On Friday, someone asked me how different my life was a decade ago. And other than the Menace being smaller and markedly more menacing, and my home being two roads away, I said it barely was. ten years ago I was writing for a living, working several other (albeit writing-related) day jobs, and wondering when I got my ivory tower.
The next morning I woke up at five, and remembered that, in a few hours, I was going to BAFTA, to see the screening of a story that once lived in the mess of my brain, and that I would get to sit on stage, with actual actors, and people would listen to me as if I knew what I was doing.
And I’ve done this job long enough to know that these things are at best ephemeral and glitter for minutes, or so it will seem a year from now. But yesterday, it all glittered brilliantly. What a wonderful thing we made.
About Joanna Nadin
A former broadcast journalist and special adviser to the prime minister, since leaving politics I’ve written more than 80 books for children and adults, as well as speeches for politicians, and articles for newspapers and magazines like The Guardian, Red and The Amorist. I also lecture in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, and hold a doctorate in young adult literature.
I’m a winner of the Fantastic Book Award and the Surrey Book Award, and have been shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, the Booktrust Best Book award and Queen of Teen among others, and twice nominated for the Carnegie Medal, for Everybody Hurts, and for Joe All Alone, which is now a BAFTA-winning and Emmy-nominated BBC TV series. I've also worked with Sir Chris Hoy on the Flying Fergus series and ghost-written Angry Birds under another name.
I like London, New York, Essex, tea, cake, Marmite, mint imperials, prom dresses, pubs, that bit in the West Wing where Donna tells Josh she wouldn’t stop for a red light if he was in an accident, junk shops, crisps, Cornwall, St Custard’s, Portuguese custard tarts, political geeks, pin-up swimsuits, the Regency, high heels, horses, old songs, my Grandma’s fur coat, vinyl, liner notes, the smell of old books, the feel of a velveteen monkey, Guinness, quiffs, putting my hand in a bin of chicken feed, the 1950s, burlesque, automata, fiddles, flaneuring, gigs in fields on warm summer nights, Bath, the bath.
Joanna Nadin 