I was once a member of the Charlie Chuckles Club. It was a children’s club run by the Sunday Telegraph years ago. I still have my club badge! It’s a little silver laughing kookaburra. Club members were called “Chucklers”.
2. What is your nickname?
Urk or sometimes Urkula
3. What is your greatest fear?
Apart from the regular things like illness, death, falling out of the sky in a burning plane, sinking to the bottom of the ocean when your cruise ship is hit by an iceberg, being kidnapped by terrorists etc etc etc I am afraid of being cold and being hungry.
4. Describe your writing style in ten words.
Clear and easy to read, but harder to understand.
5. Tell us five positive words that describe you as a writer.
Succinct. Funny. Ambiguous. Metaphorical. Wondering.
6. What book character would you be, and why?
The Cat in the Hat. So energetic!
7. If you could time travel, what year would you go to and why?
I would like to go back to the 1860s, so I could go and hear Charles Dickens reading his own work aloud on one of his reading tours. This is the ONLY thing I would want to go back in time for.
8. What would your ten-year-old self say to you now?
Can I have something to read and something to eat?
9. Who is your greatest influence?
I love the work of Rumer Godden and Sumner Locke Elliott
10. What/who made you start writing?
Simply learning that there was such a thing as a writer, when I was about six. I knew I loved books, so I thought, that’s what I would like to do.
11. What is your favourite word and why?
Egg. I like very short words that hold a lot of meaning!
12. If you could only read one book for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Washington Square by Henry James
Ursula is the author of numerous fiction titles for children and young adults. Her most recent release is the very entertaining The Perplexing Pineapple, the first book in the new The Cryptic Casebook of Coco Carlomagno and Alberta series, published by Allen & Unwin and available now in all good bookstores. You can find out more about Ursula and her work by visiting her website.
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