My Free Little Library Art Adventure
During lockdown in January 2021, a plastic drawer unit filled with books appeared outside a home in our neighbourhood. Its kind owner left a simple handwritten note on it: TAKE A BOOK, LEAVE A BOOK. This was […]
Illustration Wednesday – The A-Z of Children’s Books with Fig Taylor
I don’t know whether the last week of August affects you the way it does me. I get excited in anticipation of the annual September buzz, the kind of buzz I should really be feeling on New Year’s Day but often don’t. That’s because years of schooling conditioned me to feel like September is the […]
Inspiration Monday – East Street Arts Open Studios 2015
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 in the floor boards and generally make the place presentable without sanitising it too much. Then you think about what you’d like to tell people about your work and hope you […]
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 bookmaking with visiting primary pupils also made a variety of wonderful posters, flip charts, bookmarks and certificates. They were all charming, friendly […]
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, children across the land will come to school dressed as their favourite book characters. They’ll be […]
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 and even ‘advisor’. It all kicked off on Thursday night with the launch party for ‘Cache’, a small exhibition […]
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 writing and illustrating my own books, I have spoken less about the picture books I illustrated, so I was really pleased […]
THE CRIMSON SHARD Book Trailer
Things have been go, go, go since I last wrote a post on this blog – which I am ashamed to say is many months! What’s been going on since I got back from Finland in April? Let’s see. I finished a first draft of a new book, revised it, did quite a few events […]
Helsinki: Another Exciting Week in the World of Finnish Books
My inspirational week started when I visited Villa Kivi overlooking lovely, frozen Töölönlahti Bay. This beautiful house is known as the Writer’s House and ever since it was built in 1890, it has been associated with literature. Famous Finnish writers and linguists lived and visited there until it fell into disrepair and the city of […]
The Crimson Shard Book Launch
In spite of rain and wind, a great crowd of well-wishers joined me on 1 October to celebrate the publication of The Crimson Shard, the follow-up to The Blackhope Enigma. I was pleased […]
