In this episode, Claire speaks with Chloe Daykin a teacher, award-winning writer and children’s author. Chloe begins by explaining her journey of attending art school, becoming an artist and creating pop-up books. After becoming a mother, Chloe decided she wanted to follow her childhood dream of becoming a writer and set out to do just that.
Chloe began writing and sending out short stories and playscripts in order to help her receive a bursary for a MA at Newcastle University. She was successful in attaining the bursary and completed her qualification. After receiving her postgraduate, Chloe began writing a children’s book, a young adult’s book and an adult’s book to help understand her target market and the text type she would like to explore further. She decided to complete the children’s book and shortly after writing the story, she met with her agent and began receiving offers from various publishers.
In the podcast, Chloe speaks about her journey as a writer and author. She openly speaks about her three published books and how she generated the ideas for each story. Similarly, she talks about the concepts and experiences that inspire her to write, as well as, the risks she takes when writing. Chloe touches upon the editing process and how this is incorporated when publishing a book. Moreover, she makes direct links of how her books can be used within the classroom, in addition to why they should be used.
KEY TAKEAWAYS

Generating ideasIn addition to using her own creative mind, Chloe uses her day-to-day and life experiences to stimulate ideas for new texts. She begins with an image in her head and uses that to write the words for the text. She uses the image as her anchor and if the words don’t match the image she knows she has diverted from her original idea.  
Risk takingChloe is confident enough to take risks when writing. She will allow herself to make facts up but will cross-check and validate them before publishing. This is done during the editing process.
Editing processThe editing process varies from book to book and author to author. Parts of the text may be amended, reversed or removed. Subsequently, this affects the content and flow of the text and it may result to a sudden shift or alteration of the storyline.
Links to the curriculumFire Girl, Forest boy – links to themes of rainforest, conservation, biomes, deforestation and any other big environmental themes. It also links to cultural themes of South America. Fish Boy – plastic in the ocean, plants and animals, life under the sea and extinction. It also links to PSHE topics of bullying, friendship, trust and being honest and open. The Boy Who Hit Ploy – links to self-discovery and identity,
Using the books in the classroomFire Girl, Forest Boy – dual narrative, fast-paced, has a gripping story, talks about big environmental issues, beautifully written, exotic, set in an exciting place, includes adventure and mystery. Pulls everyone along and it can be covered in short sections.

BEST MOMENTS
“I love reading children’s books, so children’s and young adults books was kind of my thing.”
“They are all so different…the latest ones is quite fast-paced, quirky, original and quite unusual but quite beautifully written that’s a very important part of it. They can be quite a lyrical, poetic quality to the writing. In terms of content, somebody described it as magic meets modernity.”
“With the poetry ethic it comes quite naturally. It has to flow and if I think too hard about it, it doesn’t flow through. It has to come quite instantly.”
“Reading other people’s book, meeting people, travelling and imaging. Being an artist first, I always have an image in my head before I start writing a book. I come up with that and the words come from there. I know if it’s gone off slightly, if I come back to the image and it doesn’t quite fit.”
“I just wanted to really show people the world really and go ‘do you know what, come with me, read a book.” You don’t get to chose when you a