… Bookus continues bathkidslitfest’s series of Q&As with authors and illustrators appearing at this year’s festival
Stormy Weather by Debi Gliori
Being a Roman ghost I’m usually too busy spooking tourists around Bath to be reading. But the fantastic thing about books for children these days is that many of them come with amazing and beautiful illustrations! Lotta tells me that bathkidslitfest 2009 is stuffed with more amazing illustrators than the great Emperor Ceasar himself is with grapes on feast day, including the fabulous Debi Gliori (who has her very own blog-thingy)!
Click on Debi’s beautiful cover above to visit her publisher Bloomsbury’s profile and seek out her other brilliant books: Trouble with Dragons, No Matter What, Witch Baby and Me and Pure Dead Magic.
What’s your favourite food? Some combination of purple sprouting broccoli, chillies, garlic, anchovies, creal, black pepper and pasta.
Do you have any pets? A golden retriever called Cara
What was your favourite book when you were a child?
Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson
What was your most embarrassing moment while you were growing up?
Going to school at the age of four and three quarters without any pants on. Whatever was I thinking of? I still blush to recall that sinking feeling when I went to the loo and suddenly realised.
Tell us a secret . . .
What? You want more? I play fiddle, and sometimes if a good tune comes on while I’m working, I leap off my seat, grab my fiddle and play and dance at the same time. needless to say, my teenage children find this too embarassing for words.
If you weren’t a writer, what would you be?
A musician. Or, rather alarmingly, an economist.
What do you like to do on a Saturday?
Take a wee fishing boat out on Loch Fyne with my daughters, my sons, if they want to come, my partner, a sketchbook and paints, my flute, a picnic, a bottle of fizz and a good book.
What kind of music do you like to listen to?
Acoustic, world, scottish/jazz fusion, blues, electronic, alternative, folk…but best of all I like playing music rather than listening to it.
Who’s your favourite author?
Tove Jansson – she was a literary giant and I love her now every bit as much as I loved her when I was a child.
Which book do you wish you’d written and why?
I can’t answer this. The books I have loved to read, I don’t wish I’d written because then i wouldn’t have the same feeling about them. I suppose I would like to have written something that made millions of people laugh out loud, and yes, mercenary person that I am, I wish I had written something that sold by the shedload because sometimes money is useful. But mainly, I’m glad I’ve written the books I’ve written because they were the best books I could write at the time I wrote them.
Where would you most like to visit?
I’d like to go to the little island where Tove Jansson had her summer house. Just to see if anything of her spirit remains there.
Bookus Maximus
Click here for details of how to see Debi Gliori at this year’s festival telling tales of dragons, foxes, friendship and adventure. Debi will be talking about and reading from her brand new picture book. Be the first to get a signed copy of Stormy Weather at the event!
