Author Jacqueline Harvey Virtual Visit





04.06.21



Year 3 and 4 students enjoyed a virtual author visit yesterday as part of a book launch for the next publication in the 'Alice-Miranda' series. Alice-Miranda in Egypt is the latest title in this series The author provided some background on the book, shared her writing approach and answered students' questions.







Jacqueline is a popular author whose books have sold over one million copies in Australia alone. She provided our students with an opportunity to learn how she researches her books and what inspires her writing ideas. The questions our students posed included 'What is it like being an author?' 'Are any of your ideas related to your own life?' Did someone introduce you to writing or did you just want to be an author?' 'How long does it take to write a book?'


A key part of her response to the students was the editing and re-editing process. Jacqueline encouraged our students to embrace feedback from teachers to improve their first and subsequent drafts as this is really how we improve and arrive at a more complete writing piece. This was an interesting comment from Jacqueline as in a previous blog, I had referenced the editing tools of CUPS and ARMS to support students to edit their writing.

The latest 'Alice-Miranda In Egypt' text took the author approximately 8 weeks to write the first draft followed by working with her publisher on further edits.


In her years as the author of the Alice-Miranda series, Jacqueline indicated that this has amounted to in excess of writing 1.3 million words! Impressive!

She shared with the students that as a child, her family would sit around the dinner table each night (no TV or devices in sight) and shared their day, almost like telling their personal story from their day's experiences. It is no wonder that Jacqueline describes herself as the 'story-teller' who became a 'story-writer.'