queue of several hundred people waiting to see him outside so I didn ’ t quite manage to get a personal introduction !
Did you ever think you would become an author ? My favourite author when I was a child was Enid Blyton , but she seemed so brilliant to me it was hard to imagine being on the same level . I still loved to write though , and against the odds I did manage to author my own children ’ s book even though I never thought I would have had the opportunity .
What are you working on at the moment ? I have four books coming up : Polly ’ s Magic Bubbles ; The Extraordinary Happenings of Peter Oddfellow ; Princess Impatience and Midge , Prince of the Giants ! I have just started working part-time at a university .
When did you and your wife start working together ? We were both living in London when we met . One day I had to stay at home from work because I was ill so I decided to begin
writing one of my books ( Peter Oddfellow ). The first chapter was finished by the time she got back from work and that was the foundations of my first novel . I was inspired to continue writing because when my wife read my story ‘ Can we Walk to the Moon ?’ she loved it so much that she wanted to do some sketches for the book ( she did art at university but hadn ’ t done it since leaving ). I originally went to a small publisher who liked what we had done together but wanted to make so many changes that it seemed easier to just publish it ourselves . Our first ever run sold 100 copies in just a couple of weeks .
Where do you go to write ? I tend to write in my office , and Liz does her illustrations on the dining room table where there is lots of room – but will sketch anywhere really !
How long does it take for your wife [ Illustrator Liz Dorey ] to do one illustration ? It takes her around an hour to draw the picture , but it can take many more hours to scan
and process the illustrations in order to get them ready to be printed in the books . There are lots of technical details which take a lot of time .
Why are the original sketches done on big sheets of a3 ? This is so she can include lots of detail in the images , with lots of colour and filling . It makes the pictures very vivid and really brings them to life . She uses a paint brush to do these illustrations , it ’ s a very big brush but it goes to a fine point with which she can then do these detailed illustrations .
What would your top tips be to children that want to be an author or an illustrator ? For me , this is a lifelong dream . I was writing when I was 10 years old , but I didn ’ t start this until 3 years ago when I turned 50 . So that ’ s 40 years in-between – what I would say to you is don ’ t give up on your dream . If you want to become an author , you need to write and practice your craft . For some of my books there have been 19 drafts of 30,000 words … so that ’ s over 600,000 words written !