It’s been a while since I’ve posted to my blog, I’ve had a few things on my plate this spring which have kept me occupied, and when I do have time to write I’ve tended to summarize in a few words on Twitter! So what have I been up to? Well, I can say that after a long time in gestation, Magic For Sale will be released through Holiday House Inc in the US on 25th July. Written by Carrie Clickard, it’s a spooky 32- page picture book in rhyming verse, full of potions and monsters

Last weekend was the annual SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) conference in Winchester, which was as ever educating and inspiring. I’ve volunteered with SCBWI for very many years now, initially when I was in Japan, and, since my return to the UK, with the British Isles chapter. Apart from supporting Anne-Marie Perks on the illustrator’s committee I co-run our network in East Anglia with writer Helen Moss, and edit the Friday (illustration themed) pag

Number 4 in this series of 10 Images from my Archives found at my dad’s house is my old typewriter… and I mean old typewriter! When I was 16 I discovered the work of the Golden Age illustrators (Rackham, Dulac, Heath-Robinson, Stratton etc). In fact it was a re-discovery really as my mum had kept a couple of compendiums from her childhood that had been illustrated by these artists, but I rarely saw those. It was only in the mid-70’s that I began seriously examining children’s

I’ve been fascinated by fairy tales and fairy lore for as long as I can remember. Far more than contemporary fiction, as a child it was the tales of Grimm, Arabian Nights and Hans Andersen that really gripped my imagination. My mother had several old collected editions of these tales dating from her own childhood which she only produced at bedtime to read to us. With their classic Golden Age illustrations those books were for me hallowed tomes, things to be held in reverence