For the grand finale of Pop Up’s blog takeover, we are proud to present, not one but two brilliant creators… poet Jay Hulme and illustrator Sahar Haghgoo, the author and illustrator of Here Be Monsters. They are both enjoying a career first step: Here Be Monsters is Sahar’s publishing debut and Jay’s first illustrated book for children. Sahar is a participant in Pathways into Children’s Publishing, Pop Up’s mentoring and training programme in partnership with the House of Illustration (founded by Quentin Blake) and 12 global publishers, which supports artists from under-represented groups into careers in children’s books.

Jay asks Sahar

J: How did you decide on the dragon's shape?

S: I focused on its scale and grandeur, and also on its kindness. The image of the main character and the whole atmosphere of the story needed to reflect the epic nature of the text, so the dragon needed to take up a lot of space. I usually study a lot of pictures for character designs and I am particularly interested in Iranian miniatures.  

J: Do you have a favourite form of writing to illustrate? Poetry? Novels? Short stories? Picture books? Something else?

S: I’ve spent most time on picture books and short stories in my projects on the Pathways into Children’s Publishing programme, and I’m excited that my first published children’s book is a picture book – and also a poem.

J: What's your favourite colour?

S: My favourite colours are red and purple, and you’ll find them both in the underwater world of Here Be Monsters, but I am more interested in how colours work together.

J: What's your favourite illustration technique? (watercolour, digital, collage, etc).

S: I like collage very much, but most of the work I have done so far has been digital, which of course I drew with a pencil before.

J. How do you hope Here be Monsters will make a difference?

S. That people will realise that creatures who are different and might seem scary, because we don’t see all of them, are a beautiful addition to our world.

Sahar asks Jay

S: Will you write more stories with dragons as the main character?

J: Absolutely I will. I love dragons, they're my all-time favourite mythical creature. I've already got a number of poems and poem drafts with dragons in them, just lying around waiting to find a home!

S: What is your favourite colour?

J: I really like muted colours and earth tones: navy blue, burgundy, dark forest green, greys, browns, that kind of thing. I'm not a hugely colourful person to be honest, I think I'd have done well in the days before synthetic dyes gave us an inconceivable number of bright colours to work with.

S: Do you prefer to write for children or adults?

J: Writing for children and for adults is very different. The way you approach what you're sharing has to change to take that into account, but I always make my work very layered. Here Be Monsters is, on the surface, a simple story of about a creature who lives in the sea and then grows wings and lives in the air. But when you dive deeper, it  is an allegory for something else entirely. It’s about metamorphosis and about feeling that the way you have been living is not how you want to be for your whole life. The creature’s “songs of loss and fear and shame” are what is felt by people who are not able to live in their true identity.

I think writing for children is simultaneously easier and harder, because I can indulge myself and fill the story with dragons and joy and big sweeping ideas without having to reign in the hope for the cynicism and pain of an adult audience, but I'm also constantly aware of the fact that children's books shape children. The books you read as a child help to guide what kind of adult you will become, and what ideas you carry with you into adulthood. Children's books are part of the foundation of a person, and that's an enormous responsibility that I take very seriously. So there's a fair bit of pressure there. 

S: Here Be Monsters is a parable about the transgender experience. How do you hope your book will help make a difference to the way children think about or react to the experience you have been through?

J. I think the power of a parable, an allegory, is that it creates in its subject matter a wider applicability - yes, this story is about being trans, and the details all line up for that experience, but because it's told through the medium of a dragon, lots of children will be able to relate it to their own lives and struggles, and this will lead to increased empathy. When a trans child reads it, they will hopefully feel seen and validated, and when a cis child reads it, they will hopefully feel a connection to that character and experience too, a connection that will enable them to see their trans peers in a positive light.

We would like to offer enormous thanks to Pop Up for the innovative 10 Stories to Make a Difference project, to Jay and Sahar for an amazing joint interview - the perfect way to round off the week's celebrations! - and to Nicky Potter for her unparallleled support in bring this takeover to fruition!

We are delighted to welcome Anne Fine to the blog to celebrate World Book Day and the publication of her latest novel Shades of Scarlet.  Anne has won the CILIP Carnegie Medal twice, once with Goggle-Eyes (1989) and again with Flour Babies (1992).  Anne is known for her astute observation of complex family dynamics and self-exploration and her pithy wit and sage musings.  Anne writes picturebooks for the youngest readers (Ruggles), right up to darkly comic novels for adults (Taking the Devil’s Advice, In Cold Domain).  Anne was the first novelist for children to be honoured as the UK Children’s Laureate (2001-2003), to learn more about Anne and her work visit www.annefine.co.uk

Could you introduce us to Scarlet.

When Scarlet woke as a toddler, her father would often try to guess her mood: “I wonder what shade of Scarlet we will have today.”  Now she’s a teenager, she’s even more mercurial. And too sharp to be fooled or fobbed off. So when Mum moves out of the family home at almost no notice, and Dad just seems feebly to let it happen, she’s furious with them both. We follow Scarlet for only a few weeks, but in her account of that time we get to know exactly what she thinks and feels at every moment, and how she judges each of her parents for what they do, or don’t do. And that’s not always pretty.

You shine a light on a very clear stage in the development of young people. Was this the aim?

Oh, absolutely. ‘Mummy and Daddy know best’ can’t last for ever. And those times when the teenager can be more clear-sighted than the adult – know who is fooling themselves for their own purposes, or blinding themselves to inconvenient truths – can cause massive upheaval in the family.  Naturally, the parents resist the discomfort and inconvenience such overt criticism brings. In this book, both Mum and Dad have to come to see and respect Scarlet in a very different way, and realise they’re no longer always in the right, and Scarlet has to start to learn the supposedly adult skills of forbearance and understanding.

The dysfunction and disorderliness of families is a major theme in the book, but it is often balanced with humour.  Is this an effective technique for exploring and unpicking big and sometimes emotionally challenging issues?

I don’t deliberately use humour as a technique. But I write about the sort of families we see around us, and day to day lives in most homes and schools have plenty of light moments. Since amusing things happen all the time, to everyone, why not weave them into a story?

Scarlet's mum gives her a beautiful blank book. Is this a ploy for her to reflect on her life? 

We never are quite sure whether Mum gives her the book simply as a gift, or in hopes of nosing through it later.  But we all know it’s almost impossible to write lies in a private diary. It’s what you really think that just pours out. And that’s a lot of why people read and write in the first place. Good stories mirror aspects of our own lives, and help us both make sense of them, and live them more sensibly. At one point Mum defends her choice by saying, “Everyone only gets one life.  Just one.  And it's so difficult if you come to realize that you're not living it in the right way.  Or with the right person."  Books do encourage self-knowledge, and self-knowledge serves to help people not make huge mistakes in life.

There is a story within a story in Shades of Scarlet.  This is a structure you've used into great effect in your Carnegie winning books  Goggle-Eyes, and Flour Babies. What appeals about this form of storytelling and does it present any challenges?

When I was young, on the cover of my favourite Christmas ‘Annual' was a girl reading the very same annual with the same cover, showing smaller and smaller till you could no longer make it out. And I always adored stories within stories, like Scheherazade’s 1001 Nights. But I think the way I write these books comes pretty well naturally. Remember T S Eliot: ‘But set down this. Set down this.’ Once you start on any emotionally true-to-life story, the layers will start peeling off like layers of an onion, down and down.

Scarlet is determined and headstrong and as is consistent with your books for young people there is no condescension  or dumbing down the agency and thinking of young people.  As an author who writes across the ages, what different approaches do you employ for different age groups and how conscious are you of audience when writing?  

I’ve said before that I write only for the reader inside myself. Myself at five, at ten, at fifteen, at fifty. I write the books I would have wanted to have come across at that age. Susan Sontag said that a novel is ‘a piece of the world seen through a temperament’ and I doubt that my personality and temperament have changed much over the years. So, though I do have to make an effort to envisage, or take on board, how various aspects of life are very, very different for a young person now, I still come at each novel with my perfect reader in mind. And that perfect reader will, I suspect, always remain myself.

We wish you every success with Shades of Scarlet, and wonder whether you can tell us a little about what you are working upon next?

Unusually for me, I’ve stayed with this same age level. The novel I’m finishing now is called Aftershocks. We recently had the death of a child in my extended family, and I had been thinking a lot about grief, and how it can affect, not just individuals, but communities at large. Of course, like almost all my work it went off in strange – not to say ghostly -  directions. And though it remains at heart a realistic coming-of-age family novel, most of the story takes place in a setting that’s not just unusual, it’s deeply unsettling.  

A big thank you to Anne Fine for the interview.
Image of Anne Fine copyright Carsten Murawski

We are delighted to welcome Cliff McNish to the blog for a special interview to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of The Doomspell.  A special limited edition hardback of the book together with an exciting new novella The Light of Armath is available now.  To find out more and read an extract from this, why not visit Cliff's website.

Please can you tell us a little about yourself?

I started off not being a reader at all. We had precious few books at home, and no children’s ones that I recall. I read comics until my English teacher in late junior school finally thrust C.S. Lewis’s Narnian tale The Magician’s Nephew at me. I often wonder if the fact that the first novel to grip me was middle-grade magical fantasy is the reason I automatically took up writing in that vein once I began. I suspect so. But oddly I never started writing until I was 38 years old, and even then only because I’d recklessly promised my nine year-old daughter a story about a witch – recklessly because I’d never written any fiction before, so I had no idea how if I could do it or not. That story, originally called Rachel and the Witch, finally became The Doomspell.   

‘The Doomspell Trilogy’ is celebrating its 20^th anniversary, congratulations.  Can you introduce our readers to Rachel and Eric and the adventures they face.

Doomspell is slap-bang in the venerable tradition of wizards and witches, full of spells, counter spells and High Magic, with battles and stakes escalating as the children  try to stop an immensely powerful Witch from getting what she wants.

Rachel is the main character, intensely magical; her brother Eric has entirely different and unique skills. But in many ways the Witch, Dragwena, is the character many children remember best. She’s very much the sizzling White Witch of Narnia with zesty added snake-bite. A Japanese reader once sent me a fan letter saying, “My favourite character is Dragwena. Not only do I look like Dragwena [she has four jaws and spiders that live inside her], but psychologically I am like her, too.” You can’t always think of something to reply when you get letters like that.

You’ve written a new novella, ‘The Light of Armath,’ what parts of returning to the world felt easiest and most challenging?

In all honesty I thought I would struggle to be enthused writing about characters I’d created and left behind so long ago. In fact, the opposite occurred: the moment I started describing Dragwena in her eye-tower again, stroking her snake, irritated and restless, her entire character came back to me in all its full-blooded glorious villainy. I actually found I couldn’t wait to write about her again, as if she’d been sitting there expecting me to all this time, tapping a wand impatiently. Dragwena is the sort of relentless character it’s always a joy to work on. But in addition to her, I also wanted to do justice to a much-loved character from the original series, Morpeth. I felt I rather short-changed my readers by largely side-lining him in the in third book of The Doomspell Trilogy, and wanted to rectify that in The Light of Armath.

What can readers expect in ‘The Light of Armarth’?

First, I hope, an honest story. Readers who enjoyed this series have a lot of fondness for the memories, and it would have been horrible to sour that with a  sub-standard tale. So I decided I wouldn’t inflict it on them unless I thought it was good enough (I’m talking about for Doomspell fans here, of course. The new novella could conceivably be read stand-alone without knowing the first Doomspell book, but I wouldn’t recommend it, several aspects will be deeply confusing.).

Second good point, I hope, is that it’s not a little dinky nothing of a short story. It’s a proper novella, so it has some significant development. The last thing I wanted to do was bring out a 20^th Anniversary issue with a thin story, plopped in the book as an excuse to re-release it.

Third, I guess, is that the central spell in The Light of Armath is one Doomspell readers won’t have come across before, so that’s giving them something new as well.

Fourth, it answers a couple of questions left hanging around in the original book.

And fifth, I suppose, I’ve written it very much in the style of the original book as well, so if you like THE DOOMSPELL I’m guessing or supposing and hoping you’ll like this, too.

Oh and sixth – it’s in the original cover, and in a limited edition, for any collectors who may be interested in that.

Seventh – there is no seventh. (Which sounds like the starting idea for a new story, doesn’t it? ‘You may only perform six spells,’said the arch-mage. ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Because the seventh spell unravels the world.’ ‘Ah,’ I said, immediately and secretly looking forward to that moment ...)

Voice feels a tremendous strength in your writing, how do you go about establishing this?

I don’t actually work on this consciously. What I try to do is create main characters that embody strong traits, and hook those characters into stories that seem worth telling. To some extent you, the author, describing things, are the key voice holding everything together, of course, but I think the real key is creating characters that want something desperately. If you do that, readers also start to passionately identify with or against them, and plots automatically head in interesting directions. I teach in schools a lot (usually invited by librarians!), and a couple of my main workshops focus on creating great characters and the steps needed to build a strong plot around them. If anyone would like my action worksheets on these worksheets simply ask, and I’ll send you them.   

You’ve also written some highly successful Young Adult fiction including Breathe and Angel.  How does your approach differ writing for Young Adults?

That’s an interesting question. And there really are some major differences. Language complexity and plot and character complexity, obviously, are greater in a teen novel – or should be! And romance is really not appropriate to mid-grade, though deep friendship is (even if you subvert that romance in teen stories, which I sometimes do).

The level of psychological tension you can sustain is also altogether greater in teen fiction, as well as the level of critical self-examination, guilt, motive-checking, angst etc. so if you want to explore those things you swim towards teen fiction.

Another massive difference is who your enemy tends to be.  In mid-grade fiction the main opponents/antagonists tend to be external (eg Matilda by Roald Dahl, it’s not Matilda unable to come to terms with her crummy family, its Miss Trunchbull in all her magnificent excess), and it’s lovely to be able as a writer to focus on those external foes, keep the main children fundamentally good and supportive of each other and not constantly questioning their motivations. With teen fiction motives become murkier, the monster is often the one within, which of course is exactly what leads to opportunities for fully-rounded character development not usually so necessary in mid-grade.    

Breathe has won numerous awards and selected as one of the UK Schools Library Network 100 best adult and children’s novels, what do you think makes it so popular?

I honestly don’t know. First, perhaps because there are simply not that decent ghost novels for late juniors/early-mid teens out there, even now, so it fulfils a need (because who doesn’t like a good scary ghost story?)

But perhaps there are, if I can conjecture,  a couple of other aspects: 1) the ghost mother at the centre of the plot is truly a lost soul who is utterly convinced she is acting out of love. That whole theme of love and death/love verses hatred in the novel has a resonance that seems to appeal equally to children, teens and adults. A lot of children’s ghost novels tend to skirt the surface of some of this meaty thematic stuff, but Breathe doesn’t. 2) Maybe my creation of the realm of the Nightmare Passage also has something to do with it, too. It’s a place in the novel readers tend to remember. The Nightmare Passage only occupies a small part of the novel, actually, but readers have often written to me about it or mentioned it. 

Can you tell us a bit about the film script you created for this?

OMG don’t get me stated on this! First, I decided to learn to write a script with formal correctness using the standard software package, which is called Final Draft. I did that purely as an experiment to learn the medium, with a view to creating entirely new film and tv scripts. Then a major film production company based in L.A. contacted me, showing an interest in the rights for BREATHE. That led to me mentioning  the script I’d written, them saying great, show us it, and then working and reworking it many times under their guidance. In the end I worked on endless drafts, but could never get them to settle on the story. It was incredibly frustrating, and put me off film scriptwriting almost for good! But I still have my final script, which I like – and it’s very different from the novel. It’s now an adult ghost story, where the central characters are two women, one alive, one dead, battling over possession of the same son. I think it has as much zest as the original children’s novel, but who can really know? It’s sitting, as they say, in my desk drawer.  Like a lot of things you write, it might never get an audience. Maybe I’ll post it up for people to see one day ...

What can we expect next from you?

Writing The Light of Armath gave me a new lease of life where magical fantasy is concerned. I’d had a synopsis for a new mid-grade magical fantasy in my desk for years, basically untouched and unworked on while I concentrated on (mostly) teen age fiction projects, and also some adult horror. After finishing The Light of Armath I dusted the synopsis down, tested it on my daughter (she still reads my stuff!)  and realised I liked it. Well, I’d always liked he central idea of a world (our world) with magic emerging in various extraordinary ways, but now I felt I could write it. That it would be fun to do, in other words. So I’m penning it. I guess I’ll have EARTHSPELL out to beta readers within the next six months. Either that or it’ll turn into  total pap in front of me and get quietly shelved. Watch this space!   

We are delighted to welcome Rob Ramsden to the blog and to speak with him about his picture book series, In the Garden and his approach to illustration.  Rob's new book with Scallywag Press We Planted a Pumpkin publishes in September.

Please can we ask you to introduce yourself giving some background about your career and publications to date?

I began creativity as a fine art painter and printmaker, I turn a 90° angle and became a comic book creator, which evolved into being an animator and Illustrator, and now as a picture book maker I think I use a little bit of all these experiences in what I do. Alongside this I’ve worked as a lecturer and I’ve run workshops in schools and events, as well as spending a whole year in a school as an animator in residence working with years 2 - 7.

I had been making picture books, sending them off to publishers and I received lots of encouraging rejection letters. The encouragement suggested that I was doing something right, and the rejection told me that something wasn’t quite there. Then I heard about the Children's Book Illustration MA at Cambridge, which transformed my understanding of what a picture book story can be. After graduating I spent a few years showing my portfolio of dummy books to publishers, and spent time developing books with some of them, although nothing got published in this period it did teach me a lot. Then a friend, Rose Robbins, introduced me to a new publisher who were putting together their first book list, who turned out to be Scallywag Press. I sent them my dummy book for I Saw A Bee, and a week later Janice Thomson rang, she suggested some edits, we talked about the story and she was genuinely interested in where the story had come from, and I immediately thought – so, this is editing, I like it. Shortly after this I showed Sarah Pakenham, the publisher, my portfolio which had an early version of We Found a Seed in there too, and by the end of the meeting we were talking about a contract to publish I Saw A BEE. What started as one book has turned into a series of books called In the Garden, which includes BEE, SEED and now We Planted a PUMPKIN which is out this September.

There’s a joyous sense of exploration of the natural world in your books and its fun looking out for and tracing the different minibeasts and plants. Are you much of a naturalist yourself?

I wouldn’t call myself a naturalist, in fact I haven’t got the kind of memory needed to remember all those Latin names, and many insects don’t have common names. What I do have is the patience and curiosity to sit and observe minibeasts, and I’m often rewarded by what nature teaches me, for instance watching pollinators reveals why flowers look the way they do. I’m now paying more attention to my garden, and doing things like leaving big piles of leaves, sticks and small logs to make areas wilder, and encouraging minibeasts to take up residence over winter too! 3 years ago I changed my gardening habits and planted for pollinators. The unexpected effect of bee friendly gardening is that there are now many more mini beasts, lots of birds, and I’ve even spotted a hedgehog. Before I began gardening for bees I wasn’t aware of just how many different varieties of bee there are, and last year I began photographing them and I’ve collected more than 25 different varieties of bee including the tree bumblebee, red-tailed and white-tailed bumble bees, mourning bees which are eerily black and white in colour, leaf-cutter, mason and mining bees and of course honey bees.

I Saw a Bee feels almost like a fable with wide-reaching comments around friendship, difference and the importance of respecting the environment around us.  There’s a wonderful visual and verbal rhythm to the book.  It has so many different applications, have you had much feedback in terms of how it has been used and how readers have responded?

The feedback and uses of the book are quite diverse. The story itself comes from different experiences and observations, firstly it came from a rhyme I made up with my son about an amazing bee that kept up with us as I was driving the car, there was something exciting about racing a bee! Then, when picking my son up from his first years at school, we’d be talking about his day, and some of this was about the bumpy rhythms of the highs and lows of friendship. At the same time in the media, there was an increasing amount of concern about the decline in bee numbers. Finally, I have vivid memories of bees being something to be afraid of, which I probably learnt as a very young child from adults with rolls of newspaper chasing them, this fear was something I had to unlearn. Each of these were light bulb moments, and although not overtly mentioned in the story, they give me the route and focus to shape the story.

I’ve seen a whole range of activities and uses for both the BEE and SEED books spring up on social media, and it’s much to the inventiveness of others that these activities happen. The books have been used for exercising motor skills by following the paths of the bee, the life cycle of bees and seeds, collecting and identifying seeds, sowing seeds and caring for the plants, making pollinator friendly areas. Perhaps the most interesting discussion I had was when I had the opportunity to meet with teaching assistant Janine Woolston, who’s a qualified Thrive practitioner. Janine told me about how she had been using I Saw A BEE to support social and emotional development with the younger children, and this really resonated with me. When I heard that one boy kept going back to the book box and reading it himself, it seemed to me that Janine had struck just the right balance between the story and her use of it. I eventually asked Janine to write the teacher notes for both BEE and SEED, which are now on the Scallywag Press website, and I couldn’t be happier with them.

The production values are extremely high with the embossed cover, quality matt paper stock, did you have input into this?

I’ll be honest here, I was asked on many occasions about all aspects of production, but I knew my book was in the hands of those with much more experience than me, and I trusted that they would make the right decisions. When I received my advance copies of I Saw A BEE I wasn’t just excited that is was my first book that I was holding, on a tactile level it felt wonderful to hold and the pages are great to turn, I love the way they sound.

Can you introduce us to We Planted a Pumpkin which publishes this year?

It features the same two children from SEED and builds on the theme of growth, this time the story follows the children as their patience is tested, they encourage and care for the pumpkin plant, and there are surprises and rewards. Patience and anticipation are there too, they need a big ripe orange pumpkin in time for Halloween. I’m attempting to grow pumpkins this year and I can safely report that there’s a little worry that goes along with growing pumpkins, and lots of anticipation too as it’s just began to show signs of turning orange.

Can you tell us a little about how you approach creating a picture book?

I keep an eye and ear alert for catching things of interest, as well as recalling experiences and keeping a sketchbook close by to makes notes and drawings, to capture it. These notes and sketches might become an idea, and then I begin to explore these ideas by expanding the drawing and writing, to see if the idea might take the shape of a story. I’ll draw the characters a lot to test their emotional range, free from the story to get to know what they’re capable of, recalling my observations of children, as well as my own memories. The growing sequence in SEED is straight out of my memories of dance lessons in primary school. Thumbnail storyboards help to test the structure and pace of the story. Eventually, I’ll begin drawing more solid characters, acting out the scene, to accompany the text, which I use to make the first dummy book. My backgrounds at this stage are still very rough, so I begin visually researching in order to draw the backgrounds. The final illustrations in the book are a mix of materials to create hand-made textures, and I trace around my drawings in Adobe Illustrator and it’s all brought together in Photoshop as a kind of digital collage. My first ever version of BEE was all made as lino-cut block prints, and some of it’s still visible in the published version. I have two studios, one has been taken over by screen printing equipment, and the other “studio” is a series of tables in my home, and a main desk for my computer. I have been known to work in the garden and kitchen too.

You’ve been involved with teaching illustration – what level/s have you taught this at and what has it entailed?

I began by teaching animation as a subject, and this is where I’ve taught at the widest age range from year 2 primary to master’s degree level. This entailed adapting the essentials of movement and narrative to each age and educational level, and for the most part the subject skills are still the same, it’s the teaching method and expectations of the learner that changes. I’ve always used paper-based animation techniques in my own work and when I teach, devices such as a flick-books, zoetrope and mutoscope. In our digital age, people are still fascinated to see individual frames blend into movement as they flick the frames with their own hands. I have a draw full of ideas for an animation book as an alternative to an ever-increasing digital culture. Since 2016 I’ve been the Illustration Lecturer on the Graphic Design degree at the University of Suffolk, where I teach illustration within the discipline of graphic design, which I find to be a great blend of skills and ideas at work. One of the projects explores the design of books, drawing attention to the physical aspects of the book to give structure for the student to explore their ideas. I don’t specifically teach children’s picture books, but I do point out that they are a rich playful source of ideas and invention.

You were longlisted for the 2020 Klaus Flugge prize, how important are prizes for new illustrators?

It’s exciting to have been longlisted, and just by looking at the other longlisted books, I feel really proud that my book was selected alongside such a list of amazing books. I think all prizes are important in shinning a light on the good work of everyone who’s involved in producing a picture book and celebrating it, and one of the things I appreciated about the Klaus Flugge prize is that the editor and designer are also credited for their part in shaping the book. When I see all the great books by authors and illustrators being published I think “there can’t be enough shelf space to hold them all”, so I do think that it’s particularly important to shine a light on those who are entering the publishing world. To introduce them and let them take centre stage for a little while so we can get to know them, their names and their books, and make sure they don’t get lost on the shelves.

Which illustrators did you enjoy as a child and are there any that have helped influence your style or approach?

One of my earliest memories of illustration is the animated series Noggin the Nog illustrated by Peter Firmin, and even when very young I was aware that these were drawings that moved, and by that I mean even today you can really see the drawing. Next, are comics like Monster Fun and Shiver & Shake which were full of crazy ideas and had a great range of characters and stories. Comics were my reading material, and I’ll always be thankful to my parents for my weekly comic. I have vivid memories of the Illustrations of Jill McDonald, whose work still excites me today, and I can see why I loved looking at it as a child, every mark is worth looking at. I did a Fine Art degree and felt a bit lost when I graduated, and what re-engaged me with creativity was the artwork and narratives explored in comics, animated cartoons and picture books. I had no idea that I wanted to make picture books, but all my interests pointed towards illustration, then animation, and eventually picture books. It’s a far reaching and eclectic list of illustrators and animators who’s work really excites me, so I’ll just name a few here for how they’ve influenced me in some way – The animator Chuck Jones and his layout artist Maurice Noble, if you watch their cartoon What’s opera, Doc? you’ll see how the background holds as much of the emotion of the scene as the main character. Although I wasn’t directly referencing this at the time, this cartoon and another called Duck Amuck are two of my favourite works of art, and after BEE was completed I saw some stills from What’s Opera, Doc? and I realised I must be absorbing potential influence all the time. Maurice Sendak and Pat Hutchins, both for their sense of movement in the characters, as well as how they construct space on the page, a bit like a stage. Jan Ormerod’s books Sunshine and Read play so wonderfully with the pacing and passing of time. As a child I really do remember being aware of the passing of time, from the first time I took notice of the second hand on a clock ticking away, to the incomprehensible amount of time to my next birthday, as well as noticing the shadows moving and how that really was time passing.

My first published books happen to be a series, and it makes sense for this to be consistent in the style of the artwork. But, I do feel nervous when I think of the idea of style, and in a similar way to how one might think of an actor being type-cast in a series, I think that one style might not be the right style for other stories that I want to write or illustrate.

What is next for you?

Scallywag Press thought that I was going to be working on a different book outside of this series, but we all became excited about a new title and concept for another book for the In The Garden series, so this is what I’m currently working on. I’m probably not allowed to say anything about it, but I’ll just say that I’m excited about working on this book because it’s about experiencing the garden in a completely different way.

A big thank you to Rob for his time and expertise answering our questions.  Rob has also generously allowed us to share a wealth of images, information on these is below.

BEE-01

Original dummy book for I Saw A BEE, and the published Scallywag Press hardback edition.

BEE-02

One of the first thumbnail storyboards for I Saw A BEE, looking at the page count and the pace of the story.

BEE-03

Comparison of two spreads from the published I Saw A BEE, and the original (below). My first idea was that the reader would have to circle around the book in order to read it, and therefore join in the “buzzing around”.

PUMPKIN-01

We Planted A PUMPKIN with the original text, storyboards and a sketchbook. I mostly draw and write on loose copier paper, so I can pin them up or spread them out, and my ideas and drawing seem to flow much quicker across less-precious paper.

PUMPKIN-02

Early ideas, sketches and words for We Planted A PUMPKIN. Nothing is edited out, I try to capture as many visual ideas and words before the story begins to settle into a line-by-line text, and this is typical of how I work to shape the story.

PUMPKIN-02b

Exploring one of the characters in We Planted A PUMPKIN, and looking for the right emotion for the scene.

PUMPKIN-03

Early storyboard comparison for the “We know you’re trying…” spread in We Planted A PUMPKIN. Once the whole story is written, and each spread is drawn, then I give the insects all of my attention, I think of them as ‘sub plots’ such as the ants harvesting seeds (on this spread), or a spider spinning its web to catch a fly (which gets away!), and I have fun thinking of where the ladybird should be in of the spreads.

PUMPKIN-04

Early storyboard comparison for spread 5 in We Planted A PUMPKIN. You can see that one idea has been edited out to strengthen the focus of the scene.

PUMPKIN-05

Nature studies for We Planted A PUMPKIN, with character ideas for “we were the rain”.

Shelves.

Organising all the different stories in development is something I have had to learn to do, and this is how I organise stories which are being developed or as in the case of PUMPKIN, just finished.

Bees

A selection of bee photos, all taken in my garden.

We are pleased to welcome Emma Layfield, Picture Book Development Director North for Hachette Children's Group.  We were delighted to catch up with Emma to talk about her work, interests and the first Northern office for Hachette.

Can you tell us a little about your background please?

I have worked in the wonderful world of picture books for over twenty years now. In my previous role for Hachette Children’s Group, I was the Group Picture Book Publisher overseeing both the Hodder and Orchard imprints.

I have been lucky enough to work with some of the great picture book makers, including Kes Gray and Jim Field with Oi Frog and Friends (over 1.5 million copies sold in the UK), Steve Antony from the start of his career with Please Mr Panda (sold in 20 languages) and new rising stars such as Viola Wang with Rabbit Bright and Sandra Dieckmann with Waiting for Wolf.

In January I started in a new role for HCG as Picture Book Development Director, North, based in Manchester. I am from Lancashire originally so personally and professionally this move means a lot to me. I am really excited and very proud to be working in Hachette UK’s first northern office.

 The UK’s publishing industry has largely been based in London. What do you think the advantages and disadvantages are of having an industry that is so localised?

There are only advantages to publishers having a presence outside of London. Diversity and authenticity are key to the future of publishing and it is important that publishers are on the ground and plugged into what's happening around the whole country.

What led to Hachette’s decision to decentralize?

Hachette UK is committed to expanding its national publishing activity and helping discover new voices and new audiences around the country and already has several bases outside of London. Growing these and establishing new publishing centres in other areas of the country is a significant priority for the company.

Can you tell us more about your remit and are there challenges with working remotely from a lot of your colleagues?

I am responsible for networking, building relationships and looking for business opportunities in the north of England and Scotland, with a remit to acquire talent living in the North West, North East, Yorkshire and Scotland to publish onto the HCG list. I am perfectly positioned in Manchester to scout for talent and network in my areas. It is so important for me to meet people face-to-face to build relationships, and also to meet people in their hometowns so I get a full understanding of the creative industries in the North and Scotland.

I work very closely with my colleagues in the London team, hand-in-glove with the picture book team and take fortnightly trips to London. Outstanding communication, regular face-to-face meetings and traffic going both ways are the key to success in working remotely.

 You are picture book director, what does that role entail?

I have worked as a Picture Book Director/Publisher for over ten years and this new role will grow and enhance our picture book business. It allows me to bring my wide experience, track record of strong commercial delivery, and creativity and ambition to the north of England and Scotland.

It feels an exciting time for picture books as there’s a wider recognition for the role they can play with readers of different ages. Have you seen any evidence of this and if so what?

It is a really exciting time for picture books and it is great to see that readers of all ages are embracing illustrations in books. Older children and adults don’t grow out of the messages in Lost and Found, Where the Wild Things Are or Not Now, Bernard.

Shaun Tan’s The Arrival is a great example of a picture book that speaks to all ages, from children and adolescents to adults. Nearly all readers will be able to relate to it somehow – to the difficulties of starting over, be it in another country, city, or community.

William Grill’s Shackleton’s Journey marked a publishing revolution in highly illustrated and crafted trade non-fiction books. Aimed at children, William’s maps and illustrations about the day-to-day life of the expedition also have wide appeal to adults.

What do you feel makes a successful picture book and what do you look for in these?

I am always looking for a picture book with layers. Something that is great to read aloud and cries out to be read time and time again, but also has an underlying message, hook or theme that give parents and children a reason to pick it up.

Oi Frog! is a great example of this as it is packed with so much silliness and ridiculous rhymes, children don’t even realise they are learning about phonics. And the parents love reading it too!

Which authors and illustrators are you working with and are there any titles that you feel particularly excited by?

This is a brand-new role creating exciting new picture books with northern and Scottish authors and illustrators so watch this space!

Are there ways libraries can support you in your new role in the North?

Libraries are so valuable to communities, and in Manchester we are lucky enough to have 24 wonderful public libraries. Manchester’s first poetry library is opening in 2020. The libraries are also a key part of the Manchester Literature Festival and the Manchester Children’s Book Festival.

In my new role, I am keen to forge strong relationships with local librarians.  I would love to hear from librarians to find out what events are coming up and what new picture books they are most excited about.

Thank you Emma for your time!  Do follow Emma on twitter @emmalayfield2