Interview with Michael Morpurgo

Where do you get your ideas for books from?

From all around me. Places, people, stories I hear, little happenings, big happenings, history. I keep my eyes and ears open, my heart fresh.

How many books have you written?

Over one hundred. _Private Peaceful+ was the hundredth. Sound a lot but that’s fat ones, thin ones. All sorts.

Where do you write?

On my bed where I’m most comfortable. I pile the pillows up behind me, settle back and write by hand with my exercise book on my knees.

Are the stories true?

With each one there is an element of truth. I weave different truths into the same story to make another kind of truth. So with Kensuke’s Kingdom, there was a Japanese soldier who decided to stay behind on an island after WW2, and people do hunt orangutans, kill the parents and kidnap their young, and people do sail around the world on yachts, and sometimes they fall overboard . . .

What is the favourite book that you have written?

The Butterfly Lion or Kensuke’s Kingdom or War Horse or Private Peaceful.

Who’s your favourite author?

Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island), Rudyard Kipling (The Just So Stories) and Ted Hughes (The Iron Man).

How long does it take to write a book?

It depends on how well I’m writing, how well it’s flowing. But the most important part of my story inventing when I try to weave the story together, do my research and find the right voice for the story. Once I begin writing, I write very fast and will finish a book in two or three months. Then revising it might take another month. So, on average, a novel takes upwards of 6 months to write.

How do you choose your illustrators?

By getting to know them. I’ve worked for many years now with Michael Foreman. Indeed, he’s suggested many stories to me: Farm Boy, Billy the Kid, Arthur, High King of Britain. We really do spark off each other. I’ve worked very well too with Quentin Blake, Christian Birmingham, Tony Ross, Shoo Rayner and many others. The publishers sometimes help in choosI usually spend several months dreaming it up in my head – I call it my ‘dreamtime’,ing who should illustrate what. They know many more illustrators than I do, and can visualise a book better than me. But I know what I like.

Michael Morpurgo

Michael Morpurgo discovered his talent for writing while working as a teacher. “We had to read the children a story every day and my lot were bored by the book I was reading. I decided I had to do something and told them the kind of story I used to tell my kids - it was like a soap opera, and they focused on it. I could see there was magic in it for them, and realised there was magic in it for me.” Today, Michael has written over 100 books for children, and has won a multitude of awards as well as serving as Children’s Laureate from 2003-2005.

By Michael Morpurgo

Awards

Michael has won The Whitbread Prize For Wreck of the Zanzibar, the Smarties prize for The Butterfly Lion and the Children’s Book Award for Kensuke’s Kingdom and Private Peaceful.