receiving, and trying to unlearn, my whole life.
Amidst all that, I did become a writer. Working a traditional job became impossibly hard, and so, while concussed from a car park seizure, I boldly told my family I was going to be an author. I’d been working as a children’s bookseller for a little while, and I knew that my love of Welsh myths – the stories I grew up surrounded by – was where I wanted to start. I’d studied ecology at university and I hadn’t written fiction for about 10 years, so I started very much from scratch, teaching myself to write.
Before our eyes
I wanted to find a way to incorporate the folklore I’d been raised with. Those stories, in particular, had been my refuge when things got too hard in my real life. My dad and I had a little project where he’d take me out to the places from the stories I’d look up, and we’d walk around and look and think and imagine those stories happening right before our eyes. The Afanc of Beaver Pool. Cantr’er Gwaelod. Prince Madog. Santes Dwynwen. Arthur’s final resting place in Eryri. Those stories were woven into the landscape around me, and they were my escape. Your fears can feel much smaller when faced with all that history.
Alongside this, I thought of the stories that I needed as that child who escaped into stories. Together, that’s where Vivi Conway, the protagonist from Vivi Conway and the Sword of Legend, came from.
We meet Vivi the night before she’s moving away from Wales for a fresh life with her mums in South London – because Vivi was bullied so badly in school, they decided to leave. While hoping to cruise quietly through high school without any friends or bullies, she finds herself caught up in a magical spell to protect her world against the cruel King Arawn, which means being part of a team of magical kids. Vivi’s arc over the course of the Vivi Conway trilogy is all about learning what friendship actually is, and how to trust people again after being hurt. I wanted to show bullied kids, especially bullied disabled kids, that there is a future where you will find people who love you exactly for who you are. I needed to know that as a child. But the story of the Vivi Conway series isn’t just about her (to the point that we really wrestled with naming it that!). It’s about these ancient stories I grew up with that often centred men and placed women in the backseat – I
Spring-Summer 2024
asked what those women could have been up to, and what if they were the ones actually saving the world. It’s about a group of disabled and LGBTQ* kids working together against things that scare them, leading them through a story about solidarity, understanding and love. I like to think it’s a bit funny too. Vivi Conway is all these things, and more. Through Vivi I’ve been able to tell a story I’ve been trying to work out how to write for years and years, so she will always be particularly special to me, I think. People often ask if Vivi is me, or a younger me, and truly she’s neither – she is her own person. But some of her feelings were mine, especially the fear and loneliness she feels at the start of the first book.
One of the nicest things about Vivi Conway and the Sword of Legend being out is the amount of young readers I’ve met, especially the autistic ones. I always tell them autistic people are the best people, and I hope they know I mean it.
Lizzie Huxley-Jones. Photo © Jamie Drew
Things are tough for kids who are a little different, and I hope that my books show them that, amidst terribly hard things, there is brightness, joy and a future. PEN&INC
Vivi Conway and the Sword of Legend by Lizzie Huxley-Jones is published by Knights Of. The second book in the series, Vivi Conway and the Haunted Quest is published on 2 May 2024.
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