In just about any profession in Ireland, if you work with children or vulnerable people, you’ve probably had to go through a background check by the Gardaí – Ireland’s police force – but for children’s writers and illustrators, it can get especially complicated and repetitive. If you’ve been doing this long enough, you’ll know exactly what I mean. I’ve…
Tomorrow marks the beginning of Children’s Book Festival in libraries and schools across Ireland. For people like me, it’s easily the busiest time of the year for events, and this year I’m booked up for just about every school day (and a few weekend days) between now and the mid-term break. This month, I’ll be a in few different…
There’s been a lot of talk online about authors being asked or expected to do events for free, or virtually for free. So I figured I’d stick my oar in on this. When I started out as an illustrator, I took crap jobs for crap money, because I figured it was the price of getting established. And it was….