Goodreads asked Chip Colquhoun:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Chip Colquhoun As mentioned elsewhere, I'm working on two books at the minute, but I've also got one coming out later this month. So...

The January one is a collection of short stories, storytelling advice, and lessons to help educators inspire children to read for pleasure. It was written to commission by the Dept for Education's English Hub, but it's basically a summation of everything I've done as a storyteller in schools that has turned reluctant readers into recreational readers.

The story involving Olly Close-Eye began as the collection of folk tales for which I had a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign with illustrator Korky Paul – but owing to its connection to Roald Dahl, which was dropped when the Dahl Story Company got bought by Netflix, I had to make some major changes. The young lad in the story is based on a real-life lad who fell in love with reading for the first time through the stories I'd written in that collection.

And the story about the girl in the suitcase? That's grown from a short story competition! I had one week to write an action adventure with the theme of 'clueless', where one character had to be an egotistical maniac. I fell in love with my lead character so much that I shared her story with a few other author friends, and they've encouraged me to build it into a novel... So I am! (NB: she's NOT the egotistical maniac...)

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