MARIE-LOUISE FITPATRICK’S BIO:

After I found my agent in 1999, I started to focus completely on my creative work and finally began to find my own particular voice and visual style. In my picture book work I like to explore the blurred line between the imagined and the real in childhood and those little/big moments of change and discovery. More recently I have begun to write novels for children – a steep learning curve! I’m really enjoying the process and I’ve discovered I can pretty much write anywhere – airports, planes, coffee shops, waiting rooms, parks …

Being a children’s writer/illustrator allows me to indulge my love of travel as I often ‘have to’ go places to do research – Oklahoma for The Long March, London for the novel I’m working on now – and I sometimes get invited to take part in literary conferences in far-flung places like Paris…