FAQ
If you'd like to ask me a question, please get in touch. Here are some of the questions that other people have asked.Writing
How do you work? How does the day start? Where do you write?I wake up, drink coffee and eat some toast, usually with Marmite, sometimes with honey. Then I sit down at my desk. I write in the morning and keep going for as long as I can. That means I keep going until I get distracted or I have to go out or the phone rings or my mind is completely blank.
What would be your ideal way to spend a day off from your writing?
I’d like to wake up on a Greek island, have a quick swim in the sea, followed by breakfast of coffee and yoghurt and honey. Then I’d like to spend the day walking through the English countryside, followed by supper in a restaurant in Italy. I’d order tagliatelli with truffles and wild boar sausages. Then I’d like to go to sleep in my own bed.
What experiences in your childhood encouraged you to be a writer?
I wish I knew. The only answer that I can give is this: as a child, my happiest moments were spent with a book. I could lose myself in a book. I could escape my surroundings. I could sink into another world. I could imagine myself inhabiting a different time, a different place, a different body. I lived most intensely when I was reading. And as an adult, as a writer, I try to recapture some of that intensity.
If you weren’t a writer, what would you be doing instead?
I’d like to be an explorer. But I’d probably be a taxi driver.
How to be a writer
What advice would you give to anyone who is struggling to get published?There are four things that you need: talent, hard work, persistence and luck. I don’t know which is the most important. But if you lack one, you can probably make up for it with more of the other three. Most importantly, you should read lots of books.
Favourite books
Which book would you most like to have written?I suppose the books that I would most like to have written are the ones that I’ve read again and again throughout my life, so they’ve become part of me. If I was going to pick three - because I can’t just pick one - they would Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray and Tintin in Tibet by Hergé.
Names
What is your real name?My first name has always been Josh - and always will be - but I have two surnames. For the Grk books, I use the name "Joshua Doder". My other books are published under the name "Josh Lacey". If you want to email me, write to me or talk to me, please just call me "Josh".
Grk
How do you pronounce "Grk"?To rhyme with "brook" or "crook".
Is Stanislavia a real country?
No. But it is based on real countries that I've visited.
Are the Grk books going to be made into a film?
I hope so. The film rights have been optioned by Trudie Styler's film company, Xingu Films.
How many Grk books will there be?
At least eight.
Bears
Have you ever met a bear?Yes, I have. Click here to see a picture.
What's next?
What are you writing now?I'm writing a new book for Scholastic which will also be published in 2009. It's the first of a new series. I can't tell you much about it now, but I will soon.