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#196 - Jennifer Claessen
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Children's fantasy author, Jennifer Claessen is on this week to chat about finishing her middle-grade trilogy with 'The December Witches', the children's market in publishing and doing her best not to tell us all about the next trilogy she's working on.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Ooh, a spicy question. I love it. Because the writing is sort of everything, right? Like, you can fix plot holes, but if the writing... Yeah. So some readers love that, and some readers are like, but I wanted more of this. So it's kind of a gamble. Hello, and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast. With me today is a children's author, a teacher, and a theatre maker who is about to release the concluding novel in her A Month of Magic trilogy. It's Jennifer Classen. Hello.
00:00:29
Speaker
Hi Jamie, thank you so much for having me on your podcast. Thanks so much for coming on. um Let's get right to it.
The December Witches and Trilogy Overview
00:00:36
Speaker
So the release of The December Witches, the final book in the series is fast approaching. Tell us a little bit about the trilogy and this final instalment.
00:00:48
Speaker
Thank you very much for asking. and Yeah, the December Witch is coming out this November and and I have never got my months so muddled up as I do now, but in the October Witch years followed young witch Clemy who's part of the Merlin Coven and she receives her my magic for one month a year, descends from the stars.
00:01:13
Speaker
and and her family schemed all the way through October to try and keep their magic, and October saw them go up against their enemy coven, the mort with the Morgans, so it's Morgans versus Merlins, all those kind of like King Arthur vibes, Arthurian legend.
00:01:30
Speaker
and And then in November, and it got a bit wild. um In November, Clemy and her covert had said goodbye to their magic and they were ready to spend the month in mourning, but actually wild noose magic and posed loads of threats to both covens. So November saw the two covens kind of coming together, finding a little bit of peace there between them. And then December sees full-blown magical chaos.
00:01:59
Speaker
as all the ancient magic of their ancestors goes straight into Clemy herself. and So she is a witch who has not really sure about her witchiness and she's a very insecure young witch and we saw her in October kind of grapple with her power and in November try and find her voice and now in December and she's a poorly witch, she's just overly stuffed full of magic and she has become accidentally the one true witch across all the covens and she and everyone are just really struggling with that and it's got it's got all the good seasonal vibes so october was very halloween inspired november was very bonfire night inspired and then the ending of the trilogy really happened and because my amazing editor at uclan hazel
00:02:55
Speaker
really loves Christmas and so do I. So we've had to kind of round out the trilogy with like a big Christmassy.
Festive Themes and Humorous Extensions
00:03:03
Speaker
We've got a small donkey, we've got loads of snow, we've got a massive snowstorm, we've got gingerbread houses everywhere. you've got Christmas trees. It's super fun and festive. So it's still very much an adventure. and And that is the end of the trilogy. People make the 12 book joke to me all the time. And the first time someone said to me, oh, it's a 12 book series, I had absolutely zero sense of humor about it. Was it like, no, no, no, no, just three. and But there is actually
00:03:34
Speaker
at the end of The December Witch is a tiny bonus short story, which I just had someone proofread for me the other day and said that that came as a massive surprise at the end of the book, that there's this bonus short story. So there's a bonus short story at the end called The January Witch. And because January is a, you know, it's a tough month and it is hard done by as January. and So that is actually where it ends. It actually ends with January.
00:04:00
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, was going I mean, it it would be difficult to do 12 because you'd have to find like a seasonal theme for every single month. Oh my gosh. I don't even know what we would do like, which is Easter, which is on their summer holidays. Like I i gave it some thought, but no, I'm and i'm an waterwin autumn winter spirit. and So are my characters.
00:04:22
Speaker
and And the December witch is I've just done my final proofread. It's gone to print as of yesterday morning. and oh wow And it's got these gorgeous, ah like cookbook inserts. So each chapter starts with an extract from one of the witchy aunties Connie, it starts with an extract from her cookbook. It's not a spell book, it's a cookbook. And throughout the book, she kind of you get to see her like finesse this cookie recipe. So obviously, as my my dream is that some young writers will be like, we made Connie's cookies.
Writing Process and Themes Exploration
00:04:57
Speaker
and So yeah, I'm very excited to take this book out on tour and like talk about gingerbread and how difficult it is to make quite a lot.
00:05:09
Speaker
Yeah, that's so interesting. Just for a frame of reference for anyone listening, um this is going to release in November, but we are recording this in July. So that's the the turnover we're looking at this book, having been handed in, finished and being published physically.
00:05:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, sorry. I probably should have not have alluded to it going to print yesterday because that would confuse anyone who is listening to this podcast with the book in hand. They'd be a bit like, no, no, this is wildly inaccurate. But I i actually finished this book a while ago and I've just finished reading ah Margaret Atwood's writing book. I think it's called On Writing. I can't remember what it's called actually, but she talks about how readers are always chasing writers, how you can like the reader can never really be in the same headspace as the writer because you know we write so far ahead of publication and it can take absolutely years and years so ahead of chatting with you today I was a bit like right okay the December witches let me try and get back into the headspace because I'm currently writing a book which is going to be out in 2027 and so it's such a it's such an interesting journey to
00:06:20
Speaker
have written these witches, to love these witches but to actually feel like there's now quite a lot of space between me and these witches and I have to kind of like re-immurse myself in that world and I think for writers that can be both a little bit painful and awkward you're like oh gosh here we go back into these old characters in this old book and then actually doing the proofread has been so nice and i but like oh I love these characters like the month of magic trilogy is like It's meant to be kind of like their adventure stories with, you know, 12, 13 year old women, girls at their center and their coming of age stories and their finding your power stories. But they are also meant to be these kind of super cozy, like warm hugs of books. um And there's loads of intergenerational stuff in there. so like
00:07:04
Speaker
It's young, young witches, my young hags, that's what they're called in the books. And then it's all about their very elderly aunties, because I have lots of very elderly aunties. And then also I love like a i love like a witch auntie, you know like a spooky old lady in the tradition of practical magic, in the tradition of hocus pocus. And so it was really lovely to kind of get back into the December witches mindset. But yeah, I am wearing a t-shirt right now. So the time to discuss this book truly is when you're wearing a scarf and a bobble hat. yeah That's the dream. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. and ah yeah I mean, it's not an uncommon thing I've talked about to authors on the podcast many times where they've said, yeah,
00:07:46
Speaker
it's but I hadn't thought about this book for a while because sometimes I'll do it closer to the release date as well. So if we'd done this, if we'd recorded this like in November, let's say, you'd be even further removed from ah from the book itself. But despite that kind of um distance, I guess, like from when you actually finished writing it, ah does it feel strange to kind of be wrapping up the series, having having it all kind of coming out and knowing that that kind of yeah it's over, you're done with it?
00:08:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's really exciting to have the trilogy kind of end. I never knew it was going to be a trilogy like The the October Witches was the first book. and It wasn't called The October Witches to start with. That wasn't my title. It very much is. I love it as a title because it exactly does what it says on the tin if that makes sense like when i visit schools and go on tour and stuff i'm just like yeah the books are the octo witches because it's about witches in october um and it makes total sense and that's why i like i really love the title the december witches because it's just that little bit more unexpected like we
00:08:49
Speaker
we're definitely thinking you know of like Father the Christmas and and I couldn't it might something might be out there like it but I couldn't find anything but my and protagonist also becomes Sister Christmas so she becomes like Sister Christmas and like gift giving and what we give to others and receive and how we share gifts and magic is like a big theme throughout the whole book and so I'm so like I'm so so chuffed to be able to finish it with December because that's like, yeah, of all the seasons, it is the most cozy and these are not spooky books really at all. So with the October witches, I feel like some people are a bit like, oh, yes, witches in October, that's spooky season. And I was like, yes, also cozy. And so I was so as soon as I wrote the October witches, I had this idea of
00:09:38
Speaker
the witches saying goodbye to their magic and then getting ready to go kind of back to normal and then there being this like knock on the door and then opening the door and it being just a man a man in full armor like a knight and then going where have you come from? and So I really have lent into like obviously all the seasonal stuff like the knights and the bonfires that go all the way through November were so fun to write and but December I don't know if I can have favourites, but maybe I think December Witches is my favourite of the three books because the stakes are so high and there is so much tension and they literally have to save the protagonist like Clemmy, Clem, Clemency, Clementine, whatever her name is, they have to save her life because she's so chock full of magic and she has to work out how she can get this magic out of her um and and be able to live. and But I think it's also just my favourite because
00:10:35
Speaker
when you've lived with those characters for so long, like they're so real to me. There's Clemy, her cousin Mirabelle, and then their very distant relations, the Morgans, and and there's two Morgan sisters called Cara and Sonara, and they form their own little kind of like found family of and young hags, defying the expectations of all their coven elders. And those four witches are so kind of like real to me and yeah being back with them is such a kind of like lovely feeling. The um the our amazing illustrator Heidi Cannon did a gorgeous ah job of the cover it's all stitched because there's a tapestry that runs through all three books which is very important plot wise lots of mysteries lots of reveals in the tapestry and but she also did this very cute thing which of course it's not
00:11:28
Speaker
I mean everyone can see it but on the October witches cover there's just one witch on the November witches cover there's two witches side by side and then in December there's three so we've got three of the main witches there on the third book of the series so as a as a kid I just loved a trilogy like I would you know read the three books of one of an evening like in one go and so I'm very satisfied that the trilogy kind of ends and it's all nicely tied up with a bow and then I'm hoping to you know find so many new readers who are the kind of readers I was
00:12:03
Speaker
who would only read a trilogy when it was done. and I think Philip Pullman really did a number on a lot of us there, the Millennials, who we read Northern Lights and um then we had to wait like six years for the end of the series. and So I'm really happy to like wrap up the trilogy and then yeah say goodbye to these witches.
Challenges and Future Writing Projects
00:12:26
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that's good. And it's not like you sort of unexpectedly said, okay, this is, we're just going to end it here and then kind of tried to find a way to to finish it off and maybe didn't find closure in that. Yeah, I've got quite a lot of writer friends who I can see kind of struggling with the series thing, this idea of being a series writer and when you draw a line under something, like when you say goodbye to it. And with the October witches, it was a one book deal. And then I was very lucky with Yukon that they then kind of went immediately for another two. But I think that that level of insecurity sometimes with the series and you know, serialized things in general can be quite stressful.
00:13:05
Speaker
because you write a book then you write another book and then you're a bit like ah if we've got an arc traveling through all three books then when do we when do we close that down you know and and then if you have a wonderful readership who are like can I have more of these please and you want to write more of them but then also as an author you do want to go on to do other things so I My next series of books is very deliberately set in August and it's got nothing to do with autumn. It's got nothing to do with ah this kind of magic i'm because otherwise I do think I could have ended up
00:13:41
Speaker
like sticking with these witches forever and I would have had a lovely time. and But I think it's good to know kind of when to let go of them and when they're off to, you know, they're literally, oh, that's a spoiler maybe, they're literally flying by the end there. So they're gonna soar off into the distance.
00:14:00
Speaker
So was it, that's interesting, was it after the October witches came out, which is the first one, was it after it had come out that you clan then signed you on for the next two to kind of complete the trilogy or was it before it had come out?
00:14:13
Speaker
It was just as it came out. You know what? I'm actually not really sure whether it was before or after, but it was very much around publication. right and and I think that you maybe find that with quite a lot of small presses that they sign one book deal, and but actually with UCLan,
00:14:31
Speaker
I think all of their authors, we do feel like it's a family and and Hazel kind of just like, I mean, she could rule the world yeah so efficiently. Like she's she's head of our coven and she is our leading witch and she is so good at kind of like,
00:14:48
Speaker
making things happen really really fast and so yeah she signed October and we talked immediately about you know oh November and bonfire night and then oh well if you're gonna do that then you've gotta have Christmas and and then so I was really thrilled that she would have me back to do November and December but I think there's you know there's you kind of have to look at sales I guess from a kind of commercial point of view and make sure that it's a viable option and because you cannot have one book that nobody wants to read and then another and another two that also nobody wants to read. But i've been I feel very lucky to have found like a really lovely readership. and There is a certain type of 11 year old girl who is exactly who I was when I was a kid. And they every time I meet one in a bookshop, I'm just like,
00:15:40
Speaker
Oh, yes, yeah, you're, you're a witch. um and And they've been super lovely. So I think that hopefully everyone will be happy to have the December as their christmas does December witches as their Christmas read. and And I'm really grateful to UCLan. They're a university press, and they do so much. and So they're, yeah, it as ah the October witches was my debut and as a debut author, and coming out with UCLan,
00:16:09
Speaker
and who are so small and so mighty
Publishing Experience and Cultural Themes
00:16:13
Speaker
and was a really great experience. Yeah, I've had a few UCLan authors on, um Amy McCore has been on the podcast and then ah upcoming.
00:16:25
Speaker
a good friend of mine, Melissa Welliver, is about to publish with UConn as well. Yeah, I know. She's in our little WhatsApp group of the UConn authors and i've I've listened to all your previous episodes. They're really cool. and But yeah, it's amazing what UConn can do and the authors who ah who are signed with UCLan. I'm like, oh, we're all very different. But there is also kind of like, I feel like you can see Hazel's taste kind of running through, like just on the edge of darkness there. and Amazing.
00:17:00
Speaker
magical women who are very empowered doing very exciting things. I think that's like a real commonality. and And then obviously, they're a northern powerhouse you plan. So ah I am a London anomaly there. But they've got some really amazing northern authors.
00:17:17
Speaker
Yes, um and everyone I've spoken to about you, Glenn, is very happy um being there. it's It's much more of a homegrown atmosphere, I think, than then sort of the big publishers, which are more have a more sort of corporate ah leaning to a lot of them.
00:17:32
Speaker
Yeah, I'm with them Simon & Schuster in the US. Simon Kids, I think they're called. And and they took the October witches over there, and which was amazing and because they published a really beautiful hardback edition with a completely different and unique cover.
00:17:51
Speaker
um And my granddad was so pleased to get a hardback. I think he was like, that was kind of like a, oh, you've really made it moment. I think he thought that this author business that I was doing was a bit, he wasn't sure about it, to be honest, but then I bought him a very glossy, sparkly hardback. And he was a bit like, Oh, I see. I see. Right. Okay. This is And, but it was, yeah, it's been lovely both sides of the pond, to be honest, Simon and Schuster in the US was also an amazing experience. But I had no idea I had such a problem with Briticisms. And that these characters have quite like, strong colloquial voices. We had to go through many times with a fine tooth comb to weed out all my Briticisms. And I was a bit like, oh, yeah, that fully would not make sense in America. I think a lot of the there's a lot of puns, there's a lot of, to be honest, really terrible puns in all three books, again, in honor of my granddad. And so they had to um
00:18:52
Speaker
They didn't make any kind of structural or story edits, but on a sentence level, in pretty much every paragraph, they were a bit like, what does this mean? today what What was their kind of take on the November witches? Because Bonfire Night is almost exclusively like an English thing.
00:19:12
Speaker
Yeah, and we, in the writing of it, we didn't know that that was a thing. and My very smart kind of structural editor, Hailey Fairhead, who now is at Firefly, and but she was a bit like, oh, you know what we should have? We should have a little Thanksgiving nod in there. and So the witches, and I don't know if we've invented this, I like to think we've invented this, but the witches celebrate Pi night.
00:19:39
Speaker
right at the end of the November witches. So they celebrate pie night and they and make loads and loads of different pies. And that's as close to Thanksgiving as these very English witches would ever get because it's very rooted in ah London. It's very rooted in Cornwall. These books are very English, really. yeah and But we put in pie night because we thought that was fun and cozy. and But the October witches is actually only coming out in paperback in the US this year. So I don't really know what they they'll think about November, to be honest. I don't know if it will be up there straight. But it is really fun, the kind of seasonal celebrations that we all have. And like, you know, these are
00:20:21
Speaker
these witches are kind of very close to my family. and They're a real matriarchy. um And the way that they celebrate things is, is yeah, it's just very, it's very them and it's probably, I don't really know in America what they would think of it. They probably think it was very, ah ah yeah, like quaint and European. Okay, yeah, I could see if you didn't know what it was like if you were if you didn't grow up in in the UK and you know what bonfire night was I could see like young children sort of reading about this and then maybe asking their parents or looking at me like what is bonfire night why did they celebrate that and then being very excited to discover that someone tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament.
00:21:01
Speaker
Exactly, exactly. a note The November Witches is full of fire. It's absolutely full of fire. But it's and and all of the holiday holidays, all of the festivals, festivities across all three books. They are inspired by the ones that we have.
00:21:17
Speaker
in our very boring non-magical world, but they are their own thing. So Halloween is not necessarily kind of like a night of spirits in the October witches. It's just the night that marks the end of the month when their magic returns to the stars. And Bonfire Night is this night where they are celebrating the fact that they have survived, potentially being burnt. and Lots of references to being burnt at the stake, but in a very middle grade kind of way. and So they're all there're they're celebrating but in their own, in own their own doing their own thing. yeah Yeah. Okay.
Journey to Publishing and Inspirations
00:21:53
Speaker
I'd love to dial it back a bit um and talk about, so the October Witch is the first one. That was your debut novel. yeah How much had you written prior to that?
00:22:05
Speaker
Yeah, I just listened this morning to your interview with Parry Thompson, and which was so cool and so interesting to hear and and to hear her casually saying that best-selling award-winning Greenwild was the first novel that she'd written. I was a bit like, oh, no, I cannot relate. So I think that I didn't really keep track to be honest, but I am i went on a hike in Hong Kong where I used to live and with an author called, she's either called Katie Sang or Katherine Weber. And she's a very good friend of mine and an amazing author. And we did this hike together along this pathway in Hong Kong called the Dragon's Back.
00:22:44
Speaker
and we did that in 2011 and we decided on that hike that we would make a proper go of writing and that we would we've been talking about it for years but that we would actually both write a story and we would email every day and we would commit to writing and and my debut yeah came out in 2022. it That was 11 years between deciding to take writing seriously and my debut novel coming out and with lots of things in between, um including lots of other jobs that I love doing as well. But I think I wrote probably about six manuscripts before hitting on the October witches, which I think
00:23:21
Speaker
is just a bit more of an easy, not an easy sell, but just maybe a slightly more commercial hook than anything that I'd written before. I do tend towards the weird. And and I'd be out of the six, six stories that I wrote before October, which is not one of them you could pitch in a sentence. They they were not very high, concept not very high concept. yeah and But yeah, so I've written quite a lot.
00:23:46
Speaker
And I had been taking my writing, trying to take my writing seriously, but my background is in theatre. And so I'd been working and for an amazing charity in the West End, where our job was to take refugees and young people who might not be able to access stuff.
00:24:02
Speaker
like the arts, to go to the theatre. And so it was the coolest gig ever. and But I did also work 12 hour days doing that. And and so the October witches I wrote um in 2019, and I had the idea at four o'clock in the morning, which is the proper witching hour, none of this midnight business, midnight's fine.
00:24:22
Speaker
four is spooky. and But i was it was September in 2019 and I was in bed and making a plan for October and we do kind of like an autumn bucket list every year. And I was like, right, so we're going to go to the pumpkin patch. And then I've got like three different iterations of Halloween costumes to make and I was just thinking about how truly magical October was and I was it like what if magic was real but it's just real for the month of October and immediately was like right ah okay let's go um and went straight downstairs and immediately like wrote 3000 words I was very excited and inspired and and then it had that kind of like magical feeling where everything just kind of
00:25:02
Speaker
clicked into place. i'm I'm not calling myself an overnight success. Obviously, that would be very silly. But having written for such a long time and squished it around all my other busy bits of life, I suddenly kind of really prioritized this book, which at the time I was calling my October, and and signed with my agent within a few weeks. And and she was just, I'm with the Andrew Nuremberg agency. So they, their agency begins with an A. So I started at the top of the alphabet and query them first. And my agent and picked it off the slash pile in a very kind of classic writerly journey, which now I'm like, not smug about, but I'm really pleased that to have had that slash pile journey where, you know, kind of like, no one kind of opened that door for me, if that makes sense. It just was, even after years and years of writing,
00:26:00
Speaker
wildly unsuccessfully, it was still a slush pile selection that signed me with my amazing agent and my agent's birthday and is is in October. So I just, it had this kind of like fated feeling where she was just like, yes, October is magic. And I was like, you're right, it is magic. And she loves witches and I love witches. And we're both really interested in the stories of kind of women who and young young women particularly who might be either sidelined or their stories don't get told as much. And what kind of is at the heart of these books is that they are the story of kind of Merlin. um And I went away and did loads of research. I've done an absurd amount of research into our theory and legend, absolutely none of which made it into any of the books.
00:26:44
Speaker
and i did I even went in for November, which is I did a big bit of research into forest warfare um and like met with like a military expert about forest warfare, which is grim, by the way. It's really grim. So absolutely none of that made it into the book either because it's all horrible. It's all about people getting pierced with bits of wood. It's disgusting. But I get really interested and like I get kind of deep into like the nerdy stuff. here and But I wanted to take everything that we kind of know about Merlin and the fact that he's old and wise and male and has a long beard and and basically took all of that stuff about Merlin and made him a 12 year old girl instead. And at the time, there might be some more out there, but at the time of writing it, I don't think I'd ever come across a female Merlin. So I was really interested in gender swapping that and kind of seeing what might happen, like bringing Merlin into our world and making Merlin and kind of thinking about that exploration of
00:27:44
Speaker
magic as like a metaphor for for power. yeah And in my first draft, it was a lot more about blood and periods. And it was much more obviously this kind of idea of the month, it was much more about like, being 12, being 13, getting your period for the first time, it being uncomfortable. And And that's I like to think that that's all still subtly in there, and but much less explicitly in there, it's much more of like kind of power that's painful and uncomfortable. and And it's, yeah, it's young women kind of coming into themselves and growing up and finding out that they are powerful, but that there's kind of a trade off with that power. And it's sometimes like being uncomfortable in your body. all All three books are really about young women being deeply uncomfortable in their bodies. and
00:28:36
Speaker
which I think I've had some amazing reviews that have picked up on that, but I don't think that bit is necessarily for everyone. like It's definitely in there, and but it doesn't yeah that might not be immediately apparent to everyone, but um there I did a big school assembly to like 300 kids.
00:28:57
Speaker
And three girls came up to me afterwards and they were like, it is about periods miss, isn't it? And I was just like, yeah, yeah. and So I think that, you know, people, readers find it where they're at, don't they? Like they they read it through the lens of their own experience always.
00:29:14
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And no two readers will will have the same exact experience from from, you know, reading any novel, I imagine. Yeah. um Which is so cool. Yeah, it is cool. Because yeah reading is one of those rare kind of creative things where the reader is also a participant in the creation of the story. You know, it's their imagination is putting everything together. Whereas if you watch ah a movie, that's, you know, it's all, you can't have any effect on it at this point.
00:29:39
Speaker
You can get a different
Interactive Reading and Imagination
00:29:40
Speaker
experience from watching it because it will trigger different memories in you, but it's a crafted visual based on you know what someone else has thought up and presented to you.
00:29:50
Speaker
Yeah, so true. I saw a great meme the other day. Oh, yeah. And we said like reading so weird when you think about it, like, I'm just gonna lay back and stare at some thinly sliced tree and hallucinate for a few hours. And I was like, that is so true. Like it's a a book is a spell, obviously. and but It's a spell that's asking you to kind of look look at something that isn't even there like you have to you have to conjure for yourself so magically which is I always love that about books particularly that and the witches in my books I've tried to describe them in a very open-ended way so that as many people as possible can see themselves represented in these witches because every reader is their own casting agent like
00:30:36
Speaker
all that you really get about these girls is that they've got curly hair and sharp chins and I was a bit like oh but I would love to because you know like the characters that I read they didn't always look like me but I cast them in my mind and they always were they always looked like people I knew you know I yeah i kind of stole like her Hermione Granger when I was young and reading those yeah she looked exactly like me and actually she doesn't look a thing like me but in my head she did um so you're right I think like film and books have a different power but books really do ask you to commit a small act of magic every time you read this idea of this like hallucinating And you get to kind of collaborate as a reader with the author. You know, the author's kind of laid down the structure in the foundation and you get to sort of dress it up however you however you want. Yeah, so cool. And that brings us to the point in the episode where I'm going to ask you to conjure up in your own imagination what it would be like to be stranded upon a desert island all by yourself. And in that scenario, if you had a single book with you, which book do you hope that it would be?
00:31:48
Speaker
Okay, so this is an absolute nightmare because, well, one, I would not survive a day on a desert island. and Like I'd be, especially if I didn't have an inhaler, like that would be the end of me. I wouldn't even be able to read for a little while. I'm not not not good on the desert islands, but and I prepared for this question extremely carefully and was a bit like, right, so It's got to be long, it's got to be a long book and ideally it's one I've not read before and so I went through my bookshelves and I was a bit like oh you know what I've not read The Murderer's Ape from Pushkins by, I don't know how you pronounce his name, Jakob
00:32:25
Speaker
v valilia I'm going to say Jakob Weglias, and he's written a book called The Murderer's Ape, which I have heard is absolutely amazing. He's a Swedish writer, um and The Murderer's Ape was a bestseller in Sweden and Germany, and I have wanted to read it for absolutely years. But it is massive, and it hurts me to pick it up in my hands. So I was like, that's my desert island choice. And then I listened to a lot of episodes and listened to people name their favorite books and was a bit like, I don't want to take my favorite book. I probably already know it off by heart. and So I yet don't have a good answer, but the the books that had a huge impact on me as a child and I think we are always worth a reread and would be the Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. those were
00:33:16
Speaker
absolutely game changing books for me. My cousin, um whose name is in all of my which books, my cousin lent me and Northern Lights when I was probably about 11. And I had never read anything like it. And it blew my tiny mind. And it still does, I think. And and I have a child, and she is called Lyra. So I'm very committed. I'm a committed fan, yeah. um So I would probably, if I could, cheekily take all three books, collect it in a volume or a box. Just bound together with sellotape. It's one book. Exactly, just stick with it. just stick them together. Yeah. But then if we're doing that, I might as well be taking my whole library. But and yeah, I would really, I have not read those, reread those for quite a few years now. And I'd be really curious. I think they hold up. and And I watched the television show a few years ago. the new and
00:34:18
Speaker
Yeah, the new one, I really enjoyed that too. So I would love to take all three of them because that's also like a meaty book, isn't it? Like it's a lot of pages. yeah So that would probably probably be my desert island choice. But i I think I was thinking very practically about it. I was like, it's got to be, we're going for length.
00:34:39
Speaker
i because there's also a world in which I'm an extremely liked studious person. I would also like to take clearly you know like the entire works of Shakespeare and just like you know challenge my brain a little bit while I was there. Well, that you can definitely get in one book. There's plenty of- Yeah, I have it in one book. Again, can't pick it up. Can't really pick it up. and But I also think there there's a lot to be said for taking a volume of poetry with you.
00:35:05
Speaker
you know, knowing that you probably are a bit sandy and a bit stressed. yeah If you take a volume of poetry, then you don't have to read too much every day. And, and I think also collections of short stories would be really good for that. So for adult content, I would love to take like some Claire Keegan, I'd love to take some Max Porter, and actually, you know, like kind of then just value every single word while I'm stuck on this desert island instead of going for like, you know, just a purely girthy book. and But basically I don't know and I think it's a nightmare question and I cannot believe you ask people this on such a regular basis because it's so stressful. yeah
00:35:43
Speaker
yeah um it's very key What's yours? um My go-to, I mean, like a lot of people's, I think mine probably would change on a monthly basis. So I was like, no, I'm just going to lock a couple of answers down that i will be my kind of go-to. And my my go-to answers ah would either be um the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or a Terry Pratchett. no And probably Small Gods is the one that I love the most of Terry Pratchett.
00:36:14
Speaker
Okay, valid valid and respectable choices, but let's just all just pray that we never get stuck on a desert island anyway because the chances of a book surviving in the water are very slim anyway. um Yeah, well, I trust that you had read all of the His Dark Materials books before you named your daughter after the character.
Character Naming and Conclusion
00:36:38
Speaker
You don't end up in there. It was that thing where so many so many people named their daughter Daenerys because Game of Thrones was popular, but they hadn't read the book. The book's not even finished yet. Oh, I couldn't do that. Catherine Rundle told me that Philip Pullman signs and a book to the real Lyra whenever he meets a Lyra but that he is keeping count maybe or that's unverifiable I'm hearing this secondhand but that he's maybe met something like over 800 now but that's very cool because he literally originated the name and but I'm really into Greek myths and Greek mythology as well and have a friend who has a Lyraki as a name, a surname and so when she met my daughter she was a bit like
00:37:27
Speaker
ah So it's from a Greek thing, you know, it's from a lyre, it's from a Greek instrument, but it's not a Greek name, Lyra. And I was like, no, no, there's a there's an English man called Philip Pullman, and he invented it. and And she thought that was just really cheeky. And so it never occurred to me before that. And the the the kind of like, not appropriation, but him taking the lyre and naming her Lyra. And then my friend, and who is Greek and has never read ah his dark materials, was a bit like, well, she's a musician then, right? And I was but like, also no.
00:38:04
Speaker
Um, but I mean, she does, she's a, she's a reader of subtlety, you know, like she's reading, she's reading the machine, the, the thingamajiggy. Yeah. yeah yeah and You got to make it sound like a real name too. That's the kind of the real kind of, if if someone who understands linguistics is like, you can make a name sound alien and unusual, but making a name that's kind of new, but also sounds like it should be, it should have been a name all along. That's the, that's the trick.
00:38:34
Speaker
Yeah, such a gift. Yeah. I just think it's a beautiful name, but I love that it's... Yeah. My friend was like, oh, you named her after the constellation. And I was a bit like, ah, again, interesting. There's so many layers to this name, but and I think it's a series of books I would still get a lot out of now. Yeah. and Yeah. It's about that little thing.
00:38:55
Speaker
Yeah, if my daughter ever comes to read these books, she's two, so she's got a way to go. But if she ever comes to read these books and dislikes them, then she can rename herself. She's got some, yeah, she's got some little names to choose from. It's fine. and It is a little bit embarrassing, actually, now being a published author. And then I introduce my children who are called Matilda and Lyra. And people are a bit like, Oh, I see. You're really here for the kids lit. And I'm like, Yes, yes, I am. yeah and Because before ever being a writer, obviously, I was a reader and and a fan. and So I know that there's a fish
00:39:30
Speaker
in the Waterstones Canterbury that is called Skandar after Annabelle Steadman's character. And I was a bit like, when they told me that, I was like, right, new author Ambition Unlocked to name a character with such a good name that someone names a fish after the character. so I know a lot of pets with literary names. I think I know my my friend has a dog called Lyra.
00:39:56
Speaker
i so It's a very sweet dog. Lovely. Oh, good. Good. Yeah. ah well Well, so i my my child's not a very sweet child. She's pretty fierce. So she's also kind of like, you know, when a name can also be a curse, I'm a bit like, oh no, she was always going to be potentially a really fierce, oh angry child who might run away from me. Yeah. Yeah. Because with, you know, like there's so there's so many kind of poor parent relationships out there in children's fiction, so many boarding schools, just so I guess to allow the characters some agency, so many boarding schools, so many rubbish parents out there. And in the the month of magic series, there is only one mum. And there are no dads, there's no fathers, there's really no significant male characters at all. And you do find out
00:40:44
Speaker
why at the end of December which is and there is a Reveal a substantial reveal about how witches are made where they come from and that kind of explains that But yeah, King Arthur is in there, but he's the punchline to a joke as so and there's no real male characters and but ah And that's okay, that's okay. i wanted to we I was out to redress the balance and after reading all of the kind of original King ah the Arthurian myths. It did kind of stick with me that there were no real female characters um unless they were either doing something marginally rascally or being rescued. So I felt like, yeah, we needed to redress that balance a little bit. Yes, indeed. um Next up, I would love to ask you a bit about the challenges of writing for children and the kidlet market in general, but that will all be in the extended episode exclusive to my awesome Patreon subscribers. Oh, very cool. Very cool. So... um ...back again, or when I'm asked to talk about these books, I won't be like, no, but I'm writing in 2031.
00:41:56
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. exactly um Well, thank you so much, Jennifer, for coming on the podcast, telling us all about your your your writing and your experiences with publishing and everything that you've been up to. It's been really, really really awesome and and interesting chatting with you. Thank you so much, Jamie. This has been so cool. I'm so sorry for my technical difficulties, but thank you for all your really thoughtful, lovely questions. So interesting. um And for anyone listening, the December Witches is coming out November 4th, I believe.
00:42:25
Speaker
um the others you can find in in all the usual places. And to keep up with what Jennifer is doing, you can find her online at Jennifer Classen underscore on Twitter at Jennifer Classen underscore on Instagram. No, wait, it was in Twitter. It was just Jay Classen underscore.
00:42:43
Speaker
and then the website as well, jenniferclassson.com. To support the podcast, like, follow and subscribe on your podcast platform of choice and follow along on socials. Join the Patreon for extended episodes ad-free and a week early and check out my other podcasts, The Chosen Ones and Other Troops. Thanks again to Jennifer and thanks to everyone listening. We will catch you on the next episode.