I’m Helen Chapman. Welcome to my little corner of Sunshine Books.
I’m Australian but have lived overseas so my two children went to school in America and England as well as Australia. I love to write children’s and young adult books, read them and talk about them. And even buy them. A lot! I also love writing for SUNSHINE!
The first books I ever had published were for SUNSHINE back in 1995 and I’m still writing for them. I write in many genres but my favourite is narrative historical fiction with attitude! One of my books is about Tutankhamen’s childhood. He was a young ruler of Egypt and he had an extraordinary life. It was a joy to present his exciting adventures to young readers.
Because I love reading, I also love researching – reading for hours but not actually working! Eventually deadlines loom, so I get around to finishing my non-fiction books. What fun it is to learn about and then write about far-ranging topics.
Advice often given to people starting out as writers is to “write about what you know.”
This is true, of course, if you write non-fiction books on topics such as hobbies or museums or forces. But with narrative fiction, my advice is to ask, “what if?” So, what if a stone lion came to life? What if children were trapped in a snowstorm? What if a dare went horribly wrong?
Imagination is your friend!
Thanks for reading.
Helen
www.helenchapman.com
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