Cas lester biography

In September 2017, I interviewed Cas Lester about some of the differences between writing a children’s TV series and writing a children’s book series.

Cas explained for both children’s dramas for CBBC and her children’s books she always looks for a fresh idea or contemporary ‘spin’ on an existing idea. For example, Mischievous fairy Nixie wears ‘doc martin’ style boots and keeps a wand in one and a spanner in the other because she’s better at DIY than she is at magic. Her Harvey Drew books are based round the contemporary topic of space trash. 

When she is developing her characters and their world she researches the story territory and then does a huge amount of playing around with the idea – she revealed usually way more than is strictly necessary. She wrote a post-it note to make herself actually start to writing the first Harvey Drew manuscript, which she stuck to her laptop. It read: Stop mucking about and write the book.