I set out thirty six years ago as an author/illustrator but during the past decade I've been more writer than illustrator; holding a Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellowship for three years and producing a dozen or so unpublished picture book texts. Now I want to return to being author/illustrator again, revisit those texts - all at dummy book stage - and complete the artwork.
I'm aware I've not chosen a very good time to do this when publishers are taking fewer and fewer picture books like mine.
However, when a benefactor gave me £5,000 to proceed on a book, I saw my chance. I created the Plaister Press (named after my benefactor) and republished Selkie in order to fund the first of my unpublished picture books. Now I have the happy prospect of years of illustrating ahead of me, working at my own pace, without hiatus and delay which I find so destructive to the process of creating a book and enjoying not just the interrelation of image and text, but typography too, as I work closely with freelance typographer and designer, Lisa Kirkham.
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