What originally made you want to become an author?
I don’t remember not wanting to be a writer. I started pretty early and I’ve written almost
everything you could think of along the way, but it was fairly late in life that I discovered that
picture books are pretty much the perfect form for me. When I was just writing for adults, the
first book I had published was a collection of postcard stories—fictions of around 500
words—and that seems to be the length I am most comfortable with. It just took me a while
to come back around to it.

In your opinion, what makes a great story?
A great story is one that stays with you. It’s one that is just ever so slightly different each
time you go back to read it again. It’s one that allows you to understand things about
yourself or about other people in a way that you hadn’t before.

Describe a typical workday in your life as an author. Do you have any unusual
writing habits?
Rather than unusual writing habits, I think what I lack is usual writing habits. I’m not one of
those disciplined writers who is at their desk every day, but when I do write I tend to write
very quickly. I think this is because when I’m not actively writing I like to carry things around
in my head and hope that they sort themselves out by the time I’m ready to put them down
on the page.

What messages or themes do you hope readers take away from your book? 
It’s so hard to know what any single reader will take away from your book. I hope that some
of my books are reassuring reads for children who may not always have the luxury of seeing
themselves in the pages of a picture book. I have one story that is narrated by a non-binary
child and while it’s never explicitly stated in the text, I think that if you were a child with that
sense of their own identity it would be immediately clear.

What advice do you have for kids who are interested in writing? 
The best thing that you can do if you want to be a writer is to read. Read whatever you can
get your hands on. Read poetry and prose and listen to how things sound. Read books you
think are good to see why they are good. Read books you think are not so good to see what
you might do differently. Before you even begin to write, you need to read and read and
read. And if you really are meant to be a writer, that’s what you’ll be inclined to do anyway!