Article by Beth Nunnington

Meeting the Creator of Tracy Beaker

When I was told I had been given the chance to meet the famous children's writer, Jacqueline Wilson, I couldn’t believe it. You may think her books are aimed at children who are younger than teenagers but this isn't true, in fact I have just read the 'Diamond Girls' which is very much about young teenagers.

Edman, my fellow journalist, and I decided we wanted to ask her questions that were slightly different to questions she would be normally asked so we planned the questions well in advance.
On the day we got to meet her we were both very excited but nervous. What was she going to be like? Would she be friendly? Or scary? My first glimpse of her was in the Showroom cinema signing books for lots of excited children all queuing up to meet their favourite author.  I noticed straight away that she was very friendly towards them and listened with interest to what they had to say. This made me feel slightly less nervous about meeting her but I still had butterflies in my stomach.

We were lucky enough to have her all to ourselves in a separate room. As soon as she entered the room our eyes were drawn straight away to the unusual jewellery she was wearing, we could see she is creative just by the chunky, silver rings on each finger and the several bangles on each wrist. When we asked her what advice she would give young people we weren’t surprised when she said to read a lot but another piece of advice she gave was to keep a diary. This sounded like a good idea as it would get you into the writing habit. She described her favourite book, Tracy Beaker, to be her lucky book as it was her break through. In fact now over a million copies have been sold and Tracy has her own TV series and magazine.

The day we met Jacqueline she had a very bad cold but that didn’t stop her from giving us her time, she said she loved to meet young people which made us feel comfortable around her. She appeared to be very against the idea of an autobiography and is a private person. When I asked her if there was 'A typical day in the life of Jacqueline Wilson?'  she said her usual day was very unusual. She always swims every morning wherever she may be and then rushes out to do events or she will write and read letters from her fans. Her ‘chilling time’ is reading, her favourite teenage book being 'I capture the castle', meeting friends and going out for meals at restaurants. So when does she have time to write all these great books? Well she told us that she usually writes in the car or on the train in an exercise book.

Although that was then the end of the interview it wasn’t the end of the event or the fun! Now we had managed to interview her without stumbling our words we had to go up on stage in front of 280 people and interview her again, this time asking different questions. I felt very nervous as I walked onto the stage with Edman, there were only us two and Jacqueline on stage! When we sat down I could see lots of excited young faces watching us. After about 15minutes of her talking it was our turn to interview her again. I asked her why the narrators in the majority of her books were girls and she said it was because she enjoyed thinking up new female characters with interesting personalities, her favourite being Tracy Beaker because she was so feisty and naughty. Edman asked her ‘How does she get into the minds of her characters’? Jacqueline said she hadn’t ever really grown up properly herself and often thought back to when she was growing up. Her books often focus on sensitive issues that young people are vulnerable to- to help them feel they aren’t alone.

The audience enjoyed the event and had chance to ask questions after we had interviewed her and they were as fascinated as us by her unusual jewellery.
You can find our full interview on the radiowaves.co.uk website just click here – to be directed to the Cube Station and check out my review for ‘Diamond Girls’ in this issue.
To hear the interview go to: www.radiowaves.co.uk

By Beth Nunnington