We chat with author Jaclyn Moriarty about Time Travel for Beginners, which ask the question, if you could revisit one moment in your life, what would it be?
Hi, Jaclyn! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hello! Pleased to meet you. I grew up in Sydney, Australia, lived in the US, UK and Canada, and now live in Sydney, Australia again. I write books for children, young adults and adults including the Ashbury books and the Kingdoms and Empires books and now this latest one, for grownups, Time Travel for Beginners. I like seeing live music, ice-skating, blueberries, chocolate, baking, my family’s very funny text chat group, and coffees with family and friends.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I’ve always loved stories, but I remember being six-years-old in the classroom, and having this moment of revelation. All this work we’d been doing getting to know the letters of the alphabet, and figuring out how to put them together to make words, and turn the words into sentences—all that work? It meant I could make a story. I could make a story about fairies and elves! It was like fairies and elves were suddenly real. The elation of that moment!
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: A picture book called Tubby and the Lantern. I’m still exhilarated when I think abot that giant lantern. A chapter book, The Folk of the Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton
- The one that made you want to become an author: I can’t remember ever not wanting to be an author, but The Phoenix and the Carpet by E.Nesbit, and Joan Aiken’s The Necklace of Raindrops made me decide what kind of author I’d love to be.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Dylan Thomas, Under Milkwood and Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse. Lines from these books replay in my mind all the time (although that could also be because I memorised the lines for English exams).
Your latest novel, Time Travel for Beginners, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Time-travel agency in suburban Sydney.
(Not sure if joining time-travel was cheating.)
What can readers expect?
A story told from the perspective of three different characters: Anna has just got a job at a small storefront that calls itself the Time Travel Agency and promises its customers short trips back in time (without affecting the present); Teddy is a customer who wants to visit his broken marriage and see where it went wrong; and Jade thinks the place is a cruel hoax and wants to burn it down.
Where did the inspiration for Time Travel for Beginners come from?
I was riding a bus down a suburban Sydney street and saw a Time Travel Agency. For a microsecond, I was euphoric. I truly believed that the secret to time travel had been discovered and was now available for a fee—that agents in that place would put together package deals for you to Ancient Rome, and book you into inns in Elizabethan England. Then I looked through the window again. It was an ad for Time magazine leaning up against a local travel agency. There was no time travel agency.
I decided to write about one instead.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
The book includes some reviews of the agency itself, and some ‘Customer Satisfaction Reports’. Those were really fun to write, thinking about how people will always find something to complain about (like those beach holiday reviews that complain about ‘too much sand’). I also loved researching and planning the ‘literary time travel tours’ that are offered by the agency. Reading biographies of Charlotte Bronte and Frances Hodgson Burnett felt almost like a joke: how can this be my job?
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
The challenge was to get myself to start writing this book. I was addicted to research. I got it into my head that I had to research all history, and all quantum physics until I understood how time travel could work. Eventually I had to get really tough with myself and admit that neither of these goals was going to be possible.
What’s next for you?
I have a new book in my Kingdoms and Empires series coming out in November. In The Accidental World-Slip of Astrid Verity, Astrid, a ten-year-old child from the Kingdoms and Empires—who always knows exactly how people are feeling and whether they’re telling the truth—has found herself accidentally trapped in our world.
I’m also working on a new adult novel set in an apartment complex in the real world. It has a minor magical secret.
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up? Any you’ve read so far this year that you’ve enjoyed?
I have Elizabeth Strout’s latest, The Things we Never Say, on my nightstand and am saving it for a special occasion. I feel excited every time I see it there. I’m also very excited about the new Kate Atkinson novel, Our Noble Selves, as she’s probably my favourite author.
Also, I’ve just read and loved Cul-de-Sac by Eleanor Limprecht, and am finding it very difficult to put down Something He Did by S.K. Lynch, which is out in October.
