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?!)
Find out more about Jamie at www.jamiethomson.com and follow him on Twitter @JamieTgamebooks or @TheGreatDirk.
For a review of The Wrong Side of the Galaxy visit the Bookshelf.
household.
e a dragon as Evie’s magical companion? The Bone Dragon is very much about the line between truth and fiction… and there’s such a rich history of Dragons in fiction, it gave me a lot to play with: referencing other books and stories helped me keep the reader guessing about what sort of dragon Evie’s Dragon is… I purposefully wanted to keep the ground shifting, one minute making it seem like the Dragon falls under the mentor archetype, then ‘revealing’ it as more ‘shadow-like, then confusing everything so the only conclusion seems that the Dragon plays a ‘shapeshifter’ role. But I can’t lie – if I could have a magical companion, it would probably be a Dragon. The ‘able to breath fire’ thing is a major selling point.
Reader’s question from students at Warden Park Secondary Academy: what do you do if you get stuck when you’re writing? First, I try to figure out why I’m stuck. Sometimes it’s because I need a break… but usually it’s because I don’t know what happens next: maybe I know what follows plot-wise but somehow I don’t know what little steps and pieces of dialogue take the story from where it is to the ‘next big step forwards’. The answer almost always lies with the characters: maybe I’ve made someone act out of character so it all feels wrong… or maybe I’ve got an idea that just won’t work because the character would never do the thing I want him/her to do next. The solution is to go back to who the characters are and what motivates them… and then figure out how to change the context and situation so that it is not just believable but inevitable for them to carry out the plot I’ve got in mind. So when I’m struck I try to recognise that it’s my way of telling myself I need to think a bit more carefully, plan a little more, and respect who my characters are as if they were real people.
ok I gravitate to again and again. Instead I like to pick a new holiday-themed book to read at Christmas. I met Rachel Cohn and David Levithan at this year’s Cheltenham Literary Festival so I have my signed copy of The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily all ready to read at the holidays!
Today we’re featuring the wonderful Patricia Forde, who lives in Galway, in the west of Ireland. She has published three Picture Books, lots of Easy Readers, and in May 2015 she published her first novel The Wordsmith with Little Island. Patricia has written plays and television dramas for children and teenagers as well as writing on both English and Irish language soap operas. She was a primary school teacher and the artistic director of Galway Arts Festival. She lives with her husband, two teenagers,and a dog called Ben. In her spare time, she collects vintage children’s books and reads them late at night.
mily. I always imagine that we will be like a scene from the Waltons – all peace and harmony. It always ends in civil war. Usually, because I am the only one who wants classy ornaments…and a little more dignity. Everyone else wants tinsel.
What is your favourite story to read at Christmas? ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas (which may or may not have been written by Clement Clarke Moore) is a tradition in our house. It calms people down after the Christmas Tree row. (See 3). The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S Lewis – because of the snow. I intend to add Katherine Rundell’s Wolfwilder this year because of the wolves and well… the snow.
Your novel The Wordsmith is set in a dystopian world. What would a dystopian Christmas look like to you? It would look very frugal. There would be beetroot, of course and apples. Also carrots. I’m thinking beetroot crumble with an apple and carrot salsa. Dystopian worlds suffer a lot from bad weather, so there would be snow, which might brighten the thing.
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