James Nicol
About Author
James Nicol, author of The Apprentice Witch series, tells ReadingZone about his new eco fantasy, The Cloud Thief.
James has loved books and stories his whole life. As a child he spent hours absorbed in novels, watching epic 1980s cartoons and adventuring in the wood at the bottom of the garden. When he left school, he planned to become an art teacher but became a bookseller and a librarian instead, before also becoming an author.
These days he lives in Yorkshire, writing books and working at a library.
Interview
The Cloud Thief (Chicken House)
March 2024
In The Cloud Thief we visit a future world where, as a result of climate change, clouds have to be made in a factory because they can't occur naturally, and are then bought and sold.
But what happens to the poorer communities who can't afford to buy the best clouds? How do they manage? When one child, Mara, decides to steal a cloud to help her sick father, she begins a chain of events that will change this world forever.
Read a chapter from The Cloud Thief
Review: James Nicol skilfully challenges the reader to question the arrogance and greed of humans and look for better solutions
which are kinder to all.
Q&A with James Nicol, introducing The Cloud Thief
"One of the many powers that books have is to make us think differently about the world around us and ourselves.
And then, most crucially, to feel empathy and understanding for the characters in the story."
1. Can you introduce yourself to your readers; your loves and loathings, what gets you out of bed in the mornings, and what makes you laugh?
Hello - I'm James Nicol, author of The Apprentice Witch series, The Spell Tailors and The Cloud Thief. I LOVE books and reading and cake! I'm not sure there is anything I really loathe apart from unkindness.
My children get me out of bed in the morning - though thankfully I'm quite a morning person and everything makes me laugh, I can generally find something absurd and funny in just about any situation!
2. How did you become a writer and what kinds of stories do you most enjoy writing?
Wouldn't it be cool if I said I was bitten by a radioactive author in a bookshop and that's how I transformed into a writer? The reality is not quite so exciting really, I've always loved stories in all their forms but I was a bit of a late bloomer when it came to reading but once I grasped the power of books, I think there was a seed planted in my head that eventually bought me to this point!
I most enjoy writing stories about friendship, family and community with lashings and lashings of magic!
"One bright, cold day, when I was walking my dog, I saw a column of cloud rising up and in my head
I thought it looked like a factory making clouds."
3. What happens in your new book, The Cloud Thief, and what helped inspire this story about clouds, corruption and courageous children?
The Cloud Thief centres around Mara who is painfully aware of the inequity of the world she lives in. And when she sees an opportunity to help her sick father - no matter how tenuous and risky, and even though it means doing something wrong - she takes the chance. But what she sets off is a chain of events that will turn her whole world upside down.
The main inspiration for the story is from Drax power station that dominates the landscape near where I live in Yorkshire. One bright, cold day, when I was walking my dog, I saw a column of cloud rising up (Drax itself was thankfully hidden from view) and in my head I thought it looked like a factory making clouds.
I couldn't shake that idea off and it incubated in my head for about two years until I had a sudden thought about a girl who breaks into the cloud factory to steal a cloud. I hurriedly wrote the idea down, and the title, though I was sure there must already be a book called The Cloud Thief - thankfully, there wasn't!
4. When you started to develop this world, what was it like imagining and creating a cloudless world, post climate change? Did any specific places help inspire this world?
I LOVE world building when I work on my stories and as this story has a big journey that the characters undertake, it meant I got to explore a much wider world than I have in my previous books.
I am quite a visual thinker and I collect all sorts of images via Pinterest and obviously I already had Drax as he inspiration for the cloud factory itself. The Yorkshire and Norfolk coasts inspired Withering-On-The-Sand-Sea, Mara's hometown. It was strange and sometimes a bit scary imagining a world with no clouds; I am a self-confessed rain LOVER and I get quite anxious when we go without rain for long periods, so I channelled all of that into the story.
"Climate change is such a huge concern for young people but setting it in a fantasy world gives it a little bit of distance
for readers, who may find some of the ideas upsetting.."
5. Although you give the story a realistic setting, this is a fantasy story with 'cloud factories', sentient clouds and mythical creatures. Why did you decide to explore a story about climate change through fantasy?
Fantasy is where my heart lies - fantasy books were my safe place, my escape and my shield growing up. Setting the story in a fantasy world gives you a much wider scope to do things than if I had set the book in the real world - I also think it might have felt like a much darker book set in the real world and, although the story has serious and big themes, ultimately I want it to be a place readers want to explore and venture back into over and over again.
Climate change is such a huge concern for young people but setting it in a fantasy world gives it a little bit of distance for readers who may find some of the ideas upsetting. I didn't set out with any specific themes in mind - that's not really how I work. I wanted to imagine a world where the climate change has already occurred and it's so far in the past of this current world that no one really knows exactly what it was, and how it happened.
I was keen to show a world where the population are dealing with the after effects of a climate crisis. It's far from perfect but the children are the ones who uncover the key to beginning to change things foe the better.
6. There is also some distinctive social commentary in the novel; only those towns rich enough to buy clouds will receive them. As a writer, do you want to encourage children to question their 'real' worlds?
Our main job as writers of fiction is to entertain and engage readers but alongside that there is the opportunity to ask readers to think more deeply on certain subjects and ideas.
One of the many powers that books have is to make us think differently about the world around us and ourselves. And then, most crucially, to feel empathy and understanding for the characters in the story and not just the heroes but the antagonists as well.
If we can imagine ourselves in the characters shoes, if we can empathise with them and question their choices, then that's a powerful thing.
7. Other than a great adventure, what would you like your readers to take from Mara's experiences in The Cloud Thief?
Children will be the ones to find solutions to many of the problems we are facing now, especially around the climate - I genuinely believe that. So I guess its for them to realise they do have power even though it often doesn't feel like that when we are children.
"Go big and throw everything at it to start with. Write the world you want to explore
and spend time in."
8. How would you suggest getting children started in creating their own fantasy world?
Go big and throw everything at it to start with. Write the world you want to explore and spend time in, even if its not always a nice place. But bring in little slices of your real world into it as this helps to make the world feel real to readers! Oh and definitely draw a map! Maps are the best!
9. Are there any other environmental or fantasy stories for children that you'd like to recommend our readers to move on to after reading The Cloud Thief?
We are so lucky to have such a wonderful selection of fantasy books and writers for children these days. I'm loving The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo at the moment and I can't wait to read Katherine Rundell's Impossible Creatures. But I return to my hero Diana Wynne Jones over and over again, especially Charmed Life.
I'm a huge graphic novel fan and I'm waiting with baited breath for the third instalment of Lightfall by Tim Probert to be released - the series is the most beautiful I've ever seen!
10. What does a favourite day away from your desk look like - where do you go to escape your day-to-day world?
With two small children, I've learned to love soft play (I didn't need much encouragement actually!) I always love getting out to explore a castle or similar historic place as they feel so full of stories; I love imagining the people who have lived there. My absolute treat, though, would be a day time trip to the cinema. It feels really decadent and naughty but I love being lost in a great film, thinking about everyone else at work or school! And if none of that's available - there's always books!
The Cloud Thief
