Eoin Colfer is about to explain how he signed a book deal with Puffin – and his telephone goes dead.
After ringing back he's about to talk about how a Hollywood film company bought the rights to his book – and his telephone goes dead.
Even in everyday life Colfer is a man seemingly unable to avoid dramatic tension.
It turns out that the case of the dying telephone line is fairly straightforward to solve. His youngest son Sean has found a novel way of entertaining himself while daddy speaks to a journalist – it's a game of his own invention called Unplug the Telephone from the Socket.
Clearly young Sean has inherited the sense of mischief from his father, author of the hugely successful Artemis Fowl series.
The novels chart the story of Artemis Fowl, a teenage criminal mastermind born into an obscenely wealthy Irish family. With fairies and centaurs thrown into the mix, the books have won rave reviews and turned Colfer into a cult figure, a famous author – and a very wealthy man.
The books have legions of young fans across the world, having been published in 41 different countries, and with a film of the first – titled Artemis Fowl – being produced this year, Colfer is about to hit the road and travel around Britain to meet some of his young fans.
Unlike some authors, Colfer, who arrives in Yorkshire on April 9, is not only willing to travel to meet his fans, but thrives on it – although he admits this was not always the case.
"When I first started going out and meeting my readership I
had a young baby and I didn't enjoy being away from home," he says.
"It wasn't that I didn't want to meet the people reading the book – I loved meeting them. It was all the time spent on a plane or train getting to venues that I really couldn't stand.
"Then I met Terry Pratchett and he told me how a lot of fantasy writers who had been around in the 1980s just weren't on the scene any more – because they hadn't bothered going out and meeting the fans."
Colfer wanted to still be on "the scene" for some time and realised that touring would be a part of that – he says: "Doing two
months of touring in the year means I can do nine months of writing."
"I thought of it as networking – businessmen make deals and
sell things on the golf course, I
do it when I'm out meeting
people.
"Once I accepted that the travelling part of it simply needed to be done and there was nothing I could do about it, I started to actually enjoy it."
When he comes to the West Yorkshire Playhouse in a fortnight Colfer's young fans can almost be guaranteed they will be entertained – he was the first author ever to win a Herald Angel Award for Performance at the Edinburgh Festival in 2004, six years after his first book Benny and Omar hit the shelves.
Before being published, Colfer had travelled around the world with his wife, teaching in Saudi Arabia for year.
Drawing on his experiences he wrote Benny and Omar about a young Irish boy who moves from Wexford – where Colfer grew up and still lives – to Tunisia.
The book promptly became a bestseller in Ireland, toppling the queen of young people's literature, JK Rowling, and her boy wizard, from their thrones at the top of the book charts.
The money he made from this success was not enough for Colfer to pack in the day job and he continued to teach at primary school, writing his books in the evening. A Benny and Omar sequel followed, as did a further four books for children. He then hit on the idea that would make his fortune.
"He is a Bond villain," says Colfer of Artemis Fowl.
"I was thinking about it and I thought it would be hilarious to have a Bond villain who was 12 years old. I liked the idea and started thinking of the idea of writing a traditional Irish fairy story and was going to put him in it as the villain, but the more I wrote, the more I realised that Artemis was becoming the lead character."
The book finished, Colfer thought his anti-hero Artemis
had awkwardly limited his
appeal.
"I thought because he was a villain and the hero of the piece I had painted myself into a corner," he says.
"Then my wife Jackie, who is always the first person to read what I have written, said she thought there was a lot of potential in the character."
Jackie's opinion was about to be shared by Colfer's agent.
She secured him a publishing deal in the UK for the first time.
Her next move was a canny piece of negotiating, instead of going to publishers in America she rang film companies.
"I was on playground duty in the infants yard and the principal came out to tell me that Jackie was on the phone," says Colfer.
"I was really worried at first because she only rang me at school if something was seriously wrong."
In fact, something was seriously right. The agent was in talks
with several film companies and they were all bidding for the rights.
"I went home that evening and we all sat around the phone, waiting for her call," says Colfer.
"Close of business over there was about 1am over here. It was about 2.30am when the phone finally rang."
The news was that Miramax had optioned the book to turn it into a film – for a reported six-figure sum.
"I just turned to Jackie and said 'This is the beginning of a new life'," says Colfer.
"It was a gateway to stop teaching and stop worrying about money, certainly. I was 35 when it happened and I think that is the best thing – the fact that I have been working for a long time already made me appreciate what had happened."
There are now four books in
the Artemis Fowl series, plus a fifth short story and with the
first film due out next year, fans would be wise to catch Colfer before he no longer has to be on the road.
Eoin Colfer is at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, on April 9. Tickets: 0113 213 7700.