How are you and Alice similar, and how are you different?
Alice thinks she always has to be perfect – that it’s her job to make sure everyone and everything is okay – and that’s just what I was like when I was a little girl.
But Alice has much more discipline that I do. If I could work as hard at my writing as she works at her dancing, I think I’d feel a lot better! Also, we both like chubby babies, homemade cakes and Dalmatians.
If Alice were around today, what would she do on Saturday mornings?
Ballet, of course! I think she’d have an extra-long class with Miss Lillibet (first barre work and then on pointe), and when they’d finished, Little would bring them a scrumptious morning tea.
When you sat down to start the OAG books, what was the first sentence you wrote?
‘Papa Sir, why did the war make everyone so horrible? You weren’t there, you didn’t see, but it was awful.’
I started right at the end of Book 4, so I knew where I had to end up.
Davina, what’s one thing you wish you could do really well but have always been too timid to try?
Stand-up comedy! And that’s not a joke!
Do you have one piece of advice for OAGs everywhere?
I’d give the same advice that Papa Sir gives Alice, which is this: Make beautiful art with everything that you do – how you live each day.
It’s wonderful to have big dreams and goals and ambitions, but it’s how you do the small things in life – how you talk to people, the effort you put into the things you do – that will shape how your life turns out.