Blog

As an author/author/illustrator couple or in other words I write (author) and my wife (Marie) writes and illustrates (author/illustrator), one of us needed an illustrator portfolio page: wasn’t me, only thing I can draw is a bath :-) We are currently submitting literary agent queries and if an agent is interested in representing our careers […]

I’m British and TEA is an important part of my culture, so I expect, NO I DEMAND, you get this right! We’ve allowed the Americans to ruin our high streets with Starbucks coffee chains and their half-fat lattes, but on tea we are not budging, there is only one way to make tea correctly, it’s […]

We are seeking the services of the mythical creature that dwells in the shadows, the beast that is summoned forth with the magical incantation known as the dreaded literary agent query. Yes, we are looking for a literary agent to represent our children’s picture books, but unlike creating picture books, querying agents ain’t a fun […]

Breaking news, new “Happier” BT payphone box design released to happy crowds. The new user friendly, Christmas themed payphone box was released to huge crowds at the latest “I Made This Stuff Up Fair” earlier today. The payphone box has been road tested at the North Pole where Elves reported a 132% increase in overall […]

I Love the Wombles of Wimbledon! I loved the Wombles of Wimbledon when I was a kid. I was introduced to them through the TV show “The Wombles” that was shown in the late 70’s. My children knew of the Wombles through Elisabeth Beresford’s books, the way it should be. I didn’t have parents who […]

Our first literary agent query was to Steven Malk of Writers House by email on June 13th 2016. We received a no within 24hrs (about 10 hours later), so a failed query. Also see How to Find a Literary Agent for Children’s Picture Books for a list of literary agents interested in children’s picture books […]

If you are used to using Photoshop and similar image editing programs you’ll be confused when trying to do some simple things like crop in GIMP for the first time. In Photoshop etc… finding/using crop is easy. It’s under “Image > Crop”, in GIMP it’s under “Tools Transform Tools > Crop” or via the shortcut […]

I’ve been messing around with various GIMP enhancement tools to see what they do and found the Retinex tool is great for pulling detail from images taken in low light conditions. I’m far from an expert at using GIMP, I tinker with GIMP so I can help my wife (an illustrator and amateur photographer) gain […]

Whooo 30 Days Wild starts tomorrow. We are huge wildlife lovers. It would be very safe to say it’s our favorite hobby, so we weren’t about to give up the opportunity to join in on the Wildlife Trusts 30 day challenge to do something wild every day in June. It’s up to you how you […]

Anyone who has a man in their life knows how difficult some of them are to buy for on special occasions like birthdays. I have one such man. He’s not really into birthdays or Christmas. He believes in celebrating everyday, so ‘doesn’t see the point in celebrations’. Unfortunately for my significant other I’m the opposite. […]