'These kids really inspired me' - Glasgow author's tribute to Castlemilk schoolchildren

Twister, the eponymous hero of her first novel is searching for her father, facing witches and baddies along the way; Coral, in The True Colours of Coral Glen, grieving for her beloved gran, has to help stop an evil spirit from escaping the local graveyard.

However, Ollo, the 12-year-old girl at the heart of her new book The Night My Dream Came Alive, was partly inspired by children Juliette met at a primary school in Castlemilk.

“I’m really lucky to get the chance to talk to children up and down the country, and they are all lovely, very engaged, and it’s great,” she explains.

“But I spent some time at John Paul II Primary in Castlemilk as writer-in-residence, and I was working with young people who don’t come from a middle-class background, who don’t have the big house and the big garden and the 4x4 in the driveway. Some of them were facing issues like poverty or coming to school hungry, and there was a sharpness to them, a twinkle and a brightness that really inspired me.

"Those children, and others I met in Greenock when I was a writer in residence there, have been so fantastic to work with."

The story is set around the DreamDrops shop, where kids can buy every fantastical dream imaginable – from going on a knight’s quest to adventuring with pirates.

This is no olde-worlde curiosity shop, however, explains Juliette.

“I wanted it to be modern, like the Apple shop – DreamDrops are the must-buy thing, the thing every child wants to the despair of their parents,” she smiles. “Ollo can’t afford them – her father has been made redundant and life is not easy. When she finally gets one, her life turns into a waking nightmare…"

Juliette’s books are packed with adventure and colour, and more than a sprinkling of spookiness.

“I do tend to have darker elements in my books, which can get me into hot water with parents sometimes,” she says, cheerfully. “I usually do have a very dastardly villain in the stories.”

This is true - – in Twister, her debut novel, there’s a dark foe who wears a coat crawling with creatures; in The True Colours of Coral Glen, it’s a spirit who kills children and wears their hearts around his neck.

“But that’s not new – children have been reading scary stories for centuries,” she agrees. “The witch in Hansel and Gretel eats children, for goodness’ sake.

“I honestly think if that story was being pitched today, it would have a hard time finding a publisher.

“I do think children like that bit of a thrill you get from a spooky story, and a boo-hiss baddie you can shake your fist at. Sometimes I think it’s the adults who are more sensitive than the children.”

Juliette adds, with a laugh: “But I do have to rein it in at times – my editor will tell me if I’ve gone a bit far.”

Juliette moved around a lot when she was a child, living in Ayr, Edinburgh, London and Perth, but Glasgow is home.

“I have lived in the west end for many years, it’s where I always come back to, it’s home,” she explains.

“I never intended to be a writer – it was not on my radar at all. I always thought you had to be really clever to write a book and I was not a straight A student. I didn’t go to university.

“I worked in advertising. I joined a creative writing class at Glasgow University, and the tutor told me one of my short stories was really good, and that I could turn it into a book. That was the story that became Twister.”

Juliette received a New Writer’s Award from the Scottish Book Trust to help her progress her ideas.

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“The Scottish Book Trust have been amazing, they have done so much for me, and I’m very grateful,” she says.

“Helping children grow their imagination is what interests me the most. I’m not really that interested in grammar or sentence structure or punctuation. Those are all important, of course, but imagination is the most important thing of all.”

The Night My Dream Came Alive, published by Scholastic, is out tomorrow (August 5).