Stuff I like

I wrote in my blog a while ago that I’d just started writing a middle grade novel, after decades of telling myself that I could only write and illustrate picture books. I actually finished that novel and found a publisher, but for various reasons the publication didn’t go ahead. So I’m still looking for a home for that one, but in the meantime I started researching my second idea, which I had at…

Illustration by Tim Warnes for Weasel is Worried by Ciara Gavin I seem to be on a lucky streak – I’ve won quite a few books in internet giveaways recently. But my best win so far has been the most recent one – a book illustrated by Tim Warnes, one of my favourite picture book writer/illustrators. It’s called Weasel is Worried, but also goes by the name A Little Bit Worried. I follow Tim’s blog,…

Illustration by Tim Warnes for Weasel is Worried by Ciara Gavin I seem to be on a lucky streak – I’ve won quite a few books in internet giveaways recently. But my best win so far has been the most recent one – a book illustrated by Tim Warnes, one of my favourite picture book writer/illustrators. It’s called Weasel is Worried, but also goes by the name A Little Bit Worried. I follow Tim’s blog,…

How many of you are migrants, descendants of migrants, or siblings, parents or cousins of migrants? I suspect that covers almost everyone on the planet. I am the migrant daughter of migrants, who in turn were descended from multiple generations of migrants. One of my children migrated to Canada. I’ve never had to deal with a second language, but I’ve both benefited from and been slightly…

Life Drawing in Different Media

A new year, and a new direction

When I started this blog I thought I was going to talk mainly about picture books. I had no idea that after a year of studying picture books, writing and illustrating my own picture books, and submitting multiple times with no tangible success, I would suddenly be inspired to write a middle grade novel. I’m still not sure how it happened, but maybe it was because I’d started to read a lot of…

Mentorship part 3: Overcoming Impostor Syndrome.

My PB#chat mentorship finished at the beginning of December last year, when I had to upload the first 100 words of the manuscript and four of the illustrations to a showcase that took place during the first week of December. Agents and publishers from all over the USA were invited to view. Unfortunately I couldn’t show my dummy book – which I was quite proud of – but I figured that if an agent…

Mentorship Part 2: the story evolves

Almost two months into my mentorship, and Elton’s Ears is taking shape in new ways that I’d never anticipated. The story is just about resolved at last: Raven is merely hinting at a way that Elton might find his way home, allowing Elton to do all the thinking for himself. So the next stage is to make sure the characters are consistent. In the process of developing the layout I ended up with some…