Amelia Giudici introduces her gripping debut, Anya and the Light Above the Ocean
About Author
Anya and the Light Above the Ocean, Amelia Giudici's stunning debut, takes readers into parallel worlds and big questions about identity. ReadingZone finds out more!
Amelia, who grew up in New Zealand and Warwickshire, studied Philosophy at Cambridge University and now lives in East London and works as a teacher.
Anya and the Light Above the Ocean draws on the thought problems concerning personal identity that Amelia encountered at university. This is her debut novel and it was longlisted for the Bath Children's Novel Award 2022
Interview
February 2026
Amelia Giudici's gripping debut, Anya and the Light Above the Ocean (Andersen Press)
Anya sets out in the middle of a storm to try and find her missing mum and is drawn to a strange window of light, hovering above the waves. She reaches out to touch it . . . and everything in her world changes.
Author Amelia Giudici talks to ReadingZone about her studies in philosophy and the questions around identity that helped inspire her gripping debut novel, Anya and the Light Above the Ocean, and its science-fiction twist.
Review: "The action is tightly-plotted and completely gripping: I sped through the book in no time, barely able to put it down.
Teaching Resources for Anya and the Light Above the Ocean
ReadingZone Q&A: Amelia Giudici introduces Anya and the Light Above the Ocean
"I know lots of children are hungry for stories with big, juicy ideas because
I see it every day in the classroom!"
1. Hello Amelia, thank you for joining us on ReadingZone to talk about Anya and the Light Above the Ocean. Can you start by telling us a little about yourself - loves, loathings, and reading favourites?
Thank you so much for having me! I love libraries, theatres, cafes and any form of community space. I loathe the feeling of running late. So much sparks my imagination - conversations with friends, podcasts, films, books, art, interviews, overheard snippets, TikToks, bits of gossip . . . The list goes on! I'm always interested in the story behind something, or where a moment might later lead.
I like to read anything really good. I love fiction, narrative nonfiction, essays, diaries, and am slowly getting into poetry. I also freelance as a reader for a literary scout, and am really lucky to be sent lots of children's and YA manuscripts. This has really challenged and broadened my taste - there's so much I've loved that I wouldn't have necessarily picked up for myself!
I want to be an author simply because I love stories. I love telling them, I love reading them, and I love creating them.
2. When you're not writing, you're teaching. How does your job help you as a writer?
Working as a teacher has massively impacted my writing! Probably in ways that even I'm not aware of. I was very conscious whilst writing Anya that I wanted each chapter to be a short, sharp burst. This wasn't just to keep those with short attention spans hooked, but to ensure that the book would be engaging as a class read.
I'm very familiar with how frustrating it can be to stop the day's reading in the middle of a chapter, or before anything exciting has happened, so in Anya and the Light Above the Ocean each chapter is roughly five or six minutes when read aloud, meaning you can confidently get through two chapters of Anya in a 15 minute slot!
My experience teaching also really informed what I thought children would find interesting, and be able to engage with. I'm lucky to have taught a vast range of students, and know how much they enjoy exploring strange ideas and scenarios (irrespective of academic ability). There isn't currently much speculative middle grade fiction, and so some publishers worried that this 'type' of book would be more suited to a YA market. But, as a teacher, I was able to disagree. I know lots of children are hungry for stories with big, juicy ideas because I see it every day in the classroom!
3. So what can readers expect in your debut novel, Anya and the Light Above the Ocean?
The story follows Anya, a girl who sets out in the middle of a storm to try and find her missing mum. When she encounters a strange window of light, hovering above the waves, she reaches out to touch it . . . When she wakes, the storm is strangely calm. But everything has changed. Anya soon becomes entangled in a battle for truth against the evil organisation Janus, uncovering secrets that unsettle everything she thought she knew.
4. What gave you the initial inspiration for your novel, and, as your debut, what was the writing process like?
There were lots of different strands of inspiration for the novel. I studied philosophy at university, and came across lots of different thought experiments concerning personal identity. For example: we know that a person can function with only half a brain, so what if the left hemisphere of your brain was transplanted into body A, whilst the right hemisphere was transplanted into body B. Is either (or both!) people now meaningfully you? I really wanted to explore the human experience of these kinds of scenarios.
The writing process was long! I first had the idea for Anya in October 2020, and took about a year to write the first draft. Since then, the first third of the book has remained roughly the same, but the rest has changed drastically. Whilst the ideas explored in the story are complex, I never wanted the reading experience itself to feel heavy or academic. I worked really hard with my editor to ensure that the propulsion of the story was never weighed down by something being unclear or difficult to understand.
5. Have you drawn on other ideas from your university days in Anya's adventures?
I'm so lucky to have explored lots of different ideas and questions at university! From 'how do I know I'm not just a brain in a vat?', to 'is originality an aesthetic value?' to 'what is freedom?'. The thought experiments around personal identity were a key inspiration for Anya (as I explained above).
Less obviously, another idea I wanted to explore was the concept of hermeneutic injustice. Hermeneutic injustice is a type of 'knowledge injustice'. For example, consider someone who has OCD, but they live in a world where no one knows what OCD is. They're having an experience, but are unable to understand or even name that experience because of a gap in the collective 'knowledge resources'. Just being given a name and description for OCD would be a profound experience, bridging that 'knowledge gap'.
I wanted to write a story where a character similarly experiences something that they (at first) don't have the capacity to name or describe, and their journey towards attaining knowledge and understanding.
6. Did you also research parallel worlds and the nature of time for this novel, given its science-fiction twist?
I didn't freshly research anything for this book, but I did (briefly!) study the philosophy of time travel at university. I was actually asked if I thought time travel was metaphysically possible at my university interview, so it's clearly something that's been on my mind for a while!
7. What kinds of discussions do you hope Anya's adventures will encourage among its readers, especially if it's chosen as a class read?
There are so many questions and discussions I'd love this book to prompt. The specific answer I'm about to give though is filled with spoilers - so skip ahead now if you haven't read the book!
Spoiler alert! A question I wish I'd been able to explore more directly in the story itself is: if Anya actually was a duplicate (ie if she didn't come from a parallel universe, but really had been copied by The Light), is she still as 'real' as Anya-B? Or would Anya-B actually be the 'real' Anya? Would Janus then be right to use her in the way they'd planned? I would truly love to hear readers' answers!
8. What kinds of novels do you enjoy sharing with your own class? How do you encourage reading for pleasure and writing among your pupils?
I love the kind of books that capture the whole class's imagination - something where everyone is on the edge of their seat, holding their breath, or roaring with laughter. Any moment where you have every single child's attention is truly magic. My favourite stories are always those that bring the whole class together.
I'm very lucky to work at a school that puts a real emphasis on reading for pleasure. Time is given every day for reading, we have 'core books' that thread into other areas of the curriculum (so whilst learning about the plague in Y3, we also read a book set in that period of history), and every month we receive a brand new book for our shelves. I truly love talking to the children about what they're reading, and hearing their opinions.
9. Do you plan to write more novels with a science fiction twist? What are you writing currently?
I'm currently drafting my second middle-grade novel. It's still in the early stages, so I'm hesitant to talk too much about it. What I can tell you is: it follows a boy called Jasper, there's a sprinkling of sci-fi (especially at the beginning of the book), and also some magic!
10. And when you're not writing or teaching - where do you go to relax, what do you enjoy doing to recharge your writing batteries?
One of my favourite things is to go and see an exhibition/play/film with a friend and spend hours talking about it afterwards. I also love to swim, go on walks and generally mooch about. Most of all though, I love to read.
Creative challenge from Amelia Giudici: Design your own 'evil' organisation like Janus. What would you name it? Who would run it? And what would it look like? Now write a story where your character visits the organisation. What do they see in the main area? If they push open a door marked 'employees only', what might they then encounter?
Amelia Giudici's School Events: I can provide author talks and/or writing workshops. Schools are welcome to get in touch with me to find out more at [email protected].
Anya and the Light Above the Ocean
