A story narrated by an 11-year-old boy dying of leukaemia is probably not your usual idea of children's bedtime fare.

Indeed, author Sally Nicholls reveals that that was the initial reaction of her own literary agent to her debut novel Ways To Live Forever (2008). It is written as a scrapbook chronicling the last two months of cancer-stricken protagonist Sam McQueen's life.

'Fortunately, she agreed to read the manuscript anyway,' says Nicholls, 24, with a chuckle.

'There are a lot of children's books about coping with death and grief, but there aren't many about facing mortality, and I feel there is a need for something like that - even if we don't like to talk about it.' - On why she wrote a novel narrated by a dying child

'The logical part of me recognises that we are tied to the body, but the religious part finds it impossible to believe that life can just vanish. The questions Sam asks are ones I am still asking.' - On what she thinks comes after death

'I try to write 1,000 words a day because I need the motivation. Sometimes I will spend a lot of time sending e-mail and talking to friends, and then the people I live with come home and I'm like, 'I can't talk, I've got to write'.' - On her writing habits

The gamble paid off: Nicholls has not only received rave reviews, but also won the 2008 Waterstone's Children's Book Prize in February, an annual award worth £5,000 (S$13,370).

Over the phone from London, the author sounds rather like a child herself, speaking in a soft mumble which frequently dissolves into giggles. But her cheerful demeanour belies her own childhood struggle with illness: She was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 11.

Sam's practical attitude towards his illness - he collects facts about dying and has a list of things to accomplish before he dies - is partially gleaned from her own childhood memories.

'My family was very worried, but I remember just thinking that this thing had happened, and let's let it affect my life as little as possible,' she says.

The writer now gives herself four injections of insulin a day: 'My diabetes is under control, and doesn't stop me doing what I want. Four injections sounds like a lot, but you get used to it. It's just like cleaning your teeth.'

Born in the town of Stockton-on-Tees in north-east England, she was two when her father died suddenly of a heart attack. She and her younger brother, Ian, were raised single-handedly by their mother, a teaching assistant for children with special needs.

She stresses that she does not consider her childhood a sad one. 'I had a happy childhood, and growing up with just my mother felt normal. I don't remember my father at all,' she says.

'One thing it did teach me, though, is that bad things can happen. People sort of think that being well and happy is normal, but growing up without a father told me that that isn't how it always works.'

Though she says that she wanted to be a writer during her school days in North Yorkshire, it was really a university prospectus for post-graduate studies that set her on the path to becoming a children's book author.

'It was my last year of university and I didn't know what to do with my life, except that I wanted to write,' says Nicholls, who graduated with a bachelor's degree in philosophy and literature from Warwick University.

While researching various master's programmes in creative writing, she came across Writing For Young People at Bath Spa University, 'and a light bulb just went off'.

The author who read voraciously as a child counts The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Chronicles Of Narnia by C.S. Lewis and Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild as some of her favourites.

'I have old-fashioned tastes in books. My friends were reading Roald Dahl and I was reading The Secret Garden.'

It was at Bath Spa University that she wrote Ways To Live Forever. Her lucky break came when she won a contest organised by literary agency PFD, which offered a prize of £500 and a meal with an agent. Four months after that, she was picked up by Marion Lloyd Books, an imprint of publishing giant Scholastic.

The writer, who shares her London flat with her boyfriend and two other friends, now spends three mornings a week working as an administrator with Effective Intervention, a London-based non-profit organisation which aims to reduce child mortality in poor regions of the world.

Though she plans to pursue writing as a career - her second book, The Midnight Hunter, will be published early next year - she says she will not be giving up her part-time job for now.

'If I spend all day, every day, writing, I would become bored and depressed,' she says with a laugh. 'At the moment, if I have only two full weekdays for writing, I get excited about my writing days.'

She breaks into her child-like giggle again when you ask if she will continue writing for children.

'Yes, I hope so. I feel I know what it is like to be 11 or nine, but I don't know what it is like to be a parent, or married with a full-time job,' she says.

'I just don't think I know enough about being a grown-up - not enough that I could write a grown-up book.'

Ways To Live Forever ($19.80 with GST) is available at Books Kinokuniya.

This article was first published in The Sunday Times on Jun 8, 2008.