Inkworld author to meet readers

The German-born writer – best known for her Inkworld trilogy, the first of which has been made into a film – will be at Waterstone’s in WestQuay Shopping Centre from 3pm to 4pm on Saturday.

Ahead of her visit, the Daily Echo gave pupils from Hamble Community Sports College and Redbridge Community School in Southampton the chance to ask Cornelia questions about her writing.

Hamble students Grace McPherson, Amber Chawner, and Hannah Beard, all aged 13, asked: Are you planning to turn Reckless into a film as you have co-written it with a film producer?

Cornelia said: “It is important that Reckless gets to be a book first. The problem with a movie is that it puts one image in people’s heads. I would like to have a million Jacobs in readers’ heads first and then one. The book should breathe first and then come to life.”

Why did you choose such a dark genre for Reckless?

Cornelia said: “It was Lionel Wigram’s idea to set the story in a 19th century fairytale world grown up – almost like what would happen if technology came into the world we knew from the Brothers Grimm. The original fairytales are very dark but often there are strange hidden truths in them. With fairytales you can have fairy curses, evil witches and sleeping beauties as well as terrifying underworld creatures, such as the stone-skinned Goyl in Reckless.”

Redbridge pupils Alice Ormerod, 11, Frances Wheldon, 16, and Kaitlyn Luke, 13, wanted to know: How do you attract both boys and girls to reading your books?

Cornelia said: “I think that everybody loves fantasy – boys, girls, adults and children. Why write about reality when you can imagine whole other worlds – worlds with dragons and magic and monsters and adventure?”

Did anything that happened at school inspire your writing?

Cornelia said: “Actually, I was an illustrator. I got bored illustrating other people’s stories and I thought ‘I can do better than that’. That is how I started writing.”