Inspiration Monday – East Street Arts Open Studios 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2qk0I_J2T4 Participating in an Open Studios event can be a bit nerve-wracking. You clean all the paint-covered coffee cups, sweep up bits of paper stuck [...]
Inspiration Monday! A Great Day Out.
This fantastic poster greeted me when I arrived at Allerton High School yesterday. The excellent team of students who organised my day of speaking and [...]
Inspiration Monday: Exploring Huddersfield!
I was delighted to be invited to speak to Year 6 at South Crosland CE Junior School recently, especially because Huddersfield Literature Festival awarded my [...]
Announcing a New Partnership with Book Events for Schools!
All my recent books in a tidy row! I am very excited to announce that I am working with the excellent Book [...]
World Book Day 2015
My scrumptious thank you gift from the pupils! This is one of the biggest weeks in the UK school calendar! Tomorrow, March 5, [...]
January Inspiration!
This month has been excellent for art and writing inspiration. I kicked it off a couple of weeks ago when I spent a week at [...]
Buy Local and Support Your Indie Bookseller!
I think this cool poster from Totally Locally says it all. When you venture out to make seasonal purchases, I hope you'll support the retailers in your [...]
Spooky Halloween Reads: The Shadow Lantern and Jet Black Heart
I've been loving having two spooky books published recently! The Shadow Lantern, the final story in The Blackhope Enigma trilogy, is out in the USA [...]
Art Exhibition at Fountains Hall
A few months ago I joined forces with four fellow artists to explore the idea of making new artwork in response to historic locations around [...]
JET BLACK HEART is here!
Last week I had a busy and fabulous week touring around Scotland, culminating in the launch of my new teen book, Jet Black Heart, from [...]
Welcome to the Writing Process: An Author/Illustrator Blog Tour
My talented friend and former art school classmate, Maryann Cocca-Leffler, invited me to share a bit about my writing and illustrating process as part of [...]
Maze and labyrinth hunting!
If you know my stories in the Blackhope Enigma trilogy, you know that I have a thing about mazes and labyrinths. Because I live in [...]
Inspiration and Aspiration 2014
Happy Second Half of January! By now we've all had plenty of time to assess 2013 and make wishes for 2014. Here are a few [...]
Open Studios 2013 at East Street Arts
I had all my creative hats on during a variety of ESA Open Studios events over the past four days: artist, illustrator, writer, workshop leader [...]
Revisiting FLY HIGH! The Story of Bessie Coleman
I spent yesterday introducing three groups of Edinburgh schoolchildren to the wonderful role model, Bessie Coleman, whose story I illustrated years ago. Since I began [...]
Excess Baggage
Jill Maden (Photo by Teresa Flavin) A rollicking ride around Australia with motorcyclist Jill Maden. I'll remember the summer of 2013 as one [...]
A rather momentous change.
I'm writing this from my new studio in Leeds, West Yorkshire. Yes, Leeds! After many happy years in Scotland, we took the plunge and moved [...]
Art inspired by The Blackhope Enigma!
I'm really pleased to post the winners of Whitburn Academy's S1 Art Challenge! In May I spoke to all the first year pupils about The [...]
At the End of a Busy Spring
My silhouette along with that of a raven, my character Fausto Corvo's symbol. Photo by M Barbour. Was it only seven weeks ago [...]
My new websites!
It's official! I have two new websites that are linked under one umbrella - or should I say tree? It's taken months to get all [...]