The Child in Me: John and Carole Barrowman

What kind of children were you both? And what kind of teenagers?

Carole: John was a nightmare as a child. He cried for the first nine months of his life and was incredibly hyperactive as a young child. In fact our parents have said that if John had been their first, they would seriously have questioned having any more.

John: And you were perfect?

Carole: Close to it! I'm the oldest so I was always the one expected to be responsible and I was most of the time, but that also meant when I was naughty I was able to get away with it by blaming it on my brothers. Our parents always believed me.

John: I think we were typical teenagers. Carole was already at university when I was a teenager so our paths didn't cross that much then, but I don't think either one of us caused our parents too much grief. Did we?

Carole: A little…But if I did, I blamed it on my brothers.
 

What are your most vivid childhood memories?

Carole: Dancing with our gran and Auntie Jeannie on Saturday nights when our parents would go out and they'd come over to watch us.

John: I spent more of my childhood in the US than Carole after we immigrated to America. My strongest memories are of hanging out with all my friends at the golf club in the summer and charging massive bills to my dad's account.
 

How did you start reading and what books have stayed with you?

John: We grew up in a family of readers.

Carole: I remember our papa toasting his toes at the fire with a Zane Grey western on his lap.

John: We could read before we went to school and we were lucky to have lots of books in the house. I was also lucky to inherit many of Carole's childhood favorites. In fact, she still has one or two books on her shelves where you can see that I scored out her name and and added mine to the inside cover. The book that still stays with me from my childhood is The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton.

Carole: I had a rare blood disease when I was about nine and I spent a long time in hospital in Glasgow recovering. My primary school teacher, Mrs Silver, supplied my mum with as many books as I wanted so I read far ahead of my age level that year. Lots of books have stayed with me, especially C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia and Dodie Smith's I Capture The Castle, which my daughter loved too.
 

Is it difficult writing jointly as siblings? Do you argue over plotlines and characters?

John: Bone Quill is our fifth book together so we have a solid process in place by now. We brainstorm and outline together, but then Carole does the actual writing. Then when she has a draft she sends it to me and I add my feedback. I trust Carole's imagination and I know that when she gets into the hard work of writing sometimes characters do things that we didn't plan so I usually don't interrupt her writing until she has a draft done.

Carole: If we have any squabbles over things they happen at that point in the collaboration.

John:  Or when you forget about the time difference between the UK and US and you call me in the middle of the night when a characters's done something amazing.


Carole, did you and John read with your children and what are their tastes like compared to yours?

Carole: Oh yes! We have lots of family pictures of Uncle John reading to Clare and Turner. In fact, John was the one who first sent them all the Harry Potter books as they came out in the UK. They also love Roald Dahl and they adore Paddington as a result of John. Both Clare and Turner read quite broadly in fiction and non-fiction and they still love to get books for presents.


What's on your own bedside table at the moment?

Carole: Philip Pullman's Fairy Tales From The Brothers Grimm, Danielle Trussoni's Angelopolis and Thomas Maltman's Little Wolves.

John: I've a couple of scripts, a pile of magazines and I'm just starting John Green's The Fault in Our Stars that Carole insists I read. My big sister still passes along books to me.

Bone Quill by John and Carole E. Barrowman is out now, published by Buster Books. For more information visit the Hollow Earth website.