Big 4 Interview: Susannah McFarlane

 Susannah is interviewed by Monica Hamilton

1. In your EJ12 series, did you deliberately give Emma’s friends names that happen to be Palindromes to let us know they are just a little bit special?

Yes, great spotting! I think family and friends are people who reliable, who you can count on: they stay the same, forwards and backwards – just like a palindrome! So, of course, there is MUM and DAD and her brother BOB (who also has a friend OTTO) as well as Emma’s close friends, HANNAH, ISI, ELLE AND EVE. There are lots of other little codes hidden in people’s names in the stories: SHADOW agents often have names that mean ‘black’ (for example, Alicia Noir in Fashion Fraud) and there are lots of anagrams (Nema Rigl’s name can be rearranged to spell out MEAN GIRL). I’m not going to tell them all though!

 2. Where did you come up with the idea of the special secret tunnel Emma has to go through to get to the Shine Agency? 

I think I might have been a little inspired by the Slippery Slip in the The Faraway Tree, which was one of my favourite books when I was young. It was important that Emma could get to SHINE from school and who would ever suspect a secret agent would start a mission from the girls’ toilets?!

3. Will EJ12 (Emma’s code name) have to change when she turns 13?

Yes, actually when she turns 12, she will move into the Under 14 Division and become EJ14.

 4. Which of your fictional characters Burns Brightest in your mind and why?

It has to be Emma/EJ. After writing 17 books, she is almost real to me and I love thinking up new challenges for her to overcome! 

BIO: 

Susannah McFarlane is the creator and writer of the awarding-winning EJ12 Girl Hero series, the creator and co-author of the hugely popular series for boys, Boy vs Beast, and the author of the Little Mates series of alphabet books for under fives. She was also the original concept creator of two of Australia’s leading popular tween fiction series Go Girl! and Zac Power.

Susannah is also the founding director of Lemonfizz Media, a boutique children’s publisher that focuses on developing a small number of publishing projects across all content platforms, and a speaker on children’s publishing for the RMIT Editing and Publishing course. For more information visit www.susannahmcfarlane.com.au