Authorgraph No.221
of authenticity. Michelle Paver, Tess Sharpe and Katherine Rundell are children’s novelists who also do the same thing when it comes to experiencing tough reality at first hand. Together they mark a return to those Victorian children’s authors who too would regularly set out on an adventure first and then write it up in fiction afterwards. But Lauren is also a great admirer of Eva Ibbotson’s Journey to the River Sea, set in exotic parts this fine author had never visited. Talking to Lauren who is in her pretty South London flat, beloved cat Max periodically sitting on her lap, I wondered what is it about actual experience that Lauren finds so important in her writing?
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I really struggle if I don’t go somewhere and do some research before starting writing. And I love the adventure of it all. Recently I have visited the far North of Australia and travelled hundreds of miles visiting out of the way places. I suppose I could have looked up that whole area on YouTube or something but it wouldn’t have been the same. I wouldn’t have had the experience of bottle-feeding wallabies or talking to Human Rights lawyers about some of the things going on there. I personally find such experiences totally enriching and I hope that feeling gets into the books too. First-hand knowledge also helps when talking to children in schools. I am an ambassador for
rowing up on a farm and game reserve in what was then Rhodesia, Lauren St John experienced almost as many real life adventures at the time as her young fictional characters have enjoyed since. She still likes putting herself through gruelling overseas trips in search
Lauren St John Interviewed
by Nicholas Tucker
the Born Free Foundation. After talking to pupils about animal conservation you can sometimes get that feeling that their minds really have changed as a result.
You loved Enid Blyton as a child. Was she an important influence when writing your Laura Marlin mystery novels?
When I read The Famous Five out in Africa I thought what amazingly exciting lives her characters were having, even more exciting than my own. That’s despite growing up on a farm where I had a pet giraffe, there were crocodiles on the river and a war going on around us. I also had three pet pythons over the years. But you always look elsewhere when you are a child and Enid Blyton’s characters tramping the moors and catching smugglers had lives that still seemed more enviable.
You are at the moment finishing the fifth book in your Laura Marlin Mystery Series. Are you planning for her ever getting past age eleven and entering puberty, with all the emotional complications that can sometimes follow?
All her adventures take place during one year with characters who stay aged somewhere between nine and eleven. She won’t get any older. When I talk to schools I find the difference between her age band and ages thirteen is utterly extreme. Nine to eleven is such a beautiful age. Children at that stage are so compassionate and intelligent and still have so many hopes and dreams. I’m not saying you can’t have these at thirteen, but younger children still want to change the world
8 Books for Keeps No.221 November 2016
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