April 2002

This interview by Graham Marks appeared in
Publishing Newson 5th April 2002

"Inside," says Caroline Lawrence, "I’m 11 years old…and my favourite book is My Family and Other Animals."

The recently published author of The Roman Mysteries, a series set in the world of Ancient Rome, also likes Goodnight Mr Tom, by Michelle Magorian and I Am David, by Anne Holm, and lists her favourite adult authors as Philip K Dick, Patrick O’Brien and Mary Renault. "I like the concrete, rather that the abstract," she informs me, "which is why I like writing for children…I like surface, the five senses, the smell, touch, taste, feel, sound of a place."

Lawrence has lived in England since she came here from California to go to Cambridge and study Classical Art and Archaeology, staying on to do an MA in Hebrew and Jewish Studies at UCL. From there she went on to teach Latin, French and art at a primary school and only considered taking up writing professionally when teaching started to become too exhausting. "I’d often thought being a writer would be a good thing…sitting round in your pyjamas and drinking hot chocolate – and it is!" Lawrence smiles. "Ten years ago I started by reading books about writing – Dorothea Brande’s Becoming a Writer, Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, Saul Stein’s Solutions for Writers – and I’ve been writing since then, doing it every day."

Her first opus was a novel for children called The Scribe, set in 6th Century Byzantium in a Syrian monastery. "It was 20 chapters of scene setting and three chapters with the plot crammed in at the end," explains Lawrence, "and I realised I had to learn how to plot…a friend told me about John Truby’s story structure course for screen writers, which I did, and that gave me the framework. I then turned The Scribe into a screenplay."

Teachers, of course, have to be able to acquire knowledge if they are going to be able to dispense it. They have to be organised, dedicated and thorough, and what I had just witnessed was as organised, dedicated and thorough a description of how to turn oneself into a writer as I’ve ever seen. Lawrence has everything at her fingertips to show me, her pupil for the hour and a half we spend together; books appear as she mentions them, facts and dates are given clearly and she waits till I’ve finished writing to continue.

On the table in front of me she has put a piece of lava from Vesuvius, some pumice, a Roman oil lamp and an implement for writing on wax tablets. The wax tablets are being prepared in the kitchen for me to have a go with later. I leave her Thameside apartment with a four-page brochure she’s printed out, a photostat of the original notes she made when she had the idea for The Roman Mysteries and another of the lively, precise sketches she did of the four characters, later given to the artist who designed the mosaics on the covers.

In the end it was her sister who suggested she write a book for children, setting it in Roman times. "A great light bulb went on and I thought ‘this is it!’," says Lawrence. "I suggested the idea to my agent, who asked me if I meant a story like Lindsey Davis for kids, and I said ‘exactly!’. I wrote the first draft in two weeks, before I went back to school at the end of August 1999, and I just knew that this was what I wanted to do…as soon as I started writing all these stories appeared, each based on a Greek myth."

The manuscript went out, and by February/March of the next year they had definite interest from Orion. "I had been hoping for a bidding war," smiles Lawrence, "but I’m glad Orion got it as I really enjoy working with Judith and her team – they’ve done a heck of a job." She is, she says, planning on taking the series to 18 to 20 titles, which, while it’ll take her six years to complete, will only span two years in the lives of her characters.

The first six books have so far been sold in ten territories "…but no deal yet on the film rights," says Lawrence, as we finish. "I sent them to Spielberg, but they probably ended up in the ‘THIS IS ANTHRAX’ box."

You do get the feeling that she’s not going to let it rest there, though.

© Graham Marks, Publishing News 2002 reprinted with permission

More Author Interviews

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This interview by Graham Marks appeared in Publishing Newson 5th April 2002

This interview by Graham Marks appeared in
Publishing Newson 5th April 2002