image description: Lisette, a white woman with freckles and brown hair, is sitting barefoot on a beach. She is smiling widely and is wearing sunglasses, a scarf, denim jacket and blue dress with leggings. Harper Lee, her black and white little rescue dog sits and leans beside her, her ears are sticking up because it’s windy. Bamburgh Castle sits behind them on the horizon.

The Secret of Haven Point is one of the most important and much-needed MG novels I have ever reviewed. Lisette Auton’s sensitive and honest attention to detail ensures the reader will look beyond the characters disabilities and consider how awesome these young people are, on the page and beyond. I wish this book had been around when my brother was young.

1. Alpha captured my heart as soon I entered the world created at Haven Point. The friendship she has with Badger shines through, a rocky road for them both at points too. Did you have an idea from the start as to the journey they would both take or did it evolve as your wrote the novel?

When I began I knew the place and the setting intimately, and I had an idea about an ending so I sort of knew where I was heading. I knew Alpha and Badger were best friends, with all the squabbles and hurt this can bring… But I had absolutely no idea that this would become the core of the book. I think the characters must be the right ones for the story, and developed and ready, when they begin to tell me what to do! I had very little control over the things they got up to, it just seemed to make sense, and I ended up following them to tell me the story.

2. The Secret of Haven Point is a much-needed story about diverse characters where their disabilities are not the main point of the story. They are celebrated in your story exactly they way they are. What was your inspiration behind the characters and the setting?

My friends. Simple as that. Isn’t that lush? The disabled community has been properly brilliant, the camaraderie, make do and mend, humour, get on with it attitude, mickey taking, activism, and that deep level of care and understanding I was given and still feel was the inspiration. Definitely not telling who is who though! Then the setting is where I spent lots of my childhood and is still a massive part of my life now – the Leas, the lift, Marsden Rock, Camel’s Island, the pill box, the white horse – they all exist! Though I have squished them around a bit (a lot!) and changed them to fit. Old Ben, the lighthouse, is a mixture of Souter Lighthouse and St Mary’s, both on the North East Coast. Lots of getting up to mischief with my sprawling mass of cousins, they’re definitely inspiration for the friendship group too.

3. Was there much research involved – in particular, the logistics of life in a lighthouse?

I visited both lighthouses again. One is on a little island that is tidal, the other on top of a cliff. I went for the cliff one as the other was a logistical story nightmare! Took the colours of Souter (and its REAL little fist-bump door handle) and more of the insides of St Mary’s. And then made this mash-up completely accessible. I found old maps and documents showing that Souter once was part of a village, and then Haven Point really came alive. I tend to do loads of research, it makes my brain feel settled and happy, and then I scrap it all, stop looking, and begin to make it up and write. I need that foundation of fact, but if I’m not too careful I get tied down and into boring logistical story pickles!

4. Valentina Toro is the illustrator behind the wonderful art in the novel, can you describe how you both worked together in this collaboration?

Isn’t it just INCREDIBLE? I think I got through a minimum of three boxes of tissues looking at the art work. I couldn’t believe how the inside of my head was actually on the page. Finally getting to meet these people I’d imagined into existence is something I will never forget. Via the incredible conduits of Emma Jones, editor extraordinaire, and Alice Todd, art design legend, I received the illustrations and passed back notes. This happened only once, and my notes were teeny tiny things, the way Valentina just ‘got it’ was amazing. It turns out she’d read the book far more in depth than she’d ever needed to because, as a disabled person too, this had really chimed with her and it was the book she’d wanted as a child. There is an incredible note from the illustrator in the book, written by Valentina, which made my heart simultaneously break and soar. Meeting her would be the dream, to say a massive thank you.

5. Every child should see themselves in a book. What advice would you give to writers to keep going, to ensure all voices are represented in schools and on the shelves?

Write the book you really WANT to write, your heart song, the book you wished you had read when you really needed it. Trends come and go, don’t write to that, you’ll miss it as publishing is glacially slow. It’s a long haul too, so you have to really love it and care because you’re going to be in each others’ company for bloomin ages! Find people that are your supporters and fellow day dreamers. I have my writing husband, Tom, and he’s the only person I share work and ideas with at an early stage. You may need a whole group of Toms! I have writing groups where I don’t share, that doesn’t work for me, but it does work to have that support and understanding, and to have protected time to write. These can be online, don’t just have to be face to face. There are brilliant organisations out there to help you find your writing tribe. If you’re a children’s writer then #WriteMentor could be a place to begin. And call yourself a writer straight away. You are. Enter competitions, put yourself out there. You may not win (you might!) but your work will be seen, and it just takes one person to fall in love and be a champion of your work for things to take off. Mainly though, write because it brings you joy, then anything else is a bonus. And, as readers, let’s yell that we want these books! Then there will have to be space on shelves for them.

6. Not only do you write fantastic books, you’re also a poet and a spoken-word artist – can you describe how you approach each?

Thank you *blushes*. Everything begins the same way, a question or a wonder that I keep coming back to and that won’t shut up inside my head. Eventually, when it gets really loud and I can’t ignore it anymore, I begin to play. This usually involves day dreaming, reading, dog walking, BIG pieces of paper, coloured pens and collage. I don’t ever know what the form is going to be, it just tells me, either through length, or depth or the nature of the idea. Really visual ideas are films, something with lots of depth is usually poetry, and something that will take a long time to explore with multiple characters is usually a book! I know that is a little bit of an odd answer, but they just seem to tell me… That’s why I’m really lucky that I get to work with words in all their forms, it really is a dream come true.