Urban and gritty I'm not
I'm more chocolate and snot
But stories need bite
So I'm never trite
Because children matter a lot.
My name is Jayne Kirkham and I am a writer with over thirty years’ experience working with and writing for children and young people. I’ve written for theatre, film, television, radio and online. I’ve worked on projects ranging in size from small conservation films in Africa to museum installations to international feature films. For more information about what I’ve done, click on “What I’ve Done”.
Growing up on Exmoor gave me a lifelong love of nature, adventure and the mysterious. It also, one way or another, nurtured a love of cinema, theatre and poetry. Having studied Film, Drama, English Literature and Screenwriting to Masters level, my first commission was a play for Radio 4. But having worked with children all my life, and having never grown out of watching cartoons, I decided to write for children and families.
Commissions include original feature films, adaptations of novels, shows for preschool, and older kids and online. I will write for grown-ups (I adapted Marina Lewyka’s novel Two Caravans, into an animated feature for Blue Zoo) but please don’t ask me to be all urban and gritty. I don’t do gritty but I do do muck.
Snort: I wrote do-do! Do-dos! I do like to squeeze out something earthy. But it has to be done with finesse, aplomb: I’m on a mission to put the art back into fart. Or is it the other way round?
I’m also on a mission to put the grr back in girl. And boys actually: getting kids outdoors in stories and for real. I’m a canoe and kayak coach. I love the whoosh and wah-hay of white water. But I really love the woohoo of someone realising they are so much more than they ever imagined! I think stories should empower as well as entertain. I write stories that give kids a hug.
Stories with action about
Girls that can fly,
Ostriches, bunnies and apes.
War stories, more stories,
Comedy, drama and tall stories
Of doctors, detectives and grapes.
Toad and Friends, HoHo Entertainment/Cartoon Network
Toniebox
Showtown, The Museum of Fun and Entertainment
Treasure Champs, Three Arrows Media
Little Roy, Jam Media/CBeebies/CBBC
Tee and Mo – Plug-in Media, Cbeebies
CBeebies Radio – CBeebies
Bing – Acamar, CBeebies
Ajani’s Great Ape Adventures – Nature for Kids
Olive The Ostrich – Blue Zoo Productions, Nick Jnr
Roze and the Robots – Gravy Media/Passion Pictures
NOKSU – Evergreen Films/Epidem, YLE TV1
Bowerbird – Artemisia Films
Last Night – Deadline Films/Irish Film Board
The Deadline – Deadline Films/Metrodome
Fei – Peach Blossom Media/Evergreen Entertainment
6.6.04 – The Film Council
Where The Skylarks Nest – BBC Radio 4
News, views, stories and stuff
No piffle or waffle, flimflam or guff
All things considered and not off the cuff
No more of this rhyme scheme: enuff is enuff!
There, I’ve said it. A whole year of tests, more tests, then- ooh tests. And trying not to worry, and trying not to feel glum. Which of course meant on top of being ill I got the glurries – which is when you worry that you’re feeling glum – and then I got the worms. Which is a different thing altogether.
But it all gave me time to slow up, slow down, and finally get that book written!
Actually it’s a series of books. Eight, maybe nine. Odd number I know but as it’s about things in the natural world, of which there are eight (plus a Christmas special), I can’t really augment reality.
They still don’t know what was wrong with me. The test results suggest my inner workings are all in tiptop condition. I paddled 60 miles down the River Severn in a coracle just to make sure. A GP friend told me there is a medical condition called ‘just one of those things’. I think that’s what I had.
OK. So maybe I can augment reality.
Since I last told anyone what I’d been up to? YES apparently so. I know it looks bad. Looks like I haven’t done anything and have melted away but it’s just that I’ve been TOO BUSY. In fact, I’ve had one of my busiest years EVER. Most of it has been taken up writing for Toniebox. That cute little smart speaker for young children. I’ve written original stories and poems, script edited a series of stories about Steiff Soft Cuddly Friends, abridged classic novels like The Wind In The Willows, Black Beauty and Five Children and It, retold fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk and Goldilocks, written twelve Christmas stories and one about the poor little Christmas tree in January.
Writing the spoken word rather than the screen has been a blast and I particularly liked writing for that young audience. So much so that I have been developing my own ideas for story series again. Young and funny and with a lot of love.
Which is how I’d describe the other work I’ve been doing. This time with the wonderful HoHo Entertainment folk. It’s not the right time for me to say too much about this fantastic new series yet, but IT IS VERY HARD KEEPING QUIET. I absolutely love it and think the audience will too. SOOOOOOO excited.
And breathe.
Some people live online, they breathe it, eat it, drink and for all I know, poop it. But that’s not me and about this time every year I realise it. Again. For this is the time of year when people like me prepare for the Children’s Media Conference in Sheffield (only its not in Sheffield, its online). People like me polish their pitches, check out what delegates they want to pitch to and make sure they have their business plans for what they’re going to pitch all ready. And of course they probably have a fantastic online presence: Instagram, maybe a YouTube channel and definitely they TikTok and tweet. I set up these things with the best intentions and then, well things happen. Things that I should tweet about and tell on TikTok but somehow talking about the things isn’t nearly as exciting as doing them and so suddenly its six months since I was here. Believe me, I have not been doing nothing.
I’ve written a novel. I’ve rewritten a novel. And that isn’t a writer’s way of saying they’ve been unemployed.
In between writing my novel and rewriting my novel, I have been writing for Toniebox. 10 minute stories for little ones to listen to about all sorts of wonderful things: springtime, going to sleep, big bad wolves and if you love Steiff bears, you’ll love their Soft Cuddly Friends.
I’d tell you more but I’m already onto the next thing – the Olympics and a tiny toad who takes on the world.
Maybe, one day I’ll remember to announce all these things in the moment they happen but until then, I have canoes and ducks and dragonflies to see to, oh and a snare drum that needs some attention. And of course, the novel needs some more work.
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