Unfortunately, Alex and I encountered a few communication glitches, lost emails floating out in the cyber world, and it delayed our interview. My apologies. In trading emails, Alex and I commented on how exciting it is to meet and talk about craft and books and art with like-minded individuals from so far away! It truly is a gift! So let’s get started!
Alex T. Smith considered a career in space travel but lucky for us his eavesdropping and people watching skills got the better of him, and he put his eye for the details down on paper. He graduated in 2006 from Coventry University with a 1st Class Hons degree in Illustration. Eliot Jones, Midnight Superhero (Scholastic UK), written by Anne Cottringer, was his debut book and it won the Coventry Inspiration Book Award, and was long-listed for the Greenaway Medal in 2009.
Since then, he’s gone on to write as well as illustrate the stories Home (Scholastic UK) and Bella & Monty (Hodder Children’s Books). He lives in York with his wife and four naughty doggies (used to be three, but they just adopted their fourth — a homeless Chihuahua). It’s an honor to have him here. Welcome, Alex!
Can you take us back a few years and share your path to publication?
As a child I wanted to be one of three things – a chef, an illustrator or a rabbit! ( I thought that was something you could do as a job and would spend ages playing in a ‘warren’ I would make behind an armchair!) I’ve always loved drawing and writing and was always being either read to or reading myself. I was very lucky to have a grandfather (Sid) who lived just around the corner and as well as being Head of English at a large high school, was also a writer. He wrote plays and articles, and when he retired he started writing stories for me – one everyday for several years. I would come home from school and find them in our house – he’d leave them for me when he came to fetch our dog and take her back to his house so she’d have some company! You can read more about him on my post Grandad Sid and one of his stories that I illustrated Grandad Sid’s Little Book of Stories: Joseph’s Adventure.
As I got older I got really interested in design for theatre and film and worked as a production assistant, then as a designer for a local theatre company who specialized in large outdoor spectacular performances. It really was a hard choice to make whether to study theatrical design or illustration, but I went for illustration. It had been a childhood dream to write and illustrate books for children, and I’m very lucky to have achieved it. I studied at Coventry University and won Highly Commended in the Macmillan Prize whilst in my second year and then 2nd place in my final year. I got my first job illustrating some baby books whilst I was hanging my degree show – very exciting indeed!
Congratulations on the publication of Foxy and Egg (Holiday House, Apr 2011). It reminds me a little of the classic fairy tale Little Red Hiding Hood. What was the inspiration behind this book? Did the characters come first or the plot/situation?
Thank you. I love the story of Little Red Riding Hood and had never thought that Egg could be a version of that!
If you missed my review of Alex’s book you can read it from the post A Foxy New Picture Book.
The idea come in my final year at uni. Our final project was to produce a short animation. I’d never done that before and, to begin, I was stuck as to what my film should be about. I was sitting on a train going to visit my girlfriend (now wife) at her university and inspiration struck! I knew I wanted to do something a bit Film Noir-ish, but also funny, and this little naughty fox and and egg wandered onto my sketchbook and the story arrived from there. When I was taken on by my agent they asked me for some stories to submit to some publishers who were interested in working with me so I expanded my original idea and it was accepted byHodder Children’s Books ( one of my UK publishers). My editor there helped me to expand it further into the book it is now!
The inspiration really comes from one of my favourite movies – Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. I wanted the book to feel a bit cinematic and odd and I love the situation in that film of two strange people in a creepy old house together. (Foxy’s outfit is a copy of Baby Jane Hudson’s by the way!)
Did you know the ending of the story before you put pen to paper? Or did it evolve through revising? Can you talk a little about your revision process?
SPOILER ALERT!
Once the book had been signed up, my editor Emma helped to shape it and suggested a few things such as the egg and spoon race – an idea I thought was very funny and added in straight away!
The book is a perfect blend of text and art. The illustrations complete the story. When do you start the illustrations for a book? After a first draft? The final draft? While you’re in the brainstorming stage?
Really when it comes to my books everything comes together at once. Sometimes I might start with a little sketch of a character or a situation and the story comes from that or sometimes it’s the other way around – a plot idea followed by a character sketch. It’s difficult for me to separate the two as I see the story play out in my head as a film.
When I’m writing I might do some tiny doodles about how it would work as a book spread to help me keep track of my ideas. I really get going with the pictures when the text is complete. I’m always very keen on the idea that if you can say something with pictures then go for it. So usually, once the roughs are complete, I meet with my editor and my designer and we see if there are any text areas we can cut and let the pictures do the talking. Then I start the final artwork.
Did you always know you wanted to be a writer and an artist?
Yes, always. I’ve always loved books and luckily came from a very bookish family. I’ve also always loved drawing. I can remember the very first picture I drew – I was very very young and I was sitting at the dining table on my mum’s lap and I drew a teddy bear. It was really just a couple of very wobbly circles and a bit of scribble but I knew it was a teddy bear and told my mum exactly what was going on in my picture. From then on I was hooked and have had a pencil in my hand pretty much all the time since then!
What or who has influenced your creativity and career?
Lots of people. Grandad Sid as I mentioned earlier, but also my other grandparents who came, literally, from every corner of the UK and Ireland. They brought with them all sorts of stories and I loved listening to them when we gathered together for parties. I only have one grandparent left – Betty – and she is a great source of inspiration as she always has a funny or interesting story to tell. She’s forever talking to people she meets in the street and finding out all about them!
Other people who inspire and influence me are my wife, my parents ( who have both worked as teachers) and especially my niece and two nephews. They are such fun to be with, and I don’t think they see me as an adult – I’m just one of them so I get to hear all their plans and ideas which are a great resource to call upon when I’m stuck for ideas! They are also my best critics and aren’t afraid to tell me when they don’t like something! They can be quite blunt!
I had great art teachers at school – Mr Warner and Mrs Goodwin in particular – who both encouraged me endlessly and supported me to do whatever I wanted to do creatively even if my ideas were a bit strange ( a series of large pink and white paintings featuring a glamorous white parisian cat being on of them!)
In terms of other artists who inspire me: Mary Blair, Hilary Knight (one of my favourite books is Eloise), Mirolav Sasek, Lauren Child, Edward Gorey and lots, lots more!
What part of the creative process do you find most challenging and why? Can you share any tips or advice that helps you over the hurdles?
It can be quite challenging to turn an idea into a something commercial. I would say that that is probably the hardest bit of what is a really fun job. A book has to be appealing to children and their parents but also to buyers for the bookstores and sit comfortably, but not get lost, amongst the other books they sell. It can be a bit difficult to trim and shape bits of a story that you think are great, to make it more marketable. But It’s all for a good reason – as an author and an illustrator – you want people to buy and enjoy your books so it’s a necessary part of the process, and I think the way to deal with it is to think of the final outcome. Also deadlines – they can be an issue sometimes!!
Tell us (or show us) about where you work and what a typical “work” day looks like?
I’d love to show you, but I’m actually just starting the process of moving my studio upstairs ( I work from home). We’d like to have our dining room back so I’m packing up and moving up stairs.
FOWL WITH PEARLS – Michael Sowa
My dogs feel the constant need to ‘help’ me. I tend to have to sit perched on the edge of my office seat so that one Chihuahua can lie in comfort behind my back and another on my lap. The big Chihuahua is usually at my feet or riffling through my waste paper basket and our elderly Yorkshire Terrier likes to sleep on my armchair. She snores….
I can relate. I have a snoring Shih-Tzu curled at my feet while I write 🙂
When my wife comes home I usually cook dinner and try to switch my brain off from work mode ( not always easy!)
You’re agented with Arena Illustration, one of the most well known illustration agencies in the UK. How did you find each other? And what is that working relationship like?
Great! Really, great. The team at Arena are some of the loveliest bunch of people you could meet. Funny, fun, supportive and always on hand with great advice. They make my life easier by letting me get on with drawing and writing, whilst they deal with contracts and clients, and getting me the best jobs to work on.
I met them just as I left uni. I was working on some baby books with Campbell Books and I mentioned to the art director that I didn’t have an agent and did she think I should try and get one? I wasn’t really sure at that stage what agents did. She told me that her friend ran Arena and she put me in touch with them. I went to see them with my portfolio and I instantly liked them even though I was really nervous. I knew of Arena and they had lots of artists on their books that I really liked. We had a nice chat and I left my portfolio with them as requested and just expected it to be posted back to me the next day or something. I didn’t hear from them for a couple of weeks until they rang me to say they had got me a job illustrating an American school book and said they had an appointment to see the editor and art director at Scholastic
(who gave me my first proper book deal a few months later). I haven’t looked back since.
There’s only four people at Arena so you quickly develop a close relationship with them. It’s nice to know you have a group of people supporting you and looking out for your interests. The world of publishing can be a bit of maze so it’s good to be guided by people you trust.
If you can, please tell us about what you’re working on now?
Tell us 3 things you can’t live without.
1. My dogs even though they are really naughty!
2. Cake. It’s my favourite food ever. (Especially Victoria Sandwich cake)
3. My Moleskine sketchbooks and the brightly coloured mechanical pencils from a shop in the UK called Paperchase.
To learn more about Alex T. Smith, follow him on his blog or to see more of his portfolio visitArena Illustration.
Did anyone pick out the British spelling of words in this interview? I found four words, how about you?
Thanks, Alex!! I can’t wait to see what Foxy and Egg get into next! And the release ofElla (Scholastic, 2012).