Catherine Johnson

Q: What were you like at school?

I loved primary school, it was fantastic, I was good at everything except sport, and horribly competitive even at needlework. I HATED secondary school where I learned I was rubbish at everything and stopped bothering trying.

Q: What did you want to be when you were a child?

When I was 8 I wanted to be a poet. When I was fifteen I wanted to be a photographer. When I was 19 I wanted to make films.

Q: Which three words describe you best?

Untidy. I am also one of those fools who rushes in. That is more than three words. Sorry!

Q: What is your favourite word?

Pony.

Q: What makes you cringe?

Small round blobby things. Plastic Dolls. Ew!

Q: What are you afraid of?

Blood.

Q: When did you last have a really good laugh?

Yesterday. No, this morning, listening to my daughter laugh.

Q: What is your most treasured possession?

I don't have any precious things. People, but you don't own them do you.

Q: What do you do as a hobby?

I am a bit mad on swimming at the moment. We have an open air lido in the park and I have been going in the snow and ice - I slipped on the side a few weeks ago- ouch! I also knit obsessively - I used to earn money knitting as a student - and I used to ride a lot, haven't for years and I miss it.

Q: What strange habits do you have?

Swimming in the snow.......

Q: What’s your favourite food?

Chocolate frogs.

Q: What do you day dream about?

Having my own pony and riding round Hampstead Heath.

Q: What’s the most outrageous thing you’ve done?

Climbing into Highgate Cemetery when I was a teenager. Riding around Hampstead Heath on a horse. Riding over Primrose Hill on a motorbike.

Q: What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?

Horse wrangler. Chocolate frog quality control.

Q: Do you feel younger or older than your current age?

Obviously I am not really that woman I see in the mirror.

Q: If you could meet one person, dead or alive, who would it be?

Princess Caraboo! She features in my next book but she was a real girl and lived to a ripe old age when she was a commercial medicinal leech supplier in Bristol.

Q: What quality do you most admire in a person?

Kindness.

Q: What is the most interesting place you have ever visited?

The Dennis Severs House in Norton Folgate, Spitalfields. It is an eighteenth century weavers house, it's not a museum, you enter each room and it is as if the family have just left. It is a real step into the past.

Q: What is the best advice anyone has ever given you?

Bernice Rubens, who was a fantastic writer, told me it was alright not to know where the story you're working on is going, and that you write it to find out.

Q: What would you most like to change about yourself?

I wish I didn't rush in like a fool all the time....

Q: What has life taught you?

If you don't rush in like a fool, you might miss something good.

Q: How long have you been a writer?

My fist book was published around 18 years ago. But I had written a film script before then. But it never got made!

Q: Was there a specific moment in your life when you decide to become a writer?

No, but when I realised I could actually write a book I knew this was the life for me.

Q: Where do you do your writing?

At a table covered with books and stuff. At the moment on my table are two Slang dictionaries - very useful as I am writing in the early nineteenth century at the moment. My hero is a bit of an unpleasant fellow and he uses some colourful language. There is also a picture book I like, called The Dunderheads, a diary, two notebooks, a sewing box, some leather cleaner, two pencil pots which are mostly full of knitting needles, a brand new pair of tights - bright pink - a pair of scissors a tape measure and a computer of course. Also a tiny little pottery hen that is full of coins.

Q: What are the best and worst things about being an author?

The best is being able to work in your pyjamas and having a job where you make stuff up. Basically I just pretend things, and that's my job. Pretending! When a story is going well it is brilliant. When you get stuck and you have no one to talk to about it and there doesn't seem a way out it is brilliant. Also you will never be rich if you are an author unless you are very very very lucky.

Q: Where do you get your greatest ideas from?

From a shop in Broadway Market. No from everything, from things I have read, from things I have done and from people talking, it all mashes up inside my head then spews out in a new and story form. I hope!

Q: Which of your own characters do you most identify with?

I like Cato from A Nest Of Vipers - and Addeline actually. And I like Stella from the book of the same names because she can read minds - a bit- and I learned a lot of cold reding techniques writing that book.

Q: What do you do to combat “writers’ block”?

Go for a swim! Or a walk. Walking is good. I think a lot when I walk. But whatever it is do something else. Trick yourself into thinking it doesn't matter.

Q: What was your favourite book as a child?

Comet in Moominland by Tove Jannson. Magic By the Lake by Edward Eager. The Cat in The Hat by Dr Suess.

Q: What book do you wish you had written?

The Sterkarm Handshake by Susan Price Holes by Louis Sachar Let's Get Lost by Sarra Manning

Q: What advice would you give to aspiring authors?

Make sure you live a bit and don't just read stuff. Read stuff! Read everything. Try things, play with words, muck around with them. Daydream as much as possible. Don't forget how to pretend.