Jaclyn Moriarty Talks About ‘Cracks in the Kingdom’
By DANA JENNINGS
APRIL 29, 2014, 2:11 PM
Jaclyn Moriarty, an Australian writer of young-adult fiction, has just published “The Cracks in the Kingdom,” the second volume in her lively and engaging “Colors of Madeleine” trilogy. Book 1, “A Corner of White,” was a Boston Globe-Horn Book honor title. The novels tell the story of a girl named Madeleine, who lives in our world, and a boy named Elliot, who lives in the Kingdom of Cello. They begin writing letters to each other through a crack that opens between their worlds — a crack in a parking meter.
Ms. Moriarty was born in Sydney in 1968, but also lived in Britain and Canada before moving back to Australia, where she now lives with her little boy, Charlie. Before becoming a full-time writer of books for young adults, she practiced media and entertainment law, but she always pined for the worlds of the printed page. Worlds like Cello.
Arthur A. Levine, Ms. Moriarty’s editor at Scholastic — for whom he also edits writers including J. K. Rowling and Philip Pullman — said, “It’s hard to make something fresh to me, but she has an almost magical ability to weave complex plots.”
Below are edited excerpts from an email conversation with Ms. Moriarty.
Q.
Why write fantasy in general?
A.
When I started writing this trilogy, I didn’t see it as fantasy. I’d always thought of fantasy as earnest stories set in forested worlds where boys go on journeys and have battles. I only liked those books when they were funny, or when the boy stopped in an inn for a night. I wanted him to stay right where he was, in the inn, drinking hot chocolate while his horse got watered and fed in the stables. I found the battle scenes tedious. But I’ve always loved books which are set in a real world with a magical edge.
Q.
What came first in “Madeleine,” Cello or the characters?
A.
The kingdom came first. It came to me while I was living in Montreal. I was in a cafe, working on a murder mystery. It was snowing outside and I had a chocolate croissant so everything felt magical to me. I started drawing pictures and maps of an imaginary kingdom. After that, for years I kept thinking about the kingdom. I tried writing about it five or six times before I realized I had to stop and come up with characters.
Q.
When did you start writing?
A.
I started writing stories when I was 6. That might have been because my older sister, Liane, wrote stories and I idolized her. And our dad used to commission us to write stories. We didn’t get pocket money, so that was the only way to make cash around my home.
Q.
Where did you get the idea of colors with “powers,” even lethal ones?
A.
I was in a cafe drawing pictures and maps of Cello, when a friend stopped by to say hello. He asked me what I was doing and when I told him he said, “What are your monsters?” He said, “You can’t have a kingdom without monsters.” After he left I looked at the colored pencils and markers rolling all over the table and decided that the monsters should be colors.
Q.
The books focus on family disconnections. Is that a preoccupation?
A.
My mother fostered babies when I was growing up, so I was constantly confronted by the various ways in which families can be broken. When I studied law my focus was on child and family law (as well as freedom of expression). So I guess family has always been a preoccupation. I have a 7-year-old son and, when he was four weeks old, my marriage broke up. I definitely became preoccupied with the idea of absent fathers.
Q.
Do you plan to write more fantasy?
A.
I have three book ideas: one is about a woman who starts attending seminars that will teach her the secret of human flight; one is about a time travel agency; and one is about a girl whose parents have been killed by pirates, leaving her detailed instructions for the delivery of a chest full of mystery gifts — so, I guess so.
Q.
Talk about being a daydreamer.
A.
I don’t think it’s all it’s cracked up to be. I’m always getting lost, or losing things, or sending my child to school with a project about pirates when this week it was supposed to be celebrations. And the more that technology and social media close in, the less space there is for daydreaming. You can’t interact with the world at the same time as drifting outside of it.
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