Throughout my life three things have been important to me - writing, drawing and children. Those three combined together led me down the path to what I am doing now - writing and illustrating children's books.

It was not an easy path, though, and it has taken me a while to find out that this is what I really want to do. I started off with an M.A. in Media Studies and Child Development Psychology, and have worked as a journalist for the youth department of big radio station and as a technical author since. However, I found that writing children's books is what I really, really want to do, so now I am pouring all my efforts into this (see Stories and Illustrations).

Finally, things have started to move and I've just finished illustration a children's book "Miz Margenon's Jungle", written by Philippa Roberts and published by Bowbridge Publishing.

Check out the News page for more information on my current projects.

About Writing

If you consider taking up writing seriously, then here are my top tips:

1. Make sure this is really what you want to do. Writing is no easy task. Do not expect your first book to be accepted by the first publisher you send it to, or that it will be an immediate bestseller. I am sure this does happen, but it is a bit like winning the jackpot in the lottery - very, very rare. Many famous writers have said it better than me, "Writing is 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration".

2. Choose your genre carefully. Do not choose to write books about a particular topic because there seems to be a great demand, therefore apparently increasing your chances to be published. To be good at what you are doing you should enjoy what you do. Even if there is a great demand, if your writing is not up to it, nobody will take a chance with your book.

3. Research your topics. There is nothing worse than badly researched topics. If you write a book, for example, about cars, ensure that all your details are correct.

4. Research your target audience. Ensure that you know who your audience is. For example, if you are writing for small children, using complicated words and long sentences is a definite "no-no". Therefore, find out what is appropriate for your readers.

5. Find the right publisher: Another important step to getting published is to find a publisher who actually might be interested in your book: go to the library or your local bookshop and check out books that either share the subject matter/genre of your book, that target the same age group, or are in any other way similar to yours.

Check out other sites on the internet and books on the topic so you have as much information as you possibly can at your disposal before you start. There are many mailing lists for writers on the internet (for example, the Wordpool mailing list for children's authors) and hundred upon hundreds of books to give you access to all the information you might need.
(see Links)