Tell us a little about yourself. What is your background and what are you doing now? E.g. career, hobbies
I’m working full time as an illustrator. The majority of my freelance work is for the maritime industry creating portraits of vessels and maritime scenes. I’d like to be able to balance this more with my own writing projects. I’d love to do a book of short silly poems!
Up until a couple of years ago I ran a landscaping and tree surgery business.
What/who inspired you to start writing?
I’ve always created silly poems and stories to accompany my art, or vice versa. The opportunity to expand on my writing came with having lots of young children to entertain and I decided to take it more seriously when I realised, I could keep them captivated. I started putting the stories, that only existed in my head, on paper around 3 years ago. I was lucky enough to find representation and my agent has really helped me to tweak the details and consider my approach.
Which books/authors inspired you as a Young reader?
I wasn’t a particularly big reader as a child. It would take a very particular book to capture me. I remember being obsessed with Spike Milligan’s writing. I loved the mix of poetry, diary entries and short stories.
What makes a good book?
For me, its escapism. I have to be able to imagine myself as part of the story, books about the sea and mountaineering always attract me, both fictional and non/fictional.
What’s your latest book for children? Tell us a bit about how it came about and what happens in it.
What do you hope readers will gain from the story?
The book being released with Atebol on November 24th is ‘Michewa a’r Mynydd’. It developed into a traditional picture book when I was working on a concept for ‘wordless’ children’s books. It’s retained aspects of the artwork telling parts of the story. I really hope this encourages a closer involvement with the book’s pages. It’s also written to be ‘less than the sum of its parts’. By that I mean it’s essentially a very simple story, but within that there’s an empathetic value where the story explores emotions like regret, pride and isolation. It also introduces aspects of the mountain environment that might not be familiar. These aspects can be taken from the story or not.
Any tips for Young readers/writers or illustrators?
It seems common to encourage young artists to focus their skills through the use of references and I completely agree with this. I think the same should go for writing. Practice writing by calling upon experiences, people you know or physical references and introduce your imagination alongside those things. Imagination is great but imagination with a foot in reality is what makes a story.
Also writing structured poetry has really helped me develop my picture book writing. I find it helps with how a story should flow and keeping sentences precise but descriptive. Everyone can and should write poems!
Is it the writing or the pictures that come first?
A story will usually grow from a single line or short poem. It evolves a general plot in my head and the first draft is usually all there before I put pen to paper. I’m working on a book at the moment and the whole story has evolved from the line
‘The sea turned from sage to black’.
As I’m working on that first draft i come up with concepts for characters and pages. This is my favourite part of forming a story, its complete freedom to create.
Is there a fictional character that you love or hate?
Plenty of non-fictional ones I dislike at the moment.
Any other exciting projects on the horizon?
I’ve just completed a large painting for a D-day patrol boat that’s being restored as a museum ship in the US. That’s been a really interesting process working from historic photos and written descriptions. I’ll hopefully be able to officially announce the release of my second title within the next couple of weeks. We’re looking at mid-2021 as a publishing date and I’m really excited about putting it together as author/illustrator again. It’s a manuscript that’s been with me for a couple of years and I think it’s developed into something really special.
As well as this I have a couple of writing projects in progress, I like to flit between rhyming and non-rhyming work.
Real book or kindle?
Real books, without a doubt
Anything else? (optional)
A thank you to everyone that’s helped this book come to life. Rachel and Elgan from Atebol, The Books Council of Wales, my agent Abi Sparrow at SP Agency and Manon Steffan Ros for translating the story and being on hand for some great advice.
Also, an even bigger thank you to my family who have tolerated my adventure so far!