"I started writing stories age 6 - now my first children's book has been published" says Leighton Buzzard author
She can vividly remember lying on the floor when she was six years old, writing and illustrating books about her friends with titles like Alice goes Swimming and Georgia Has a Party.
Now at the ripe old age of 33, Leighton author Alice Primmer will finally see her work in print when her first book, The World’s Worst Alien, is published on June 5.
The former Aylesbury High pupil, who read English and Related Literature at the University of York, reveals: “It’s the story of Sky, an alien who creates planet Earth as part of an intergalactic school project.
“With all the dinosaurs roaming around, she thinks it’ll get top marks – until humans turn up and ruin everything.
“She reluctantly visits, disguised as an 11-year-old schoolgirl, to try to fix the mess they’ve made.”
Does she succeed? You’ll have to read the book to find out – but rest assured there’ll be a lot of laughs along the way.
First and foremost, Alice believes children’s books should be entertaining, in order to spark a life-long love of reading.
She says: “There’s a real crisis right now about children reading for pleasure.
“If there’s an underlying message, that’s great. But I think young people can tell if a book is trying to teach them something and it can put them off.”
Alice has writing in her blood – dad Nick is a copywriter and older sister Connie is a journalist.
She also finds it amusing that her own career – as a non-fiction commissioning editor with Walker Books – involves fact checking all day “while as an author I spend my time making things up.
“I love children’s books because you can embrace really silly ideas and exciting adventures – younger readers have brilliant imaginations and are open to them.”
The concept for The World’s Worst Alien came from a non-fiction book she was editing on life on Earth: “I was reading about all the prehistoric creatures that used to live here and thinking how much cooler they are than humans . . . and that’s when the idea started to grow.”
It took her five years to complete and she admits she was terrified of what people would say: “Part of my job is – constructively – criticising other people’s writing, so putting my own stuff out there was nerve-wracking.
“If people thought it was rubbish, they might not trust me as an editor ever again.”
Alice signed a book deal in 2023 and says she loved working with her editor: “She was terrific . . . full of inspiring new ideas and making you think differently about what you’d written.”
She was also delighted with ‘fantastic’ illustrator Fred Blunt: “The first stage was him drawing the characters and me giving feedback to make sure they looked right and matched how I described them.
“After that I left him to it. I’m so thrilled with what he’s done – it’s far better than I could have imagined.”
She’s already written a sequel to The World’s Worst Alien and is working on another idea which will go to the publisher later this year.
Alice says fantasy fiction writer Jonathan Stroud was a big inspiration and she loves anything by Bill Bryson: “But my favourite series at the moment is Slow Horses by Mick Herron.”
She also loves indie bookshops – her top two locally are Book in Leighton Buzzard and Our Bookshop in Tring.
She’s keen to promote her book at local schools. If any would like her to visit, email [email protected]
The World’s Worst Alien (published by Walker Books) costs £7.99 and will be available from Waterstones, Amazon and all good booksellers