7 December: Jamie Thomson

The Dark Lord himself…..Jamie Thomson!

Jamie Thomson has been a writer of books and computer games for many years. He is now the minion and slave of the Dark Lord, Dirk Lloyd. He lives in the dungeons below his Master’s Iron Tower, chained to a desk, where he spends every day writing for his overlord. Or else. The Dark Lord is a comedic fantasy about a Dark Lord trapped in the body of a human boy here in modern day earth. The first in the series, won the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, 2012 and also made the top 100 kids books of the last ten years in the Sunday Times. Jamie has also written a series of comedy adventures in space, The Wrong Side of the Galaxy and A Galaxy Too Far. Jamie does fantastic workshops in schools and at festivals. He recently took part in the inaugural Bookchat Roadshow and delighted the audience with his tales of Dark Lordish-ness!

Name three things on your Christmas list this year! The Head of the White Wizard instead of a Christmas pudding, Santa himself, delivered to my Dungeons of Doom in chains, and a special recipe book I’ve had my Evil Eye on for a while. It’s called ‘100 Hundred ways to cook a Hobbit’.

Christmas is a time of family traditions – what are your best (or worst!) family traditions? I guess one of the worst is putting land mines in the fireplace for Santa….

(Poor Santa!)

What is your favourite story to read at Christmas? A nightmare at Christmas or other ghost stories. Usually involving old family members who are now… well, ghosts, spectres and ghouls.

If you could have Christmas dinner with anyone (alive today or person from history) who would it be? Obviously, myself first as I am the greatest person ever to have visited your planet. But I guess that’s not in the spirit of the question. Hmm… tough one. Maybe a Dark Lord Xmas with Sauron, Voldemort, and Darth Vader. I could point out where they all went wrong, help them a bit.

The Dark Lord doesn’t seem the most festive of characters….what do you think he would give his minions for Christmas? For a start, round here (ie the Iron Tower) we call it Darkmas. Anyway. Hmmm… Maybe I’ll be lenient with them for a few days. Or perhaps an Xmas bonus of some sort. Minced Pies (Hobbit) perhaps or a nice drink of Elf Nog. And maybe we’d sing some Darkmas carols like ‘O come all ye goblin hordes’, ‘Away with some Danger’ or ‘In the bleak mid-zombie apocalypse’.

(I think I prefer Christmas to Darkmas…!)

In The Wrong Side of the Galaxy Jamie meets lots of unusual aliens. How would they all celebrate Christmas together on the space ship? Probably with a great big feast of Pongo burgers! The Twins would buy themselves a load of presents but wouldn’t get any for Harry, of course. Or maybe they’d give him a year calendar showing what they’d like him to buy them as presents every month!

Reader’s question from students at Warden Park Academy: what do you enjoy most about writing for children? Visiting schools, talking about my books and seeing the children laugh. Making kids laugh is great, all those happy smiling faces. Also, you get to be much more silly than you would if you were writing for grown ups.

PS: don’t tell anyone about happy smiling faces and that. It’s not exactly good for the reputation of a Dark Lord…

Turkey or goose? Hobbit.

Real or fake tree? Fake Tree with black leaves, and little talking heads instead of baubles that insult you or make disparaging comments about the presents and stuff.

Mince pies or Christmas pudding? ‘Special’ Dark Lord Xmas pud’. See 1 above.

Stockings – end of the bed or over the fireplace? Over my head and into the bank.

Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve? Halloween, of course.

Thank you for escaping the tower to join in some festive fun! Have a Happy Christmas (or should I say Darkmas?!)