Jennifer Moore is a novelist and children's author from Devon. She was the first UK winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Competition and was shortlisted for the James Reckitt Hull Children's Book Award and the Greenhouse Funny Prize. Her numerous children's books (writing as Jenny Moore) are published by Maverick Arts Publishing, New Frontier Publishing and ZunTold. Her psychological thrillers The Woman Before and The Wilderness Retreat are published by HQ Digital, Harper Collins. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous publications on both sides of the Atlantic, including The Guardian, Mslexia, The First Line and Short Fiction.
Jenny Moore on Dragon Girl and the Awakened Flames: "All the best stories and adventures start with a seed - with the tiniest germ of an idea that has the potential to grow and blossom into something big and bold and beautiful. It’s not always easy to pinpoint the precise moment when one of those seeds sows itself in your mind, but I distinctly remember where I was when the initial idea for Dragon Girl and the Awakened Flames first took root – or should that be ‘hatched’? – in my imagination. I was walking along Pendine Sands in Camarthen Bay, on our first holiday since lockdown, on the lookout for interesting sea finds and new middle grade book ideas. While there were plenty of the former (‘sea potato’ empty sea urchin shells, washed-up jellyfish and a weird and wonderful colony of goosenecked barnacles), I only found one idea. Or perhaps I should say the idea found me, by the sort of strange writerly magic that would give most fantasy enchantments a run for their money. One moment there was an empty, waiting space, and the next moment a half-human, half-dragon girl had taken up permanent residence in my head. I didn’t know her name yet, and I didn’t know how wild and world-changing her adventures would prove to be, but I knew, instinctively, that hers was the story I’d been searching for.
Emba has been a joy to work with from the very beginning. I loved seeing her character and world take shape and had no end of fun with the wordplay and humour woven through her dramatic, danger-filled journey. But it felt important that her story was more than just thrilling, page-turning adventures mixed with laugh-out loud moments. Even in a world of myth and magic, of weird and wonderful creatures and reawakened spirits, I wanted Emba to be a relatable figure, dealing with the sort of issues that young readers might be facing themselves: both physical and mental changes, and a natural yearning to belong and find their place in the world.
Emba’s always known she’s different to other children – the blue, gleaming scales on her arms and legs are an obvious testament to her otherness. She’s always known she’s a foundling as well, although her relationship with her guardian – wise hermit Fred, the long toe- nailed keeper of the prophesising Tome of Terrible Tomorrows – is as strong as any traditional mother-daughter bond. But what Emba doesn’t know, prior to the arrival of a dragon spirit at the cave she calls home, is that she’s half dragon too. Emba doesn’t know that her mother is a fire-breathing creature from another realm, or that her father is a dangerous necromancer intent on stealing her blood for his own nefarious gain.
Although I was much younger than Emba at the time, I can still remember that sense of being different to other children when I first started at a tiny village school in rural England, having just moved from Oslo. I remember being painfully embarrassed when the older pupils in the lunch queue asked me to say things in Norwegian. The last thing I wanted was to stand out. Fitting in was what mattered. So rather than embrace my own mini hidden power – the power to speak in more than one language – I kept it locked away and soon lost the ability entirely, which I’m very sad about as an adult. There’s no keeping her hidden self away for Emba though, as her burgeoning dragon powers and the magic she’s inherited from her father threaten to disrupt everything she thought she knew about herself and the world she inhabits. Luckily, Emba’s not alone. She has her beloved guardian Fred, whose love and influence can still be felt even when fate has torn them apart, and she has Odolf, the brave runaway blacksmith’s assistant who’s like a brother to her. The same magic that brought my dragon girl to me that day in Carmarthenshire, brought Emba the best found family she could have asked for. I can’t remember when I first found Fred and Odolf, but I know Emba’s story would be very different without them and it’s hard to imagine my world without them now too.
Perhaps they, like Emba, were always there, like all the best characters, waiting patiently in the wings. Waiting to be conjured into life by a lone pen dashing across the page,or by furiously tapping fingers on a keyboard. I like to think that if I’d consulted a book of riddling prophecies like the Tome of Terrible Tomorrows when I was Emba’s age, I’d already have known to look out for her that day on the beach:
A hero forged in waking dreams,
In searching walks on sand,
Whose dragon scales and thrilling tales
Await your writing hand."
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