• Why did you want to be a writer?

I wanted to write books even before I could write. My first book, made when I was four years old, was a picture story about a little mermaid. I had to draw pictures to make the book, because I couldn’t write. The book doesn’t exist anymore (it probably went up the vacuum cleaner!) but my love of books and writing has never left me.

• What’s the best thing about being a writer?

I get paid to day-dream.

Also, it’s an awesome thing to live in the world inside my head, the world of the imagination. While I’m writing a book, that imagined world is much more real to me than this world.  Another wonderful thing about being a writer is receiving letters from readers who love my stories. It’s amazing to realise that my dreams have been shared by someone else.

• What’s your favourite New Zealand book?

Ah… a hard question. I have several favourite NZ writers – Margaret Mahy and Joy Cowley at the top — but no single book I love the best.

• What do you love most about New Zealand?

Freedom of speech. The freedom to write what we want to write, and not be imprisoned for it.

• What do you love most about libraries?

A library is like a cave full of treasure — every book another world to be explored, another dream to be shared. What riches! I always feel overwhelmed in a library, hoping I choose the right world for me, and don’t miss out on another one that I’d also love.  Mind you, books can be dangerous, too … a book could change your life.  My life has been changed several times, by books I’ve read.

Sherryl Jordan is the author of many wonderful books in her long career, including Rocco, The Wednesday Wizard, The Raging Quiet, Finnigan and the Pirates, and her latest book Ransomwood.