, the Prime Minister, Tony Blair,
18:34 came up.
18:34 And there was a meeting room next to my desk anyway.
18:38 I was the new girl.
18:39 He was standing at my desk.
18:41 And I looked up.
18:43 And I'd never met him in real life.
18:47 I'd interviewed him on radio, but I'd never met him.
18:50 My mind went blank as to what etiquette was.
18:53 And all I could think of was when in ballet class,
18:56 aged about six, we were taught to curtsy,
18:58 and that if you met the queen, you would curtsy.
19:02 And so I stood up and curtsied to the Prime Minister.
19:05 And that is definitely my biggest professional fail.
19:10 What did he do?
19:13 As always, he just sort of acted completely bemused
19:17 and ignored it, and then was incredibly
19:19 charming and polite, thankfully.
19:21 So are you-- obviously, you're a writer.
19:28 And you're probably a reader.
19:29 I think it goes without saying that every writer is
19:31 a reader as well.
19:32 I mean, I've not met one that isn't yet, just yet.
19:34 You have to be.
19:35 You have to be.
19:36 But what author-- is there an author
19:38 that you feel that kind of inspired you,
19:41 that you kind of wanted to be when you were starting out,
19:46 perhaps?
19:47 So yes, absolutely.
19:49 I'd grown up reading Joan Aikens' books.
19:53 So both her very dark, more serious books,
19:57 like Black Hearts and Battersea, but a series of books
20:00 called Arabelle's Raven, which were a very, very funny series
20:04 about a four-year-old girl called Arabelle, whose father
20:07 knocks over a raven in his taxi called Mortimer
20:10 and brings him home.
20:11 Or rather, she names him Mortimer.
20:13 And Arabelle ends up looking after Mortimer,
20:16 and Mortimer just causes endless chaos.
20:21 And those books stayed with me.
20:23 I'd carried on reading them throughout my life.
20:27 I wrote my first book when I was in my early 30s,
20:30 and I was still reading Arabelle's Raven then.
20:33 And so I very much set out to be--
20:36 to write funny books like Joan Aiken.
20:38 That was my goal.
20:41 Now, I'm starting to write a new--
20:44 an adult novel, and it's Marion Keys,
20:47 who is very much in my mind.
20:49 That is-- I mean, we'd all like to be Marion, I think.
20:52 So it's-- but it's, again, it's that comedy.
20:55 I love writing funny things.
20:58 Fantastic.
20:59 Right, OK, we're running out of time.
21:01 So I'm going to just go into a little quick-fire questions
21:05 for you.
21:05 So are you ready for this?
21:07 We call it Bookie Look.
21:09 So the first question is, what is--
21:12 and it doesn't matter if it's something
21:14 you've mentioned before, but what is the most read book
21:16 on your shelf?
21:17 It will be Arabelle's Raven by Joan Aiken.
21:22 OK, OK.
21:23 And what is the book you wish you'd written?
21:26 Right now, it's Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver,
21:30 which has blown my mind.
21:32 It's a retelling of David Copperfield's set in Appalachia.
21:36 Wow.
21:37 OK, and what is your favorite spot to read?
21:41 It could be anywhere.
21:44 In bed.
21:45 It's so much more comfortable than anywhere else.
21:49 And just a little one, what is your top tips,
21:52 sort of your three top tips to writers who are starting out
21:57 or on their journey?
21:59 Write every day.
22:02 And it doesn't matter what you write, even if it's in tweets,
22:05 it's all practice for you.
22:08 Writing is like a muscle.
22:09 You have to exercise it or you don't get good at it.
22:13 Carry a notebook with you everywhere you go.
22:16 Or use your Notes app on your phone.
22:18 You will get ideas when you're walking around
22:21 all over the place.
22:22 And the last one is read.
22:23 You cannot write without that fuel.
22:27 Books go in, writing comes out.
22:30 I totally agree with that.
22:32 And just a final one, what is one thing
22:35 that you wish you'd known before you
22:37 started on your writing career?
22:41 I wish I'd known that rejection doesn't ever stop at.
22:46 So when you get your agent, you think, that's it, I've made it.
22:49 But you still get rejected by editors and it carries on.
22:53 And even now, every book I write will still
22:57 get rejected by some publishers.
23:00 And that feeling never really stops.
23:02 So you have to be hardy, basically.
23:05 And you have to really love the process of writing.
23:09 If you don't love the process of writing, stop now.
23:12 If you think it's the hardest thing ever
23:13 and you're one of those tortured writers in their ivory tower,
23:17 there's just no point.
23:18 Because the publishing bit, you can't control.
23:20 All you can control is the writing.
23:22 So do it because you love it.
23:25 That's from the heart and from reality.
23:27 That's great.
23:28 So resilience is key, I think, definitely.
23:31 Yes.
23:33 Thank you so much.
23:34 Been absolutely fantastic, Jo.
23:36 Really, really brilliant and really, really honest,
23:38 which is what we like.
23:39 So I need to go away and read your other 99 books now.
23:44 I've got my own way to do.
23:46 But thank you so much for coming on the pod.
23:48 It's been really, really enlightening
23:50 and really interesting.
23:51 So thank you very much.
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