Video transcript
NSW Premier's Reading Challenge 2025 - SWF author interview (primary) - 03. Jacqueline Harvey

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MIA: Hi, my name is Mia, and I'm a student from Caddes Creek Public School. I'm here today on Cammeraygal land at The Chatswood Concourse as part of the Sydney Writers' Festival Primary School Days. I'm so excited to be interviewing Jacqueline Harvey for the NSW Premier's Reading Challenge. Hi, Jacqueline. How are you today?

JACQUELINE HARVEY: I'm very well. Thanks, Mia. How are you?

MIA: You have written over 50 books, all different genres. How do you pick a genre for your books, and what is your favourite genre to write?

JACQUELINE HARVEY: Well, I've actually written 64 books. This is my 64th book, this one here, 'The Girl and the Ghost'. So all of my books I guess. Yes, they're different genres as in one is a spy series. 'Alice-Miranda' is a boarding school series to begin with, but essentially they're all mystery and adventure stories.

So I have that genre really. And even 'Willa and Woof'-- even Willa, she lives in a neighbourhood. But there's always a mystery going on in her neighbourhood, and often they're created by her. And so, yeah, I guess I just loved that when I was a kid, and so I write the books that I would have wanted to read when I was a child.

MIA: Why did you become an author, and were you originally thinking of doing something else?

JACQUELINE HARVEY: So I became an author because I have always loved to tell stories. So when I was your age, I was the kid who would go home from school, and when your parents say what did you do at school today and lots of kids go nothing, well, I was never that kid. I was always the kid that had a story.

And so I came from a family of very good storytellers, and so storytelling was a bit like competitive sport in my family. And so right from the time I was little, I was always telling stories. I knew I was going to be a teacher. I wanted to be a teacher from the age of 9 and a half because I had the world's best teacher when I was in fourth and fifth grade. And-- but I also thought wouldn't it be cool to be a writer.

And the thing was for me, unlike you, I never met any authors when I was growing up. No authors ever came to visit my school. I thought all authors lived in cottages in the woods in England somewhere. And so it took me a long time when I was--

When I was working as a teacher, I started meeting some authors, and I thought they're just regular people. They're just like me. And so it took me a while to work it out, but then I thought I really want to do this.

And ultimately my husband said to me one day, he said you talk about wanting to be a writer a lot. I was like, I know. He said, no, no, you don't understand. He said, you talk about it nonstop. So here's the thing. Are you ever going to do anything about it, or are you going to about it for the rest of your life?

And I thought, I'll show you. Anyway, I didn't think that I'd show him quite as much as I have, but there you go. So that's why I'm a writer.

MIA: The 'Alice-Miranda' series is about a precocious and exceptionally talented young girl who goes to boarding school and has all sorts of adventures. Was there ever anyone like this when you went to school, and why did you write this series?

JACQUELINE HARVEY: OK, so Alice-Miranda is a precocious 7-and-a-quarter-year-old when she goes to boarding school. She actually was inspired by 3 girls that I taught. And so those 3 girls, they were-- the characteristics of Alice-Miranda in the beginning-- how brave she is, how positive she is, her cascading chocolate curls-- all of that was inspired by these 3 children that I had had in my class, and one of them was a boarder. And she was only in Grade 4, and she was a boarder so a year younger than you are.

And she went to boarding school, and she was probably the bravest kid I ever knew because there were no other boarders in the primary school at that stage. And I remember-- I used to take her out sometimes at the weekends. And I remember saying to her in the car one day, how's the boarding going? And she said, you know what? I'm really lucky, Mrs Harvey, because I don't have any big brothers or sisters and now I've got all these big sisters who want to look after me.

And she then said, and you know what, I'm just a kid, and I couldn't change it even if I wanted to. So I could be happy, or I could be sad. And I choose happy. And that inspired the original idea of Alice-Miranda.

MIA: The twins in 'Kensy and Max' series are completely different. Kensy is competitive and feisty while Max is calm and collected. If you had to be one of them, who would you be and why?

JACQUELINE HARVEY: Ooh, ooh, that's a great question. I'd probably like to be both of them rolled into one, but I don't know. Kensy's far more, as you said, impetuous and fiery, and Max is much more level headed. I'm probably more of a Max than a Kensy myself, but it'd be fun to be the opposite for a while.

MIA: Almost all of your books are set in different parts of the world. Have you been to all of the places you write about?

JACQUELINE HARVEY: I have been to most of the places that I write about. So what you need to realise that when you're writing a story is that research is your friend. And so Google Maps is your friend as a writer. And so for places that I haven't been, I couldn't go to Egypt when I wrote 'Alice-Miranda in Egypt' because it was during the pandemic.

And so what I did instead, I talked to-- I've got some Egyptian friends. I-- my husband's been to Egypt. I have other friends who had recently been to Egypt, so I talked to loads and loads of people. I watched lots of Egyptian videos. I had studied ancient Egyptian history at university, and so I was quite good with that side of things.

But the other thing that I did, I watched a lot of Egyptian comedians on YouTube because they have this fantastic sense of humour. And so I still wrote I think a very authentic book, and I actually had it checked. I had it read by an Egyptian person to make sure that I had portrayed people well. So, yes.

But apart from Egypt, I think the only other place I haven't been is Barcelona in Spain, where Alice-Miranda sets off on an adventure. But otherwise this book, the new one, 'The Girl and the Ghost', I actually went to Singapore and France, and I wrote-- this book is set in-- it's set in Singapore and France and Australia. So there you go.

MIA: Are you working on a new book, and if so could you share what it's about?

JACQUELINE HARVEY: I can. I have actually just finished writing the second book in 'The Girl and the Ghost' series, and it's currently with my editor. We're in that stage now in the editing process, and it's very exciting.

It starts off in Paris. There's-- well, there may even be another ghost in it as well. So I can tell you a little bit about it. There's also-- there's danger. There's action.

My main character, Josephine, it's a bit romantasy if you like. So there's a little bit of romance in here for-- age-appropriate romance, 13, 14-year-olds. So nothing dramatic.

But I see kids and they go, ewww, romance. Gross. And then I ask kids has anybody here ever had a little crush on someone. And I ask them to close their eyes, and pretty much 80% of the hands go up in the room. So I know that romance is alive and well for kids, too.

MIA: What advice would you give to hopeful writers out there who would like to become an author?

JACQUELINE HARVEY: So I do have quite a bit of advice for hopeful writers. A, read a lot, find out what you love to read, and I guess explore lots of different genres but also look for competitions to enter because competitions will give you a focus and they will-- if the competition says write in no more than 500 words and this is the theme, then that gives you something to work towards. And I find lots of kids start things, but they don't finish them. So if you enter a competition, then you have a deadline and you have-- it's a bit like being-- a writer like me who has deadlines.

You can do lots of courses these days. As a writer, I teach lots of writing classes, so you can look on my website and find out when next I'm going to teach a writing course. I think the fact that you have access to authors these days at events like this is amazing that you get to actually ask the questions of the people who actually do the job.

So maybe you might become an author when you're 17, unlike me who took until I was 30-something because I never met any when I was your age. So you never know, Mia. You could be the next-- you could be the next big thing.

MIA: What were some of your favourite books and authors to read when you were in school?

JACQUELINE HARVEY: When I was a kid, I loved 'Heidi' by Johanna Spyri set in Switzerland. And I remember as a little kid-- I grew up in the southwest of Sydney. I grew up in Camden, and we didn't travel anywhere. We went to the beach for the holidays maybe to Port Macquarie or somewhere, and for me, reading books like 'Heidi' or 'Black Beauty', which was set in England or 'The Famous Five' and 'The Secret Seven', which was set in England as well, or 'Bridge to Terabithia', which was in America, all of those books really opened my eyes to other places beyond my little patch in the southwest of Sydney.

So for me, I loved the characters. I used to fall madly in love with characters and places, settings, and I think that really inspired me with my own writing.

MIA: The movie 'Alice-Miranda: Friends Forever' is inspired by the 'Alice-Miranda' series. Do you like having a movie based off your books, and are there any ideas on another movie?

JACQUELINE HARVEY: So there are actually 2 movies of 'Alice-Miranda', so there's 'Alice-Miranda: Friends Forever' and there's 'Alice-Miranda: A Royal Christmas Ball'. There may have been a third one except that that dreadful thing called the pandemic put paid to that because all the quotas were taken off children's television in Australia. And so that actually killed a lot of television projects at the time.

Do I like having a movie made out of my book? It's incredibly flattering. It's incre-- I still look at it and go, oh, wow. I actually wrote that. That's amazing.

I had a bit to do with the production but not probably as much as I would have liked in a way. But I do think they did a great job, and I don't know if you've ever noticed that in the end of the movie, there's a woman who comes in and takes photos. And she has her glasses on her head and she has blonde hair and it's me.

And so I actually have cameos in both of the movies as a cartoon character. So I think that is pretty cool. And these days to find out that kids in America can watch it on Amazon Prime or in England at some-- it kind of blows my mind really. Never thought it would happen.

MIA: Thank you so much for letting me interview today, Jacqueline. It's been amazing talking with you. I hope everyone out-- watching out there today enjoyed reading your fantastic novels as much as I did while they work to complete the Premier's Reading Challenge.

JACQUELINE HARVEY: Oh, thank you so much, Mia. It was lovely to speak to you, too.