9 December: Sharon Marie Jones

Author of Grace Ella: Spells for Beginners on Day 9.

We’re delighted to welcome the lovely Sharon Marie Jones to our author advent! Sharon grew up in mountainous North Wales. As a child, she listened in wide-eyed wonderment to local tales about giants and had her very own fairy door on the crab apple tree at the bottom of the garden. She is Mam to three boys and worked as a Primary School teacher for twelve years, before finally allowing herself to pursue that magical dream of becoming an author. She now happily gazes out of the window and writes full time. Sharon’s debut book Grace-Ella: Spells for Beginners was published in September.

Name three things on your Christmas list this year! A lie-in, which I happen to ask for every year. My son thought I wanted a ‘lion’! Roar! A bwca to come and do all the clearing up. A bwca comes from Welsh folklore. He’s like a little pixie, who if treated well, will come and clean up your house in the night. Socks with no holes in them.

(Ooo I think I’ll put a bwca on my list too!)

Christmas is a time of family traditions – what are your best (or worst!) family traditions? We always watch ‘The Snowman’ and ‘Father Christmas’ in the run-up to Christmas – with the wood burner glowing, we snuggle up on the sofa – it’s lovely. As a child, it was my job to decorate Mam’s Christmas cake with all the bits and pieces. I loved creating a story in my mind as I was doing it and I knew the story, even if no one else could see it. The worst has to be having spent years eating my Mam’s over-boiled sprouts and pretending I liked them (I hope she doesn’t read this)!

There are wonderful stories shared at Christmas time. What is your favourite story to read at Christmas? My sons always love me to read the book we have of the poem ‘T’was the Night Before Christmas’ in the days leading up to Christmas. As a child I loved the story of ‘Babushka’.

If you could have Christmas dinner with anyone (alive today or person from history) who would it be? I think it would have to be with Santa himself. At his house, of course. It would be magical. We’d have a great feast and I bet he has all his elves do all the clearing up for him.

You have created a wonderful character in Grace-Ella: Spells for Beginners. If Grace-Ella were to cast a special spell for Christmas what would it be and why? I think that she and her friends, Bedwyr and Fflur, would build a snowman and Grace-Ella would cast a spell to make him come alive. They’d have great fun with him, especially trying to disguise him so that he could get past Mrs Bevin! Mr Bevin, on the other hand, wouldn’t be too bothered by seeing a snowman sitting in his armchair.

(I love this idea!)

Grace Ella and Mr Whiskins the cat have a wonderful partnership. If you could choose a magical festive companion for the Christmas season who would it be and why? Oh, I’d have to have Rudolph. My son Ned, always asked me to sing ‘Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer’ to him every night throughout the year, so I would have to choose Rudolph to tell him how much Ned loved him.

Reader’s question from the children at Inkpots Writers’ Hut: where did you do your first ever book signing and how did you feel? I did my first book signing at Waterstones in Aberystwyth, for the launch of ‘Grace-Ella: Spells for Beginners’. It was crazy! The queue was out through the door and they sold out of all the copies. It was a truly magical feeling knowing that children were going to be reading my story. And to see my family looking on proudly made it all the more special. I finally felt like a ‘real’ author.