About Claire
Hello! I’m Claire Barker and I live on a wild and windy fringe of North Devon, England.

For many years I lived on a little old farm where I grew vegetables, apples and sunflowers. I herded pigs, sheep, chickens, geese and children all day long.
Now I write magical stories, tucked away inside my shepherd’s hut with nature all around me.
When I was little I didn’t understand that telling stories could be a job. All I knew was that stories – whether it was writing, reading silently or aloud – made me very happy indeed. I never ran out of ideas and would often joke that I could make a story out of anything; a nut, a leaf, a strand of hair. My imagination has always been like a gushing tap. Both my great-great grandfather and great-great uncle were traditional Irish storytellers (seanchaidhthe, which sounds a bit like shannakee), so maybe it runs in the family.
While I was figuring this out, I did various things before I became an author. I have a degree in English Literature and History and an HNC in Illustration. I’ve been an higher level teaching assistant, an English tutor, a waitress, a childminder, an adult literacy volunteer, a puppeteer and a painter. I once even had a job untangling the fur of Persian cats in a spooky mansion.
I was a very shy little girl and would eat nothing but fishfingers until I was seven years old.
My favourite things are trees, animals, children and wrestling with words until they do as they are told.

Author of #PicklewitchandJack, @clairebarker told us all about how nature inspired her story and her characters 🧙♀️ 🌰 🐛 🦉🌲 🔭 pic.twitter.com/HRdPqaNjR3
— Faber Children’s (@FaberChildrens) October 11, 2018
If you would like to know about my typical writing day, here is a link to a blog post I wrote for the Faber Children’s site. I paint a bit too.

The Hare and the Harvest Moon by Claire Barker
Here’s a podcast I recorded with Jo of Library Girl and Book Boy https://anchor.fm/librarygirl/episodes/An-interview-with-the-PickleWitch-and-Knitbone-Pepper-author–Claire-Barker-e8ap8l?fbclid=IwAR0Zz35G4kuKTrfzbiPFdqS9oLcH9Vp648pVPo3OcuGHmirBEgN8qTTlCTI There are some children reviews, right at the end too.
