‘I know now that I’m good enough.’

Craig Pearson Fender on writing his winning children’s manuscript PANJANDUM, and accepting agent representation with Enrichetta Frezzato at Curtis Brown.

Tell us about the moment you found out…

Winning the Bath Children’s Novel Award was a huge, cathartic moment for me. I’ve been writing seriously since I was 21, with a lot of doubts along the way and zero success. I’ve never had a back-up plan, and was willing to gamble everything on a feeling, and an overwhelming need to write. I don’t know where that comes from—I just knew it was the only thing I ever wanted to do. That moment, when I realised I’d won was a justification of all the hard work, the decision to take minimum wage jobs and all the feelings of failure and sometimes depression that went with it. I know now that I’m good enough and, given the choice, I’d do it all exactly the same way.

What’s been the reaction from your nearest and dearest?

Pride and disbelief. I think after twenty years most of my family had stopped believing this would ever happen. They are all very happy for me, of course. My daughter is super excited to be in a book.

How does she feel about your main character being named after her?

She is so excited and proud. She actually hasn’t read the book yet. She wants to wait until it’s published (fingers crossed) But she did help to write it in the sense that I was constantly pitching her ideas. If she got enthusiastic the ideas stayed in, if not I rethunk. She was an enormous help and probably deserves co-credit.

Any plans for the prize money?

I’m not one for grand displays of wealth. I’ll probably just get a diamond studded loo brush and a tiger.

What does the win mean to you?

Well, aside from the fact that I really needed the money, I feel like this is my chance to have the career in writing that I always hoped for. It might not work out—I know how much competition there is, how many talented writers and storytellers are out there. But even getting one chance is amazingly rare. If winning the Bath Children’s Novel Award is the furthest I go with writing then I won’t be too disappointed. At least I earned the chance, and cleaning loos ain’t so bad.

You’ve accepted an offer of representation from judge Enrichetta Frezzato, children’s literary agent at Curtis Brown. What’s next for getting Panjandrum ready to go out on submission?

First I’m going to implement some of the changes and suggestions made by the Junior Judges. Then I’ll see what Enrichetta’s suggestions are. I feel like I’ve gone as far as I can on my own and need a fresh perspective now to make the book even better.

When announcing Panjandrum, Enrichetta said: ‘every character comes alive vividly on the page’. Can you say a little about how you make your characters feel so real?

This is a really tough question. I think partly it’s because I’ve always been naturally interested in people. Growing up I was always trying to read emotions and figure out how people feel, or even imagine how they might feel through made up dialogues. I’m always conscious of people having a history, a hidden life, and that’s what I’m trying to unlock when I invent a character. To begin with, they are just as much a mystery to me. Through dialogue a lot of fleshing out can happen, especially in the dynamic between two characters who have a shared past, or implied future. A reference to some interesting or colourful common experience can provide the illusion of reality, then you can build on the character’s reactions to that, how these might change over time and how they are manifested in certain situations and with other characters. The psychology of characters may be hidden but they are part of a web of dynamic relationships. They reveal themselves through their interaction with the world you’re creating.

In other words, I have no idea.

Enrichetta also singled out your talent for balancing tension with humour. Any tips for achieving this?

As far as humour goes—yes. Don’t try. I honestly wasn’t trying to be funny, I was just having fun. I definitely intended the tension part, but was always conscious of not getting too heavy. Relentless tension will just exhaust the reader—there has to be escape valves to let out the steam.

When I say ‘don’t try’, I mean don’t worry or try to force it. There’s something in Zen Buddhism called Wu Wei. It means acting, or just being, without force or tension. Getting into a natural flow. I think its like driving; when you’ve been doing it long enough you can perform the technical aspects with a completely empty and unintentional mind. Everything else flows through the centre of that.

Up to the winning draft, how many drafts of Panjandrum did you write?

It’s hard to say, but it must have been a lot. I tend to rewrite as I go along. I never start a chapter unless I’m excited about writing it, and I don’t usually move on until I’m happy. (Except for the beginning, which was finished last) Some paragraphs/chapters come out almost whole the first or second draft, some take dozens. I have been known to work for three days on one paragraph.

By far, the most difficult part of the book was the opening chapter. It must have gone through hundreds of variations over the two-and-a-half years it took me to write the whole thing. I agonised, worried, banged my head against the wall—the beginning was not fun. I had to trust that it would come though, and eventually my mind provided the answer. It might have come a bit quicker if I’d been able to follow Wu Wei all the time, but I got impatient. Pain might just be an essential part of the process.

How would you describe your writing journey?

Like fighting a crazy kangaroo living in my head.

For me it’s all been about ego—understanding that self is a concept and that as Bob Dylan said, you create things, and you create yourself.

I wasted so many years trying to write adult literature, mainly to feed my ego in the belief that I had something deep and profound to teach the world. This was utter nonsense. I was never actually happy writing until I stopped trying to teach and started having fun. I quit writing for a few years feeling like a hopeless failure. One day I was reading a book about how Carl Jung, facing a similar impasse, went back to his childhood love for building small, simple things out of stones he found on the shore of a lake. Jung overcame his mental blockages by returning to a state of innocence and fun. That’s when I made the decision to switch from writing adult literature to children’s fantasy, which is where I began in the first place.

Why children’s fantasy?

I think I realised that I didn’t want to be so serious. My mind is very silly and I was forcing it in directions it didn’t want to go. I was never happy writing adult literature, but I knew I had to write something. I just started listening to my mind rather than the self I was forcing it to become. I think recognition of the constructed self, knowledge of what your ego is up to, and awareness of all that is the most important thing you need for writing and for living in general. Eckart Tolle is great on this.

 What is a ‘panjandrum’?

I found this word tattooed on the underbelly of a Cobra that was lurking in a basket in the darkest corner of a bazaar in a dusty town in Morocco. I thought it sounded mysterious. Officially, it means a self-appointed expert, with undertones of tiresome bore. I bewitched the cobra and stole Panjandrum for my book. I thought it was the perfect name for a secret, dangerous and highly illegal mage-puzzling tournament. Don’t you?

For everyone yet to read Panjandrum, what’s your pitch?

Esmerelda Von Grinspoon lives a very sheltered life. Imprisoned in an enormous mansion hidden at the back of an enchanted cleaning cupboard on Turnabout Lane, she spends her days in the company of a grumpy mechanical spider, and tinkering with her vast collection of magical puzzle-boxes. Esme is one of the very best in the world at solving magical puzzles. Her only dream is of becoming a detective like her famous grandfather Snorri Sturluson. Unfortunately, she is also the daughter of Plunder-Wizards; safe cracking sorcerer’s who spend their whole lives breaking into enchanted vaults.

All of this changes when, on her thirteenth birthday, Esme receives a magical puzzle coin. Solving the coin, she is flung into the shady world of Panjandrum, an illegal and highly dangerous mage-puzzling tournament. As the witch battles her way through a fiendish escape room, a cursed village and a deadly booby trapped vault, she realises that someone is helping her along, killing off the other contestants so that she may advance……

This was my original pitch, but I think some of the Junior Judges’ descriptions were much better.

Can I just say a big thankyou to the Junior Judges who read my work. You are awesome! I was so impressed by the level of sophistication, understanding and eloquence. (I promise I’m not just saying this because they loved my book) They just seemed to get what I was trying to do. As I said earlier, their summaries of Panjandrum were better than mine. Also, they seemed to pick up some problems that I knew about and some that I’d missed altogether. These criticisms are way more helpful than praise because they lead to practical changes that can improve the book. I do like praise though. I’m only human.

Are you a puzzler?

I loooooooooove puzzles. Unfortunately, I’m nowhere near as good at solving them as Esmerelda Von Grinspoon. I do a crossword each night to keep my brain from going soft, and I adore chess—though I am a very average player. I also love huge exploration games with loads of imaginative puzzles like Horizon Zero Dawn and Valhalla. If they are mixed with Mythology even better.

Where, when, and how do you write?

I write at my kitchen table but I could write anywhere. I try to write every day, starting with coffee in the morning and going until my mind says quit. I did go three months straight without missing a single day, but I usually have Sundays off.

As to how? I have no clue. In his interview Ben Reeves [BNA 2024 winner] said that he wrote from a state of calm, empty mind. That sounds right. I’ve heard of many painters, sculptures, and writers who have worked like this, without thought. I mean actively straining to think in the moment. I know this sounds strange but it’s a kind of trust. You empty the surface of your mind and stuff comes bubbling up from the unconscious. The Queen Of Hearts and the Cheshire Cat and the Jabberwocky all come scrambling up out of the rabbit hole. Sometimes. Sometimes nothing happens, and then you have to not worry and trust it will come back. It’s the tension of worrying about writers block that causes writers block.

You have mentioned that this is your fifth children’s manuscript…

Oh dear, my first two children’s books were ridiculously awful. It was all good practice though. My fourth was set in the world of number 36 Turnabout Lane with the same characters but a different story. So Panjandrum is the cumulative result of two books.

The first attempt received a very positive rejection from Amber Caravéo of Skylark Literary. She liked it, but wasn’t sure how to engage with it creatively. It was written half from Esme’s POV and half from that of her dad, Thaddeus. Amber’s suggestions made me realise this wasn’t the beginning of the story and that I wanted to focus just on Esme.

Panjandrum is set in a hidden magical world that is imaginatively crafted to the most minute detail. What’s the secret to creating intensely vivid settings without overloading the lore and details?

These are really good questions, but some are harder to answer than writing the book was!

I felt like I could have written pages more on every detail, but if I had, the book would have been four times longer. I was always very conscious of keeping the pace of the story moving on swiftly, so I always cut description down to the bare minimum, making sure the one or two details I included were memorable. There were some exceptions—more important elements/characters needed slightly more description.

One of the first notes I made before starting to write Panjandrum was ‘think and write cinematically’. I was very conscious that the book would not only be in competition with other books of its kind, but also with cinema, TV and video games—anything bold, bright and designed to grab a young person’s attention. From the outset, I wanted Panjandrum to be cinematic in scope and design. I wanted it to jump off the page.

If there’s one thing you hope readers take from Panjandrum, what would it be?

I really didn’t write this with any kind of lesson or teachable moment in mind. I just wanted to write an brilliant adventure, to make people smile and tell a story like the ones I read as a kid and which meant so much to me.

The one thing I would say is that I don’t like the idea of reading as escapism. I think there is real magic in the world and the role of fantasy is to just tweak your perceptions enough to see the strange, wonderful, surreal magic of actual reality. This is what the architecture of churches and cathedrals was meant to do before conceptual dogma was introduced. It’s a feeling that most of us start out with but which gets covered up in the stress of work and all the bad things that can happen. I mean the world itself is a kind of magical thing, right?

Why did you enter, and any tips for anyone thinking of entering 2025’s prize?

As Billy Connolly once said, ‘Och, ye have t’ go for it.’

I think the most important thing is just to enjoy the crap out of what you’re doing. If you’re not having fun and loving what you write there isn’t much chance that anyone will enjoy reading it. Don’t indulge your ego and don’t try to teach any corny lessons. Young people are way too smart for that. If they learn anything or are inspired by any character / situation / event, then it should happen naturally from their side of things.

Maybe that’s just my opinion—but I think they get enough of that in school.

Lastly, you were inspired to start writing novels by David Edding’s Belgariad fantasy series. Do you see Panjandrum becoming a series?

Absolutely. I just think this world and these characters have massive potential. And I love them so much. I have some characters from the first incarnation that didn’t make it into Panjandrum that I want to bring in, like Thaddeus’s partners from The Legion Of The Crab.

Hopefully, if Panjandrum gets published and people want more I’ll get a chance to take Esme, Kazimir and Alfie on more adventures. I’ve already begun notes for a second book, and I have loads of ideas. I really didn’t want to finish Panjandrum. I was still having fun.

Interview by Caroline Ambrose

CRAIG PEARSON FENDER is from a tiny village in England’s Pennines where there are more sheep than people and has been living in Newcastle, England for the last 20 years trying to master the toon accent. Inspired by David Eddings’ Belgariad, he wrote his first fantasy novel at 16 and has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Sunderland University. Between raising children and after “following a false path of trying to write adult literature” he returned to his first love of writing fantasy and now writes around part-time cleaning work. Panjandrum is a rip-roaring adventure which opens in a magical mansion accessed via an enchanted cleaning cupboard, and was inspired by his daughter Esme, and Craig’s long familiarity with cleaning cupboards.