Adelaide McLaughlin

I'm a teacher and a few years ago I got into making YouTube videos because I love media and it seemed like a great idea to create content that students could watch if they had missed lessons. I never expected the YouTube videos to lead to a publishing deal, but that's exactly what happened. Oxford University Press contacted me and asked me to write the Psychology A level edition of the Oxford Revise series. Despite being dyslexic, writing has always been in my bones, so to be given such an incredible opportunity completely blew me away. Since then I have also published the 2nd edition of the Oxford Revise book and worked on the 6th editions of the 'Cat' and 'Dog' A level psychology textbooks. Writing the books was an incredible experience, I learnt so much not only about the subject I love, but about also about the publishing world. I have often suffered a little bit with 'derealisation' which is a condition most of us experience fleetingly from time to time, the feeling that the world isn't real. (It's probably why films like The Truman Show and The Matrix resonate so deeply.) Being an author sometimes elicits the 'derealisation' feeling in me - how have I somehow managed to accomplish one of my most significant life dreams, to be a published writer? My next ambition is to be published in fiction. I have had a character in my head since 2007 who needs to tell her story. And of course, there's a ton of psychology underpinning the characters and story.