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An interview with Jacqueline Wilson - We Are OCA

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An interview with Jacqueline Wilson


Recently I had the great pleasure of filming an interview with children’s author Jacqueline Wilson. Jacqueline has sold over 25 million books in the UK alone and was the most popular library book author of the last decade. You can see some of her 15,000 strong book collection behind her in the interview.
Jacqueline was interviewed by fellow author Livi Michael who is currently reviewing the OCA’s Writing for Children course.
Jacqueline was very generous with her time and talked engagingly for nearly an hour on various topics including how she started out as a writer, what her inspirations were as a child, and how she continues to write even when struggling for inspiration.
I have to admit its been hard to edit the footage down given the large amount of great material we had. But to start us off here’s an extract featuring Jacqueline talking about the illustrations of Nick Sharratt which have fabulously illustrated her books since Tracy Beaker in 1991.
We’ll be adding more videos of Jacqueline talking about aspects of writing for children to OCA Elements over the coming weeks.


Posted by author: Mark Lomas

8 thoughts on “An interview with Jacqueline Wilson

  • I really enjoyed this interview. Jacqeline Wilson seems to be very sympathetic and flexible in working with the artist. I wonder which other authors Nick Sharratt has illustrated?
    Thank-you!

    • Glad you enjoyed it Janet, I think your assessment of Jacqueline is spot on.
      Jeremy Strong is another author Nick illustrates – he has some writing tips on his website which might be of interest
      Gareth

  • I’ll be ready to join the Creative Writing course in Sept/Oct time and watching interviews from the OCA is truly inspiring and I can’ wait to work hard and aim for my BA. Thank you for giving us an insight into the great writers lives and how they work. x

    • Hi Sharon
      Thanks for your message. Great to hear you’ll be joining us in the autumn. Keep your eye on this blog for other interviews coming up!

  • Really interested to hear Jacqueline’s perspective on this. I’ve always thought Nick’s illustrations – wonderful as they certainly are – tend to suggest the books are meant for a younger readership than I’d have anticipated, having read them. My daughters were given The Illustrated Mum and Vicky Angel in school at ages 8/9 and 10 respectively. When I told the class teacher about the poor mum with manic depression who was carted off to hospital having smothered herself head-to-toe in gloss paint, her face was a picture in itself! She had seen a pretty jacket on a shelf, but never looked inside. And Vicky Angel has to be one of the best ever pieces on the experience of bereavement, I’d recommend it to older kids and grown adults, but not to primary age kids. Parents, and apparently teachers, seem to be as prone to judge a book’s appropriateness by its cover as any young child.

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