Bradford’s Jess Kitching on her journey to becoming an author
It was a meeting with the famous children’s author Jacqueline Wilson during a book signing that lit the flame of Jess Kitching ambition.
The 29-year-old, a former pupil of Cavendish Primary School in Eccleshill and Dixons City Academy, initially trained as a teacher before moving to Australia.
It was then that she began to take her writing more seriously and eventually landed a publishing deal.
Her first book, The Girl She Was Before was released last year, and speaking to the Telegraph & Argus from her home in Sydney, Jess said: ‘When the first book came out it went better than I could not have dreamed.
“A publisher in Denmark, they bought the translation rights, so we’re going to do a tour in Denmark and some crime festivals there, which is very exciting.
“It was a huge relief that everything turned out well. When you think when you’re a kid, what do you want to be when you grow up, I’ve always been that girl who said, ‘I’m going to write stories, I want to to be like Jacqueline Wilson’.
“Being able to actually write books is just amazing.
His second book, How To Destroy Your Husband is out today (October 23). It’s a revenge-based thriller where a month before her wedding, a woman finds out that her fiancée is cheating on her.
She digs deeper into his life, only to find that everything about him is a lie.
And after signing another five-book deal with her publisher, Jess is already working on her next novel and hopes to launch it in the UK when she returns home – at the iconic Waterstones store in Bradford.
“You’re talking about book two, editing book three, and writing book four,” she said.
“It’s one of those things, you feel really lucky to be able to do that.”
Jess’ dream is to see her stories translated to the screen and, speaking about her journey, she said: “It doesn’t feel real, it feels like a dream.
“With my first book I was almost like ‘I don’t deserve this’. It was this really weird feeling where I didn’t really appreciate it because I was so worried and like ‘this can’t be not be real, that doesn’t happen to me”.
“Now I’m more ‘no, you worked hard on it’ – so it’s nice to be able to celebrate with people.”
