Special Guest Q & A with Jenny Moore

Today I am pleased to have Jenny Moore here on my blog to tell us a little about her latest book due for release on January 28th 2024, Emba Oak and the Screaming Sea. I have read the first two books in the series and I am looking forward to reading the third instalment.

Jenny Moore’s numerous funny children’s books (writing as Jenny Moore) are published by Maverick Arts Publishing and New Frontier Publishing. She was the first UK winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Competition and was previously shortlisted for the Greenhouse Funny Prize.

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Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous publications on both sides of the Atlantic, including The Guardian, Mslexia, The First Line and Short Fiction. She has also written psychological thrillers The Woman Before and The Wilderness Retreat which are published by HQ Digital, Harper Collins.

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Hi Jenny,

Welcome to my blog. To start please tell us a little about yourself and the inspiration for your Emba Oak series?

Many thanks for inviting me onto your blog.

I’m a full-time writer with two grown-up children and I’ve lived in Devon for the last twenty-four years. The brilliant editing team at Maverick approached me about writing a new middle grade series for them back in 2020 and I spent my summer holiday dreaming up potential ideas. We were due to go to Seattle and Vancouver that year, but due to the pandemic found ourselves in Wales, the beautiful land of dragons, instead. My thoughts turned dragonwards too and my first tentative ideas about a half-human, half-dragon girl flickered into life on the stunning Pendine Sands beach. A subsequent online meeting with the editing team helped hone those ideas into the beginnings of Emba’s story. It’s felt very much like a team project from the off which has been great.

How did you come up with the ingenious chapter headings? Talk us through your process when writing these.

I don’t remember many details from my Medieval English Literature paper at university, but the name ‘The Slough of Despond’ from Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress has always stuck with me. I suspect there might be a touch of Bunyan lurking behind chapters like ‘The Screeching Swamp of Slimebane Hollow’!

I love playing around with the sound of words and thought that the alliterative headings would add a tongue-in-cheek touch of drama. My trusty thesaurus has really come into its own while I’ve been working on this series, as you can probably guess! I usually start with the key chapter noun and then look for suitably dramatic, doom-filled words starting with the same letter.

I also had a lot of fun subverting the traditional chapter numbering system in places, by adding in unexpected extras such as ‘Almost Chapter One’, ‘Not Quite Chapter One’, and ‘Revisited Chapter Eight’.

How did you develop Emba’s character and her unique voice so readers are immediately inside her head?

I like to think of the opening passage of Emba Oak and the Terrible Tomorrows as the start of a film, with an omniscient voiceover setting the scene for a traditional fantasy adventure before the camera zooms in on Emba and her unique and slightly subversive place in the world of such adventures. By the time we hit ‘Actual Chapter 1’ the action has officially shifted to Emba’s point of view, with the reader following Emba’s own thoughts and fears in response to the strange thwumping noise coming from outside the cave.

I think early references to her physical and lifestyle quirks – the scales on arms and legs, the fact that she lives in a cave and eats squirrel stew, and the fact that she’s the only one who can see the ghostly dragon at the start of the book – all help to draw the reader in, while direct access to Emba’s internal thoughts add a level of intimacy and immediacy.

All your characters are so brilliant. Which of the characters in your Emba Oak series do you feel is most like you and why?

Thank you!

Hmm, that’s a tricky one. I think in terms of personality I’d have to go with Fred… a much younger version of Fred, obviously (!) and without her rather disgusting toenails. Shh, don’t tell her I said that!

I can also relate to the unnamed myopic man Emba meets on the way to Gravethorn Castle, and again at the Pool of Perilous Perception. I’d certainly struggle to see my one true desire/fear in the pool without my glasses on!

Thinking about the Emba Oak series, what was your hardest scene to write and why?

The final showdown in the crypt at the end of Emba Oak and the Beckoning Bones was a tricky one in terms of choreography (trying to keep tabs on who’s where, when) and there was lots of important information to fit in too without compromising the pace and drama of the scene. The editing team at Maverick were a big help here and after insightful feedback on the first couple of drafts it all came together.

Please tell us a little bit about Emba Oak and the Screaming Sea and how it continues on from Emba Oak and the Beckoning Bones. Is it the last book in the series?

Book 3, Emba Oak and the Screaming Sea, picks up immediately after the end of book 2. Emba’s adventures take her from the crypt all the way down to the titular screaming sea, with another dangerous rescue mission on the cards and the return of some old “friends” from Book 1. Readers can also look forward to some fun and feisty new characters, a terrible (and terrifying) sea monster and a whole new side to Emba’s developing powers. Emba Oak and the Screaming Sea is the penultimate book in the series and I’m currently working on edits for Emba’s fourth and final adventure.

What is the most valuable advice you’ve ever been given about writing?

I once read that instead of measuring your progress by comparing yourself to other writers, you should use your own previous career progress as a point of comparison, allowing yourself to see how far you’ve come in the last X number of years. Social media writing feeds are full of the high points of other people’s journeys – the agent signings, the big book deals, the competition wins – and it’s easy to feel despondent if your own journey isn’t at that stage yet. Looking back at your own progress is far healthier – if nothing else you’ll be a much stronger writer now than you were when you started.

I’m also very grateful to whoever first introduced me to the read-aloud feature on Word, which many of my writing friends refer to as a ‘robo read’ on account of the rather robotic delivery. Listening to your text being read aloud by someone else is invaluable at the proof-reading stage – it picks up all those little mistakes your eyes gloss over when you’re reading it yourself.

Is there anything else you would like to tell readers about Emba Oak and the Screaming Sea and the Emba Oak series?

Emba Oak and the Screaming Sea is due out at the end of January, with another fantastic, eye-catching cover by David Dean, and should be available to pre-order now. The series works best read in order but there’s still plenty of time to catch up with the story so far in the first two books! Meanwhile, Emba Oak and the Terrible Tomorrows has been longlisted for the James Reckitt Hull Children’s Book Award 2024, which I’m very excited about.

The Emba Oak series is also published in German by CBJ Kinder, Penguin Random House (translated by Anne Brauner), with a lovely new name for Emba: Ambra Flammenmädchen.

Thank you Jenny for taking the time to answer my questions and for giving us an insight into your unique chapter headings.

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To read my reviews of the previous books in the series take a look at:

To find out more about Jenny Moore and her books take a look at her website: https://jennymoorechildrenswriter.weebly.com and her blog: https://jennifermoore.wordpress.com/. Or follow her on her various social media outlets:

You can buy copies of all of Jenny Moore’s books from your local bookshops, which are always top of the list – if they don’t have the Emba Oak books in stock they’ll be able to order them in for you. Or you can purchase direct from the publisher Maverick Publishing, otherwise Jenny recommends Hive books or any of the usual online retailers, such as uk.bookshop.org, an organisation with a mission to financially support local, independent bookshops..

I would like to thank Abi from Maverick Publishing for organising this interview for me. Thank you.