John Fardell
Home address:
33 Barony Terrace, Corstorphine, Edinburgh, EH12 8RF, ScotlandTelephone:
0131 334 6675Email:
jfardell@clara.co.ukBRAW network:
yesLL funded:
yesBiography:
I was brought up in the countryside near Bristol with two sisters and a brother. We spent many hours in our dad's workshop, learning to make model planes and boats. I always enjoyed drawing inventions, and making up comic strips. I also have great childhood memories of travelling to various islands off the west coast of Scotland for big family holidays.In my early adulthood, before and after college, I had all sorts of temporary jobs - potato picker, toilet cleaner, care worker, film extra, door-to-door salesman, pierrot, barman, viola player - but for the past eighteen years or so, I've mostly earned my living as a freelance cartoonist and illustrator. My comic strips and cartoons have appeared in a wide variety of UK publications including Viz, the List, the Independent and the Herald.
I've also done quite a bit of puppet theatre work, though not much of that recently. These days I spend a lot of my time writing and drawing my children's books.
I live with my wife Jenny and our two sons in Edinburgh.
About writer's work:
Novels:
I try to write exciting, intelligent adventure novels, where fast-paced action, humour, sadness, friendship, awe-inspiring locations, amazing inventions, strange science, eccentric characters, murderous villains and big ethical questions are all woven together into a really well-shaped, page-turning story.
My books typically seem to feature ordinary children (boys and girls) being plunged into dangerous situations and doing their best to do the right thing with very little. Another common feature in my books is the occurence of elderly characters, with secrets and back-stories stretching back into the mid 20th century. I like writing completely contemporary stories, but with a rich sense of history behind them.
The books I've written so far contain no supernatural or magic elements. Some of the science gets pretty far-fetched, but I work hard to root it in reality and to make even the most unlikely invention seem entirely believable to the reader as they're reading it!
Picture Books: My first picture book, Manfred the Baddie, contains a lot of comedy and detail. I try to combine strong, clear design in the pictures with having a lot going on for the reader to spot. I like pictures that really draw you in, with lighting effects, detail, perspective etc, even though pictures like that often take absolutely ages to draw!
About writer's events and projects:
My author visit events (typically for 9-12 year olds in schools or libraries) are fun, interactive sessions, which are as much about the scribbly processes behind writing and illustrating books as about the finished product, with opportunities for everyone to participate in some inventing and story-generating activities. I encourage the children to always write about or draw what excites them personally, and to never worry about having to get a story or picture right first time.
I show the children my ideas notebooks, rough drafts of artwork, research material and the model vehicles and planes that I build to help me with illustrations.
In the last part of a session, I'm always happy to answer questions on any aspect of my work.
Now that my first picture book, Manfred the Baddie, has come out, I'm also happy to do events for the 5-8 age range. These involve a similar level of fun and interactive participation, though obviously pitched slightly differently for the slightly lower age range.
And I also sometimes do events for teens/students/adults on the subject of writing and illustrating books and comics for a living, and I find these events interesting too. These events for teens and adults tend to be similarly visual to my children's events, again with plenty of opportunity to get a "behind-the-scenes" look at rough drafts, original artwork, etc, and plenty of opportunity to ask questions.
I also do comic strip workshops sometimes. I recently did one for adults at the education wing of Edinburgh's Saughton Prison. And in 2008, I took part in a Scottish Book Trust residency project at an Edinburgh primary school, where I helped the pupils to produce their own comic.
Language:
EnglishAge groups:
5-8, 9-12, Teens, AdultsBooks written
Join Jeremiah Jellyfish as he swims away from his shoal and finds himself taking charge of the World's Biggest Rocket Plane Factory!
Kidnapping inventors, stealing from art museums, conducting acts of piracy on the high seas. Will Manfred ever learn his lesson? He is even nasty to his own henchmen!
Kidnapping inventors, stealing from art museums, conducting acts of piracy on the high seas. Will Manfred ever learn his lesson? He is even nasty to his own henchmen! John Fardell's inventive story ...
Sam and Marcia are back in Edinburgh with Zara, Ben and Professor Ampersand. The friends are helping to build an amazing electric-powered flying boat when they stumble across an old photograph - a ...
A painfully shy old man has approached Professors Gadling, Gauntraker and Ampersand with an extraordinary archeological find: early human remains that don't fit in with anything known to science. ...
'Listen!' croaked the man. 'Can't...stay...awake...much...longer.... Summon the others, Alexander... Professor Murdo has returned to Nordbergen.' A storm-ravaged traveller has blown in to Ben and ...
Books illustrated
Join Jeremiah Jellyfish as he swims away from his shoal and finds himself taking charge of the World's Biggest Rocket Plane Factory!
Kidnapping inventors, stealing from art museums, conducting acts of piracy on the high seas. Will Manfred ever learn his lesson? He is even nasty to his own henchmen!
The first in a new series of "OneCity" books (crime and London to follow in 2009), this is a cracking collection of specially commissioned stories for upper primary school children, by nine ...
Sam and Marcia are back in Edinburgh with Zara, Ben and Professor Ampersand. The friends are helping to build an amazing electric-powered flying boat when they stumble across an old photograph - a ...
A painfully shy old man has approached Professors Gadling, Gauntraker and Ampersand with an extraordinary archeological find: early human remains that don't fit in with anything known to science. ...
'Listen!' croaked the man. 'Can't...stay...awake...much...longer.... Summon the others, Alexander... Professor Murdo has returned to Nordbergen.' A storm-ravaged traveller has blown in to Ben and ...
