KLP Chat: Jacqueline Harvey on Storytelling, Teaching, and Building a Kidlit Career

A children's author who has published 67 novels, Jacqueline Harvey has turned her passion into a career, and shares wise insights on being an author.

In this episode of The KidLit Pod, host Shara Curlett chats with Jacqueline Harvey about growing up around stories. Jacqueline describes growing up in a family of strong storytellers, valuing intergenerational stories, and her love of talking with strangers to hear about their lives.

The pair discuss lost community connection, technology, Australia’s under-16 social media ban, and COVID’s impact on children. Jacqueline recounts her teaching career and how she was inspired by an influential primary teacher, and shares creative classroom projects like an Egyptian archaeology dig to bring fun to the classroom.

She shares the experiences that helped shape Alice-Miranda, and how she later balanced senior school leadership with writing, until leaving education to write full time. Jacqueline share why Alice-Miranda resonates with so many children (kindness), how she manages long-running series, her Australia–New Zealand work rhythm, touring strategies, and upcoming projects and workshops.

To learn more about Jacqueline, you can visit:

www.jacquelineharvey.com.au

Instagram: jacquelineharve

Facebook: jacquelineharveyauthor

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BOOK SHOUTOUT LINK:

The Girl and the Ghost series by Jacqueline Harvey - published by Penguin Australia

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Follow The KidLit Pod  on Instagram (@thekidlitpod)

Find out more about The KidLit Pod host, Shara Curlett, here:

Shara Curlett on Instagram (@sharacurlett)

Shara Curlett Website (www.sharacurlett.com)

Transcript

[00:00:00] Shara Curlett: Welcome to The Kidlit Pod, a collective industry-wide discussion of people who are creating, sharing, discussing, and celebrating books, all with the hopes of capturing children's hearts and minds. I'm Shara Curlett, your host and author of two middle-grade novels, Welcome to Miracle, released in 2025, and Protector of Beyond, the first book in an upcoming fantasy series with Penguin Australia, set for release September 2026.

Jacqueline Harvey is one of Australia's most popular authors for children, with a reputation for creating books that are filled with adventure, mystery, humor, and heart. She has written 67, I know, titles including the best-selling, Alice Miranda, Clementine Rose, Kenzy and Max, and Willa and Woof series.

Her picture book, The Sound of the Sea, was a CBCA Honour Book in 2006. Her latest middle grade titles are The Girl and the Ghost, The Girl and the Ghost: Family Secrets, and The Girl and the Ghost: Grand Opening. There are another three books in the series still to [00:01:00] come.

She has recently released several picture books, including a series about Kevin the Sheep, The Daring Tale of Glora the Great, and That Cat, all illustrated by one of her former students, Kate Isabel Scott. Jacqueline has narrated 40 audiobooks, and her Alice Miranda series has been made into two animated feature films now available on STAN and Amazon Prime. And after that incredible bio, here we go. Our chat with Jacqueline Harvey.

[00:01:31] Shara Curlett: So welcome Jacqueline Harvey to The KidLit Pod. I'm so happy to have you here. I saw you speak at the wonderful CYA conference in 2025, and honestly, I was just enthralled by your entire talk. I sat there just note-taking, and not saying a word. You're one of Australia's most popular authors, having sold over two million copies of your Alice-Miranda, Clementine Rose, Kensy and Max, and Willa and Wolf series around the world, which is not an accolade to be taken lightly. And the way you've turned your writing into such a solid career is just so inspiring for everyone in the kidlit industry. Now, I know prior to becoming an author you were an educator, and we'll get into that later. But firstly, I would love to hear about what you were like as a kid. Did you have creative inklings back then? Was your family creative? 

[00:02:19] Jacqueline Harvey: Uh, no. No. I come from a family of really good storytellers. So nobody else is a writer, but everybody in my family can tell a good story, and so I was really lucky. I grew up with, well, when I was born, I had all four of my grandparents and six out of eight of my great-grandparents, which was pretty phenomenal. Obviously we had, you know, young generations and I was actually reflecting on this yesterday, on an- another podcast and we were talking about the fact that when my grandmothers were born, they were both 44, and when I was born, my grandmothers were both 44. And so, you know, my pop was 46, and then I had another pop, he was the toy boy. He was only 42. So you know, They were so young.

And so for me, I grew up surrounded by these people who could all tell a great story. And so you'd sit down to have a family dinner on a Sunday night, you know, go to grandma's or go to Nan's and invariably somebody would have a great story from the week. And it could have been really quite mundane, you know, something really mundane, but then they'd turn it into a really funny story. And my dad was always really good at telling stories. He's a cabinet maker by trade, and he owned his own business. And he would often come home and tell very inappropriate stories about awful things that had happened at work. You know, people losing fingers or all sorts of things. so I guess, in terms of my childhood, it really was, just something that we did was tell stories. And I was never that kid that would go home from school and, you know, when your parents go, "Oh, what did you do at school today?" I was never that kid who'd go, "Oh, nothing."

I always had a story to tell. I fortunately or unfortunately went to school with a couple of kids who... or one who I thought was probably the naughtiest boy in Australia. And so he gave me plenty of fodder, to be able to make up or tell stories about him. Yeah, I don't know. I think, like I play the piano as you know, I started learning piano when I was about six or seven, and I don't profess to playing very well, but it's something that I love and I've continued to do, right through into adulthood.

When I was a kid I loved to sing, but now my voice from all these years of, of so many talks and being a teacher for so long, my voice has absolutely gone to the back and I can't, I can't sing anymore. but I guess I played, other musical instruments as a child as well, or as a teenager. Sang in choir. So you know, there was that creative element to things. And interestingly, one of my grandmothers, she found out, or she discovered when she was about 50, that she was actually a really good artist. And so having never, ever dabbled or done anything before, she went along to some class and she just, you know, realised that, "Oh, I can, I've got really quite good perspective and I can paint." And so she ended up, you know, she did that for the last, what, 30 years of her life. She used to paint a lot. And then my grandad, he was, I mean, we would describe him in Australia as mad as a cut snake. He was a bit crazy. But he played the harmonica, you know? And he used to get out and sing us songs and play the harmonica.

So yeah, I mean, I don't come from this wildly creative family where, I have friends in Australia who, my friend Belinda Murrell, she and her sister and brother, they are the offspring of Australia's first ever children's author.

[00:05:39] Shara Curlett: Oh, wow.

[00:05:40] Jacqueline Harvey: like, I think Charlotte is about six genera- or five generations back. And you know, they have all this real history of writers all through their family and, you know, it's just so obvious that these guys were all gonna end up as writers. For me, yeah, not so much. So... 

[00:05:54] Shara Curlett: I love that, though. You were surrounded by stories in your household, and you had that kind of upbringing that, I feel like we used to have back in the day where the community of people are around you- 

[00:06:06] Jacqueline Harvey: Yes.

[00:06:07] Shara Curlett: Yeah, I think that has such a huge impact on just passing down stories from generation to generation.

[00:06:14] Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah. I was just speaking with someone the other day how it's almost like, we've lost that now in some of our households. Yeah. I do worry that, that art is gone, that if you're lucky enough to have older people in your lives, like grandparents or great-grandparents or even elderly neighbours or, you know, aunts and uncles, ask them to tell you their stories. Because we know that once they go, often those stories go with them. And so I feel like, I was really fortunate to have spent so much time with my grandparents. You know, my, my last grandmother died three years ago, so I was in my 50s when she died. And to be able to sit and talk about, you know, their lives when they were young and, and not just do it through, not just research your family tree through the Ancestry DNA, but to actually have the stories that go with the family is so important.

And my pop, when he was five years old, he had a paper round and they lived in Surrey Hills, which sounds very glamorous now, but Surrey Hills was an absolute dump back in the day. It was, you know, it was a very undesirable part of Sydney to live in. Anyway, my pop as a five-year-old used to have a paper round, and he would deliver newspapers to a very fancy road in Centennial Park called Lang Road. And if you go to Lang Road now, the mansions that are there, they're sort of, your $30, $40 million houses in Sydney. And, he told me, he said, "Oh, my favorite house to go to was this big mansion." And he said, "And I always had to walk around the back to ring the bell for the maid," because it was... You know, we're talking in the '30s. early '30s I think it would have been. And he said this was his favorite place, 'cause the maids would often bring him a piece of fruit, or if he was very lucky, if they'd been baking, he'd get a biscuit or a cake or something.

But he loved running into the man who lived there when he was leaving, and the man was coming back from work. And I said, "But Pop, it would've been, like, 7:00 in the morning." He said, "Yeah, he was a jockey, the man who owned the house." And I said, "Oh, really?" Oh. And I said, "How on earth did a jockey have that much money back in the day?" And he said, "Well, he rode a pretty special horse, this guy." And I said, "Who did he ride?" Phar Lap.

[00:08:11] Shara Curlett: Oh, my gosh. 

[00:08:13] Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, so this was Jim Pike, who was the jockey of Phar Lap, who lived in this big mansion in Lang Road, Centennial Park. And my pop used to deliver the newspaper to him every day from the time he was, you know, five years old. And so, if I'd have never asked him that story, if I'd have never asked him about, you know, "Tell me about your paper round," then that story would've been lost forever. 

[00:08:33] Shara Curlett: Yeah. 

[00:08:34] Jacqueline Harvey: So, those things to me, that's gold. But it's also, I think, as a writer, there's obviously a natural curiosity about people's stories. And, it's not just my own family. I'm the person who can sit next to you on a plane and know everything about you in an hour and a half. And not because I'm, you know, not because I'm nosy. I just love listening to people and I've met so many wonderful people in transit, if you like, so on planes.

I remember sitting next to this beautiful woman, An older lady, and we're going to Melbourne, and her husband had recently died, and all she wanted to do was tell me all about him. And he had this fascinating life, and I thought, "You know, she just wants someone to listen to this story, and to hear about him." And I think we don't give people enough opportunity to do that these days, where everybody's in a rush. 

[00:09:26] Shara Curlett: Yeah, I agree. I think there's so many lost stories out there. How many people would actually do that these days? Not that many, I don't think. I mean most people would just get on the plane, put their device on. 

[00:09:39] Jacqueline Harvey: Put on their headphones. Yeah, straight away. And, yeah I do sort of a recce. I don't just, you know, start talking to somebody. I am, fairly attuned to people's body language and if they clearly don't wanna talk. But there are times when, you know, you'll sit down and, I mean, I sat next to this man on a plane coming back from Melbourne one night and this fellow had a T-shirt on and it was the Jimmy Little Foundation. And Jimmy Little was a very famous Australian indigenous, musician. 

And I said to this guy, "Oh, do you work for the foundation?" And I have an indigenous great-grandmother, so my mother's side of the family, one of my grandmothers was, a Wiradjuri woman from Peak Hill. and I have a, a great interest in indigenous education and, I said to this guy, you know, "So, do you work for the Jimmy Little Foundation?" he said, "Well, I do," he said, "but I'm also a musician." And I said, "Oh, have you done anything that I'd know?" And you know, 'cause he didn't look like somebody that I knew. And he said, " Oh, have you ever heard of a band called Gangajang?" I was like, "Oh, yes." You know? That was a huge band when I was a teenager.

And he said, "Oh, I wrote a song that might be, you might know. It's called The Sounds of Then." Now, that is such a famous song in Australia. It starts with the, "Out on the patio we sit and the humidity we breathe." It's actually been turned into, it's the music for a number of ads over the years as well. Anyway, turns out that this guy, he knew a whole bunch of people that I knew. I had taught at a school down in the Southern Highlands so Jimmy Barnes, you know, musician Jimmy Barnes his kids had gone to this school. This guy was a session musician with Jimmy. You know, we knew a whole bunch of people in common. And by the end of the flight, it had gone in a blink and he was just lovely. And, anyway, I ended up giving him a ride home. So that's the kind of weirdo I am. I'll just pick up random people on planes. 

[00:11:22] Shara Curlett: Oh, no, we need more people like you. There are so many people I feel who are wanting to speak to someone and, you know, communities and support connections and networks, like, it's dwindling, right? So- 

[00:11:34] Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah.

[00:11:35] Shara Curlett: -the more people that are prepared to listen to them, I think they feel less alone. 

[00:11:39] Jacqueline Harvey: Absolutely. And I think, you know, that sense of community and connection is something that, you know, you look at all the kids at the moment, all the young people who are, are suffering with mental health issues and I think a lot of that stems from this lack of connection So an example is when you need to speak to somebody, or, you know, you need to communicate with somebody, and for me, I'd just as soon pick up the phone and have a two-minute phone call with somebody than write a page of an email.

And it's so interesting generationally to see, you know, my publicist, she's in her 20s, and she's actually really, she's very different to a lot of young people in her generation, because Maddy will pick up the phone. She will just talk to people, and I say, "You know, are you a bit of a rarity sometimes?" And she's like, "Well, maybe." So, but I think that, you know, it's, good to be able to know how to talk to people. 

[00:12:28] Shara Curlett: Yeah. my concern is it's becoming a lost art, because children are being less exposed to kind of uncomfortable situations and being put with lots of different people. Like, they're having their tight little friendship groups. And yeah, they're exposed to other people at schools, but you know, even Megan Daley on her podcast was saying she wants her kids to go on the train just to experience being around other people. 

[00:12:49] Jacqueline Harvey: Absolutely. Yeah, I agree with that, and it's interesting, when I'm in Sydney, I often travel on the Metro, best bit of public transport ever invented in Sydney, that's for sure. But it irks me so much when you sit there and if you're not traveling during peak hour and you can actually look up and down the whole length of the, carriages, and, you know, I was on there one day, and I would've said that 99% of the people on there were all buried in a phone. And there was I think maybe one lady sitting next to me, and she looked at me, and she had the same thought that I did.

She said, "Does nobody ever speak to each other anymore?" Yeah. And I just think that it's such a shame, you know? It's such a shame that we feel that we have to, just put your headphones in and look at your phone or whatever. I don't know.

[00:13:32] Shara Curlett: It's like a crutch though, right? It's like it's a safe place for people to kind of hide away, but that's not really the solution, we need to put children into more and more uncomfortable situations so they can cope with these situations.

[00:13:44] Jacqueline Harvey: Absolutely. Connection. It's all about connection. And then we hear people complaining about the fact they can't meet, a prospective partner, and I think, well, that's because 20 years ago you would randomly start a conversation with somebody and you know, who knows if that person ends up being the love of your life. And now, you've gotta swipe on the screen and work out whether you like them or not, and I think, well, what happened to chemistry and communication? 

[00:14:08] Shara Curlett: Yeah. And seeing someone across the room and thinking, "Okay, I might go talk to that person."

[00:14:13] Jacqueline Harvey: Exactly. 

[00:14:14] Shara Curlett: Rather than, yeah, other ways they're doing it these days.

[00:14:18] Jacqueline Harvey: Being at a party and thinking, "Oh, you know, that person looks like they, they could be interesting," 

[00:14:23] Shara Curlett: Oh, gosh, yes. It is a, a concerning time. I hope all these, big people behind all these technologies are held accountable and something happens from it. 

[00:14:32] Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, Well, it's interesting in Australia, you know, we have the social media ban for under 16s.

[00:14:37] Shara Curlett: Oh, yes.

[00:14:37] Jacqueline Harvey: And so it will be interesting to see if that does that make a difference?. And I honestly think, the kids that have already been on it who are, whatever age, say, you know, 12, 11, whatever plus, it's not gonna change anything for them. But I am really hopeful that for the younger kids coming through, that parents... you know, I think a lot of the time parents find it hard to say no to their children, and at least if they've got a law to back it up their kids they can actually be like, you can't have that because it's against the law. And I am hopeful that those kids will be, turning back to books and learning more about communication and rejecting that whole business of just being online all the time.

[00:15:15] Shara Curlett: I described it in another episode as it's like a pendulum, and I really feel for the kids in the high pendulum swing at the moment because that's the core group of kids who are gonna need support when they're older. They're gonna need attention because they were kind of lost in this flurry of what is going on? It's happening so fast. Here you go. We don't know if this is good for you or not. Tthese kids - I just hope they get the support they need when they're older. 

[00:15:40] Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, and I think too, compounding all of that was COVID as well. I see that when I go to schools. You see the kids who were COVID kids when they were in, like, K, 1, 2- and just how much more difficult a lot of school is for those kids. 

[00:15:54] Shara Curlett: Yeah. Speaking of schools, you were an educator. Can you tell me about your career as a teacher?

[00:16:00] Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, so I went straight from school to university to become a teacher, and straight back to school again. So I feel like I, you know, never left school. I wanted to be a primary school teacher, because I was fortunate to have the best primary school teacher in the world. I wasn't a fan of school that much until I moved schools, halfway through year four. and so, in Australia, year four is actually, I think year four is equivalent of year five here. Because we go to... In Australia, you go to year 12, and we only have one year of kindergarten, whereas you have, like, year zero, and it's all a bit slightly sort of just skewwhiff. Anyway, I was nine when I changed schools, and I went from having some of the scariest teachers in Australia, who I didn't much like, to going to this classroom with this woman who I just adored from the minute that I met her.

And she was so kind, You know, it helped that she was beautiful and young, and she was just so talented. An amazing musician, incredible artist. There's a whole other story to her as well, because she has just written the Alice-Miranda musical.

[00:16:58] Shara Curlett: Has she?

[00:16:59] Jacqueline Harvey: I know. Would you believe?

[00:17:00] Shara Curlett: Wow.

[00:17:01] Jacqueline Harvey: Off her own back, because she and I have never lost touch, and 10 years ago she said to me, "I should write a musical based on one of your books." And I said, "That would be amazing, Sally." Sort of, you know, parked that idea. saw her during COVID in Sydney, and she said, "I haven't forgotten about that musical idea, but I just need to retire and to, you know, get up some time." And lo and behold, in December last year, I get a message from her saying, "Well, it's done." And I'm kinda like, "What's done?" And she then sends through a link to the SoundCloud app, and she's recorded all the music. And I'm thinking it's gonna be her playing the piano. No, it is, like, fully orchestral you name it, the whole-

[00:17:38] Shara Curlett: Wow.

[00:17:38] Jacqueline Harvey: It is, it is phenomenal, and the songs are amazing. Anyway, she's just finished, um, uh, you know, sitting on my piano here behind me, uh, actually, right in front of me, I have the entire thing. The scripts, the score, you name it. I've got the whole thing. So at the moment we are popping together proposals, 'cause we need to meet people who have influence in musical theatre. But she is an amazing woman who I absolutely adore and whose music needs to be on the world stage, 'cause it's so good.

[00:18:04] Shara Curlett: Wow.

[00:18:05] Jacqueline Harvey: So anyway, I loved Sally so much when I was a kid that, you know, I thought, "I wanna grow up and I wanna be just like her." And so I'd always wanted to be a teacher. And even though I had other teachers in high school who said, "But you could be a lawyer, or you could be..." You know, I was a very studious kid and I did very well at school. I graduated in the top 1% of the country for my HSC. And I could've done anything. And, other teachers were quite sort of appalled that I actually wanted to be a teacher. And not, you know, become some hotshot lawyer or, do something else. I had always said, you know, but kids need really, kids need smart teachers. Kids need people who know how to teach them and who, make learning fun. And for me, that was one of the biggest things I learned from Sally, was that no matter what, when you go to school, every day those kids should have some fun, and they need to understand that learning is fun. And learning is eye-opening and it's revelationary. And for me, that was kind of my philosophy as a teacher.

So I started my career in a very small independent school down in the southern highlands of New South Wales, and it was such a creative place. You know, it one year I decided that I would, take my year four children on an epic voyage to ancient Egyptian times. mSo I wrote a story, and then over the school holidays I dug a hole, We like had a bobcat, and dug a hole in the back playground, because we're an independent school, we could do whatever we liked. I had a mother who was an archeologist, mother of a child in my class, Mrs. Pink, I'll never forget her.

And she and I spent the holidays making Egyptian artifacts burying them in the ground, my year four class, I then read them this story about being transported to ancient Egyptian times, and even though it's gonna feel like we're in the back playground - we're really in, you know, can you all see the pyramids, and what have you. Anyway, they spent a whole term excavating everything, and they researched all of the stuff that came out of the hole, and they had to tag it, they had to do it... We, we set up our art desks like it was a proper archeological dig site. everything had to be labeled and researched, and they had to create books from it. And interestingly, one of the kids who was in that class is a young woman called Kate Isabelle Scott. Kate Isabelle Scott is the illustrator of my picture books.

[00:20:16] Shara Curlett: Oh, wow.

[00:20:17] Jacqueline Harvey: And so she was a student in my class in fourth grade, and in kindergarten she was as well. But Kate would still, like, she's now 36, 37, and she would tell you that was one of the most fun things she ever did at school. So-

[00:20:28] Shara Curlett: Wow.

[00:20:28] Jacqueline Harvey: I just had so much creative license. And so for me, I credit that time, that, I mean, that's really where Alice-Miranda came from, that, experience of being in that school, and really Alice-Miranda was three little girls that I taught at that school, 'cause it was a boarding school as well. And then I had about a year and a half where I lived in Byron Bay and was sort of hoping to be a writer at this point, but, you know, writing and not having any luck. And then I ended up going back to Sydney and I became the deputy head of a very large school for girls in Sydney. Very academic, highly academic girls school. Which was a whole other sort of experience because I think I'd already had this wonderful creative time, and now even though in some ways it felt like putting on a straitjacket some days because It was a much, much bigger school, so you had to toe the line with lots of things.

I mean, that working at the other school taught me so much about professionalism and I got loads of opportunities to speak in front of big crowds. And then I ended up becoming what was called the Director of Development of that school, and that was a role where I stepped out of classrooms per se, and I was in charge of events, publications, communications, the old girls, the school foundation, Archives. You name it. Like, I had about, I think I had about 10 people worked under my, and including, I had an in-house, full-time in-house editor that I worked with. Yeah, so, it was a very, wealthy school and obviously very high-paying, high fee paying, etcetera. But incredible opportunities and amazing kids that I worked with who, lots of those girls, that, that was a girls-only school. The other school was co-ed. But, you know, I, still see a lot of these kids because I have a profile outside of what I used to do. And some of these kids are now mums, and so they'll bring their little kids to my events, and I'll think, "Wow, I feel really old," but isn't it wonderful to still have contact with them? 

[00:22:17] Shara Curlett: Yeah.. And obviously very memorable for them, right?

[00:22:20] Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, and my first books were published when I was at the school. So, my very first book, which was a junior fiction book called Code Name Mister Right, we did a huge book launch at the school. The kids were on that journey with me the whole time, too. And then when I started writing Alice-Miranda back in, phwoa, I wanna say 2006, I started that series and I thought it was gonna be a picture book because I'd just written a picture book. I'd won an honour book, in the Children's Book of the Year Awards the year before, for a picture book called The Sound of the Sea, which was a very sad and serious story, but inspired by real-life events.

So then I thought, "Oh, I'm gonna be a picture book author." And then I started on this character of Alice-Miranda and I thought, "Oh, no, I think she's got a bit more to say." And so then I started writing it as a, a novel. And what I did, I gave the manuscript to several of our teachers who read it to their classes, and didn't tell the kids who had written it. So it was great to get feedback from the kids without them saying, "Oh, we love it because we know Mrs. Harvey wrote it." I used to say to them, "I don't want you to tell me what you think I wanna hear, tell me the truth."

And because I had such a great relationship with the kids, I remember there was one time, not to do with Alice Miranda, it was to do with a picture book manuscript I was writing. I remember there was this girl Janine, in year six, and Janine prefaced the start of this conversation by saying, "You know, Mrs. Harvey, I really love you." And I said, "Yes, but what's coming next, Janine?" She goes, " This is the most boring story you've ever written in your life." I said, I said, "Well, I appreciate that because, you know, if it's boring and you don't like it, and you know me personally, then I would take that well on board." And she was absolutely right.

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[00:23:52] Shara Curlett: I'm just jumping in to give a shout-out to Jacqueline Harvey's latest series, The Girl and the Ghost. If you haven't heard about it yet, firstly, where have you been? It is incredibly popular and I just wanna share a little bit about each of the first three books. The Girl and the Ghost Book One is about a French village, new friends, fabulous food, a local mystery to be solved, and a ghost.

When almost 13-year-old Josephine Eloise Thomas moves from Sydney to a chateau in the southwest of France, she expects many things; adventures, inspiration for the stories she loves to write, and maybe finding out more about her French mother, who tragically died when she was a toddler. What she doesn't expect is to find a beautiful gold locket with the ghost of Louis XVIII trapped inside. After being accidentally released into the 21st century, the young prince proves to be annoying, strange, and obviously from another time. He also believes that Josephine is not who she says she is.

Then, there's Gabriel, the grandson of the local baker, French, beautiful, an artist, and definitely not a ghost. When Josephine and Gabriel venture next door to her home, the secrets become more sinister. With Louis' help, can Josephine and Gabriel discover what her neighbours are really up to and solve the mystery of Louis and the locket, too?

Now, that is just book one. Book two, Family Secrets, is a trip to Paris and Versailles, an escaped convict, an ancient underground cave network, family mysteries, and ghosts. And just released is the third book, The Girl and the Ghost: Grand Opening, which is about a hotel opening, a budding romance, a missing locket, and a ghost.

This series already has some wonderful reviews, but one of them in particular stands out. "Such a captivating story. A rundown chateau, a ghost hidden deep in a wardrobe, a gorgeous boy from the local bakery, and something not quite right happening right next door. The Girl and the Ghost has just the right amount of everything to kick off a brand new series for readers of nine plus. There is a mystery, a secret to keep, emails back and forth from a close friend, and possible [00:26:00] disasters within their new home. A first crush gives just the right amount of stomach swirls, and then terrible danger all but swallows up the main characters."

The Girl and the Ghost books one, two, and three are out now, available from your favorite bookstore.

Now, back to our chat with Jacqueline Harvey.

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[00:26:21] Jacqueline Harvey: So for me, the whole education career, you know, I didn't leave my job in school until the end of 2012, I went to my new job on the 1st of January, 2010, in the Director of Development job. Alice Miranda launched on the 1st of February, 2010, so a month later. we had this amazing book launch, Marcus Zuzak launched the book for me, so I feel very fortunate, I think every mother at school came to along because Marcus was launching the book. So, um, anyway, he very kindly did that.

And then from that point on, I pretty much, I would absolutely say I worked two jobs for the next three years because I never had a weekend off. Um, because Alice Miranda was coming out and was already doing quite well, and then I had Clementine Rose as well. And it got to the point where I said to my boss, "I'm gonna have a nervous breakdown if I don't make a choice." And she was quite cross about that. But in the end, she's my number one fan. She still brings her grandkids to everything I do, so. Yeah, so I made the choice, and I've never looked back. 

[00:27:18] Shara Curlett: Yeah. And the choice, I mean, yes, they lost an amazing person, an amazing educator, but at the same time, you can reach so many more children through your books, right?

[00:27:28] Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah. I used to write a lot for the kids at school anyway, and I just got to a point where I thought, you know what? I'd really like to see if I can write for a bigger audience than just my own kids. And so for me it was that challenge of, you know, can I do this? And, I was always very determined to be published by a big publisher. And I'm an incredibly loyal as well in terms of the publishing house. So for me, you know, the dream was to be with one of the big publishers like, you know, Random House or Penguin or Allen & Unwin, or Pan Mac was... and also it was quite a deliberate choice too in that I looked closely at who are the top Australian children's authors and what's their path been like, in terms of publishers. And at the time it was people like Paul Jennings and Morris Gleitzman and Jackie French, I mean, they're all still top people. But all of them had stuck with the same publisher. And I thought-

[00:28:22] Shara Curlett: Oh, interesting ... 

[00:28:22] Jacqueline Harvey: - this is what I want. I want that career. And I know the world has changed and I know publishing has changed, but for me, that was a really important thing, to be able to build relationships within one publishing house. And for me now, it's wonderful. You know, I started with Random House and, well, actually I didn't start with Random House. There's a whole other four-book story before that. But, when it got to 2010 and Alice Miranda was coming out and I was with Random House, and then now obviously they're Penguin Random House, so the company's merged, I love that I can walk into the office in Sydney, and from the receptionist to the CEO, I probably could, you know, name 80% of the people in the building.

[00:29:01] Shara Curlett: Yeah. And it's a big building, too. 

[00:29:04] Jacqueline Harvey: It's a big building, But it's lovely to have those relationships where you feel like you... You know, I feel like I work really hard for them, but they work really hard for me as well. 

[00:29:14] Shara Curlett: Yes. I've experienced that with my book coming out. Yeah. And they do work so hard. Like, I'm hearing from them constantly. Yeah. I feel the belief behind my book, the passion behind it, and they want to make it as much of a success as I do, and it really, really comes through, their passion for children's books.

[00:29:31] Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah. There's a lot of really good people there. And so for me, that's been a lovely, lovely thing that I've now been with that company for... I mean, I signed the first contract in 2008, so it'll be 20 years-

[00:29:43] Shara Curlett: Wow ...

[00:29:43] Jacqueline Harvey: -in a couple of years' time. But, you know, in terms of working with them, it's 16 years since Alice-Miranda came out, so.

[00:29:50] Shara Curlett: And that has been an incredibly popular series, hasn't it, Alice-Miranda? 

[00:29:54] Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Alice-Miranda, as I said, I thought I was gonna write a picture book, and then we're now 21 novels, two animated feature films. We had a bunch of diaries. We had movie tie-ins. Nw we've got the, you know, the-

[00:30:06] Shara Curlett: The musical.

[00:30:06] Jacqueline Harvey: -musical. Yeah. And Alice-Miranda is not done. There are other things coming soon. So- 

[00:30:11] Shara Curlett: Oh, how exciting. 

[00:30:13] Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, so it's nice to have something that resonated with kids and that just sort of took off and was u- It was that real unexpected... And I think I was so naive. I didn't realise how incredibly unusual it was for it to take off the way it did. And so even now, I'll go into a shop and I'll think, "Wow, that's a lot of books. I wrote all those books." That's a huge number of books. But yeah, it's exciting. I still get fan mail about Alice-Miranda probably every week, so. 

[00:30:42] Shara Curlett: Wow. And speaking of, what do you think it is about Alice-Miranda that connected with kids so well?

[00:30:47] Jacqueline Harvey: I think she's really kind. I think that's the main part about it is, you know, she comes from this incredibly wealthy family. She has resources, you know, to burn. She has things at her fingertips. But ultimately, she's very curious, and she's very kind. And I've never had a child say, "Oh, I don't like her 'cause she's too rich." And yet, that series was rejected, or the book was rejected by several publishers on the basis that she was too rich and no kid would ever like her.

[00:31:14] Shara Curlett: Really?

[00:31:15] Jacqueline Harvey: That was the feedback that I had from, yeah, I think two different publishers said that. And I thought, "Well, that's really interesting," because it's not something kids have ever identified about her. I've had adults, you know, say, "Oh, she's a precocious little brat," you know? And I, you know ... I mean, and in a way, Obviously they tell you don't ever read your reviews, but sometimes you can't help yourself. And, sometimes you'll read something and think, "Oh, well, they clearly didn't like her." But in some ways when books are polarising, it's actually better because you've kind of reached a really broad audience. 

[00:31:45] Shara Curlett: Yeah. And also, I feel like a lot of those kind of reviews are from adults reading a kids book, and what it comes down to is it's for kids. 

[00:31:54] Jacqueline Harvey: Exactly. It's an adult perspective. The reviews make me laugh sometimes because, you know, The Girl and the Ghost is the first book came out this time last year, and there was only, ... And, and again, you shouldn't read your reviews- ... but I went onto Goodreads and I thought, "I'm just gonna have a little look and see if anybody's reviewed it." And it had all these glowing five-star reviews, you know, lots of great reviews. And one lady had written this two-star review, and I was like, "Oh, what did she- ... what did she give me that for?" And then it was she really liked the story, but she couldn't understand how a 13-year-old girl would have, like, romantic feelings towards a boy. And I was like, "Eh? Have you ever been a 13-year-old girl?" Were you never a 13-year-old girl?

[00:32:36] Shara Curlett: Wow. 

[00:32:37] Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, I mean, I can remember being a five-year-old girl and thinking, you know, some kid at kindergarten was pretty cute. I mean, not that I was boy crazy or anything, but I just think, "Mm. That's so-" Anyway, it's so funny 'cause then, She read the next one too, and I thought, "Why? Do not bother. Just don't even read them again." And again, it was like, "Oh, I love this story, but I can't understand the, you know, the ..." It is the most innocent romance that you could possibly imagine, but she couldn't understand why I needed to include that. And yet, I was at a school in Sydney last, a couple of weeks ago, doing the launch for the third book, which has, unbelievably already just come out. And this was a group of kids that I had spoken to last year, and they had loved the whole idea that there could be a little bit of romance.

Anyway, I got to this part where it's clear that the main character, Josephine, is on a picnic with Gabriel, and Gabriel is going to ask her to be his girlfriend. And the girls, I have a video of this, and the kids are like- 

[00:33:33] Shara Curlett: Oh, my gosh. 

[00:33:34] Jacqueline Harvey: -They're screaming. It's so funny. And you know, they're just so invested in these two.

[00:33:40] Shara Curlett: Aw, that's beautiful, and it shows what they want to read, right? Like, that's-

[00:33:46] Jacqueline Harvey: Well, these kids were in their final year of primary school, so equivalent to New Zealand ... Actually, this is year six Australia. So equivalent to year eight New Zealand. So-

[00:33:53] Shara Curlett: Okay, yeah.

[00:33:54] Jacqueline Harvey: -we have that two-year disconnect it is. So these kids were all sort of 12. And they were so invested, and it just made us all laugh so much. But it was wonderful. 

[00:34:04] Shara Curlett: Oh, that's amazing. I love that. And seeing their reactions that they're so invested in the story that there's like, they believe the characters are real. Like, that's when you know you've connected with them, right? 

[00:34:13] Jacqueline Harvey: Absolutely. Yeah. For sure. 

[00:34:16] Shara Curlett: From your point of view in writing a series, how do you continue a series for so long, because you have quite a few now that you've continued for a long-

[00:34:25] Jacqueline Harvey: Yep, big series. 

[00:34:25] Shara Curlett: Yeah. How do you write it with the knowledge that, okay, if this ends, this could be the last one, but we want to keep it open so we could continue it, if we want to? 

[00:34:34] Jacqueline Harvey: Okay. So, Alice Miranda is very open-ended, you know? Every story is self-contained. There are obviously characters that come into the series over time, but what I included in that series was a cast of characters so that people would know, you know, who's in it. Um, it was interesting with Kensy and Max, there was an overarching who wants to kill Kensy and Max the whole way through the series. And so we'd kind of come to it that 10 books, that would be it, 10 books, and then we'd find that out. What I did at the end of Kensy and Max, which has actually upset some readers, I have left the last line of the last book really open. You know, there's a letter slides through the slot in the door and skids across the floor, and the grandmother opens it, and it... She says something about, you know, danger is never very far away. And all these kids are like, "Why have you not written what happens next?"

And I'm thinking, it was just like, you know, danger is never very far away. This is their life. Anyway, I do have an idea of how to actually do three more books in that series, but, I'm just busy with lots of other things at the moment. Clementine Rose is quite- uh, I think we kind of all wrapped Clementine Rose up with a bow with the arrival of a new baby sister. It feels quite complete. Um, Willa, Willa could be very open. I mean, Willa is, again, very self-contained kind of stories. Um, and The Girl and the Ghost, Originally, it was gonna be five books, and recently I got the go-ahead to write number six. Which is good because I-

[00:36:00] Shara Curlett: Congratulations ...

[00:36:00] Jacqueline Harvey: -thank you, I was grappling with how to finish it, 'cause I've just actually finished writing number four, which will be out in November. And when I say finished writing, I'm in the middle of structurally editing at the moment. But I was grappling with, well, how do I wrap all these bits of storylines that I need to wrap up in the one last book? And then my publisher, she said, "Well, I think that Louis needs to have his own book, and I think you need to wrap that up." And I was like, "Oh, does that mean that...?" She said, "Yes." Oh. She said, "We'll let you do another one."

[00:36:28] Jacqueline Harvey: So I'm really pleased about that because I'm so invested in these characters. I'm absolutely loving them. 

[00:36:34] Shara Curlett: Yeah. 

[00:36:34] Jacqueline Harvey: And it's nice to be writing something where the characters are a bit older. So they're all, you know, 14, 13, or it'll be 15, 14. And yet it's still very popular with, you know, nine-year-olds and 10-year-olds.

[00:36:45] Jacqueline Harvey: So, which is an interesting place to be too, because you have to be really mindful that the readership is going to be quite broad. And so I want kids to feel very safe, and parents to understand that my stories are very safe. You know? Yeah. There's nothing... We're not gonna veer into any territory that parents would go, "Oh," you know, "What's she thinking?" And I think that's important, you know, for my brand, if you like. That's- that's very much my brand. 

[00:37:11] Shara Curlett: Yeah. How do you balance writing, editing with, the school side of things? 

[00:37:16] Jacqueline Harvey: Okay. So I sort of try really hard to do blocks of both. So I live in Sydney part of the time, and I live in Queenstown in... So live in New Zealand for the rest of the time, and when I'm in New Zealand, it's essentially, it's writing and editing time. I don't do a lot of touring and a lot of school visits, that's not what's on my agenda when I'm here. Although that said, you know, I was in Christchurch for the weekend and I went and visited a, a whole heap of bookshops and signed books when I was there because I can't help myself.

And then when I go to Sydney, often it's very intensive touring. So I was in Sydney for nearly a month, and we launched the Girl and Ghost, Grand Opening, the third book, and that was about, well, I couldn't tell you, probably about 16 or 18 school visits, a big event at the library in North Sydney, an afternoon tea party in Melbourne, another event that I did with R.A. Spratt. So, Rachel Spratt and I, we're very, very good friends. We do a podcast together, and we decided we would do a double launch down in Bowral, which was great fun and-

[00:38:18] Shara Curlett: Oh, cool

[00:38:18] Jacqueline Harvey: -was, was really fun. And we had a lot of people come. Was, Well over 100 people were there. 

[00:38:23] Shara Curlett: Wow. 

[00:38:23] Jacqueline Harvey: And at the end when we were doing the book signing, you know, and I always ask the kids where they're from, and they ... So I have a good strategy for posters. So if any of your listeners who are authors, this is a really good strategy with your posters. Don't sign the poster for the child, sign the poster for the child's school, because then that poster ends up in the school library, and if the librarian is not aware of the books, then now they are. And the librarian is more likely to go and buy that book because there's a poster of the book hanging on the wall. And also because, you know, posters are fairly precious. They cost a lot to produce, etcetera.

So I'm there and I'm giving the posters, you know, signing the posters for the kids, and there was this one family that came up, the dad and two little girls- And I said, "And which school do you go to?" And he told me, and I said, "That's in Melbourne." And he said, "It is." And I said, "You didn't come all this way just for this, did you?" And he said, "We did." 

[00:39:20] Shara Curlett: Oh, wow. 

[00:39:21] Jacqueline Harvey: And I said, "You have driven, like, about nine hours up from Melbourne to the Southern Highlands." And I said, "You're not going back tonight, are you?" He said, "Yep." He said, "Dinner in Gundagai- ... and then straight through." And so I said to the kids, "Well, I'll do a poster for school, and then I will also give you a poster for yourselves." And I think I wrote on their poster something like, you know for the girls' names, and I said, "You have the best parents in the world. Slightly mad for driving this far to come and see Rachel and I- ... but, amazing."

So yeah, I mean, things happen at times and you kind of can't believe it that, you know... I mean, I've had kids fly from New Zealand to Sydney for events. I've had kids fly from Adelaide, Brisbane. And it's extremely humbling when you realise how much these people have invested in coming to see you. It's, it's incredibly humbling. And  I mean, when the dad said it to me I was, I was, like, weepy. 

[00:40:16] Shara Curlett: Yeah. Aw. 

[00:40:18] Jacqueline Harvey: I said, "I can't believe you would do that." I said, "That's nuts." And I said, "You do realise I was in Melbourne last Sunday- and I was doing an afternoon tea party?" He said, "Yeah, we thought about coming to that." He said, "But we love you and Rachel so much that we thought we'd be, you know, come together." And yeah, I mean, both of us were just blown away, so. 

[00:40:34] Shara Curlett: Aw. But that's, it's so inspiring to hear that parents will do that for their children.

[00:40:39] Jacqueline Harvey: Yes. And especially about books, you know? Yeah. They'll do it for sport, and they'll do it for, you know, superstars and movies and stuff, but the fact that they'll do it for books as well is very humbling, so. 

[00:40:48] Shara Curlett: Yeah. What an incredible example to set for your kids, just- that's amazing. 

[00:40:53] Jacqueline Harvey: And you know, this will sound random and weird, but this harks back to what we talked about in the first place. So I've got friends in places all over the world because of books. And, we're friends with this family that live in Newcastle. They live actually in Sunderland, in England, and we're very, very good friends with them because when their kids were little their mom wrote to me and said, "My girls, we just adore Alice Miranda and Clementine Rose, and we see that you're coming on a tour to England. Are you coming anywhere near Newcastle?" And as it turned out, I was. And so I messaged, the mum, Christine, and I said, "I'm gonna be at this hotel at this time. If you wanna bring the girls to meet me, I'd love to, you know, love to meet you." Anyway, this family are some of our best friends now. So. 

[00:41:39] Shara Curlett: Oh, my gosh. 

[00:41:41] Jacqueline Harvey: I know. I mean, I am basically a random weirdo who picks up people all over the world, so.

[00:41:47] Shara Curlett: And so you're working on your structural edit for your fourth book at the moment. Do you have anything else on the go? 

[00:41:53] Jacqueline Harvey: I do. Well, I have several projects on the go. I have, something to do with Alice Miranda that I can't really talk about yet, but it's yeah, super exciting, and will bring Alice Miranda to a whole different audience, which will be great. I've got a very, very young, first junior fiction series which, it's due to come out next year, and then I'm also, I'm contracted for a standalone mystery novel as well, which I've written some of. But it just keeps getting pushed aside because of The Girl and the Ghost. So, my problem is not having enough ideas. It's having enough time to you know, finish everything that I wanna finish. 

[00:42:27] Shara Curlett: Yeah. I think that's ... If I had a superpower, it would be just to pause time so I could just do what I need to do, and then restart and keep going. 

[00:42:34] Jacqueline Harvey: Yep, absolutely. And, and it is hard. You know, when, when you're promoting as well as you were saying before, you've got to invest time into that. And, anybody who becomes a children's author these days and thinks, "I'm just gonna sit in my garret and write a book and never talk to anybody," that's not how it works anymore, you know? There is an expectation, even if your publisher- Like ours does amazing marketing and publicity. There is still an expectation that you will get out and promote your books and that you will be part of that process. And I think that's a bit of a misnomer that some people have a blockbuster book that you've never actually seen the author out doing anything for. You know, And it does happen. but it's very rare.

[00:43:18] Shara Curlett: Yeah. It's just as important for the kids to have that connection that the author is real as well, though.

[00:43:23] Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah.

[00:43:24] Shara Curlett: I went to school in South Auckland, and ... Perhaps an author came to the school, but I don't remember it. And I was a kid who loved, I loved writing stories well back then. And I don't, I don't remember making that connection that an author was a real person. Oh. And I never made that connection with this book could be me.

[00:43:41] Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah. Oh, no. For me, no authors ever came to visit my school when I was a kid, which, it just wasn't done. Or if it was, it wasn't done at my school. And I think I believed that all authors lived in cottages in the woods in England for most of my life 'cause that's where Enid Blyton was from. And that's a thing that I say often,  "If you can see it, you can be it." And so for kids to connect ... And it doesn't matter. You know, sometimes it's one kid who will make a comment to you, and they'll say, "I really want to do blah."

And I'll say, "Well, you know, yes. Don't give up on that. Don't give up on thinking that that's something you might be able to achieve." You know, I say to kids, "I was an ordinary kid growing up in the southwest of Sydney. I wasn't from a uber literary family or anything like that. I didn't grow up going to super expensive school or anything like that. And, If you want it badly enough- and you've got, you know, some talent that you can mould and learn, why not? Why not you? 

[00:44:37] Shara Curlett: Yeah. And also making it feel like it can be fun as well. I grew up in a household where my dad was ... He's a joker. He was also the storyteller in the family. Like, we often joke that you could ask him for directions and you'll end up hearing about old Gerald down the road who broke his car and then had to go to wherever to fix it. So Dad can talk anyone's ear off, but he's a great storyteller, and I often think that when kids are thinking about stories that, like, just realising that it, it is a fun experience. It should be fun to write stories.

[00:45:10] Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, and it shouldn't be, it shouldn't be as hard as they often think that it is. And so, you know, I still, even though I'm not, you know, teaching full time anymore, I teach in the school holidays. This year I was teaching in January in person in Sydney, and then, in April I taught online, which was amazing. I had kids from everywhere, from all over Australia, and I think I had a couple of New Zealand kids as well. And, in the next holidays I'll be in person in Sydney in July. And I make a point of, you know, when we have these classes, yes, the kids work hard, I'm quite rigorous as far as I want them to learn something, but I also want them to enjoy themselves while doing it. And to understand that stories come from everywhere, and that we can have a lot of fun doing this.

 And so for me, being able to do that and to keep my hand in with the teaching part that way is really, I find it really fun. I enjoy it. A friend of mine said to me the other day, "Ugh, don't you just find it such a chore? And then you've gotta mark their work, and you go ..." And I said, "Well, I actually really love it." So I, you know, I don't know that I would love if I was in a classroom full time anymore. There's a lot of stuff teachers have to do these days, and I think it just takes away from the actual joy of teaching.

[00:46:19] Shara Curlett: Yeah. 

[00:46:19] Jacqueline Harvey: Um, but for me I have the privilege I guess of being able to dip in and out when I want to. Mm. You know, for me that's the joyful parts of being a teacher. I have the, you know, the fun bits. 

[00:46:30] Shara Curlett: Yeah. in New Zealand, they have their teacher for the day, but at my kids' school they also have, like, a specialist teacher, and they're the ones who come in and inject a bit of fun just to break up the day. And I think those are really important, those teachers who come in and just do that. 

[00:46:44] Jacqueline Harvey: Yeah, absolutely. 

[00:46:45] Shara Curlett: So I'll wrap it up here 'cause I'm aware of the time. Thank you so much, Jacquie Harvey. It's been such a great chat with you, and congratulations on your third book recently coming out. 

[00:46:54] Jacqueline Harvey: Thank you. Yeah, I can't believe it's the third one in that series, but I can't believe that was my 67th book, which is not a number that I've wanted to say in schools recently. Seventh thing. Although now when I've been telling kids, kids have said, " how many books have you written?" And I just do the, the hand zoom for, you know, six, seven. And the kid's like, "67!" I'm like, "Yes, it's that many," and I'm really glad that 68 will be out in November.

[00:47:20] Shara Curlett: Oh, that's incredible. Well, thank you so much for your time. And where can people find you if they're looking to learn more about you? 

[00:47:27] Jacqueline Harvey: Okay. So, jacquelineharvey.com.au or on social media I'm @jacquelineharve with no Y, which is weird because when I went to get a Twitter handle 100 years ago, Jacqueline Harvey was too long, and so I had to drop the Y. And so I've just kept it that way for Instagram and Twitter, and you can find me on Facebook as well. I have a Facebook fan page as well. I'm not particularly into TikTok. It's not been my, you know, thing. I have an account, but I... yeah. I've got so many other things to spend my time on that that's not one of them.

[00:48:03] Shara Curlett: Exactly. Well, thank you so much, Jacquie. 

[00:48:05] Jacqueline Harvey: Thank you, Shara. It's been a wonderful talk.

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[00:48:08] Shara Curlett: Wow. I was really looking forward to chatting with Jacquie, and it was so good to hear about her background and her journey, and the fact that she just loved teaching so much that she knew that that was what she wanted to do. In particular, it will stick with me how she went above and beyond with teaching, creating that archeological dig site for her children, and bringing that sense of awe and wonder to what could have been a really dry, boring lesson. And it's wonderful that she's still finding ways to teach kids now and connect with them.

If you'd like to find out more about Jacquie, you can go to www.jacquelineharvey.com.au. And if you'd like to learn more about me, you can go to sharacurlett.com or you can find me on Instagram @sharacurlett

Thanks for joining the KidLit Pod, and we'll bring you another great episode next week.