When I left art school and went in search of work, visiting publishers and showing them my drawings and illustrations, I was met with a polite and sometimes enthusiastic response but no commissions.
There are loads of fan sites for the 'Edge,' including deviant art, song lyrics using 'Edge' language, multiple entries on Wikipedia, there are even some 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?' games all about the 'Edge.'
The 'Chronicles of Narnia' have been favourites of mine since my childhood when I misread 'Aslan' as 'Alsatian' and was struck by the genius of naming a lion after a dog!
Roald Dahl worked with other illustrators, but it was only when he teamed up with Quentin Blake that the chemistry began to fizz. Quentin Blake is Britain's greatest living illustrator and has that special talent all the great illustrators have, of unobtrusive brilliance.
In the digital future, texts will be annotated visually, animated and illustrated like never before. The austere 'prayer book' paper that permitted the space for Shepard's illustrations to Pepys' diaries is now being recreated in the digital era.
I'm interested in illustration in all its forms. Not only in books for children but in posters, prints and performance as a way of drawing people into books and stories.
I would like to say to children, 'Don't stop drawing. Don't tell yourself you can't draw.' Everyone can draw. If you make a mark on a page, you can draw.
I want to bring drawing back to the basics, make it about the pleasure that it can afford and remove the notion that it's some kind of precious or difficult activity. It's another way of telling a story.
I don't feel uncomfortable in forbidding institutions, and work with, say, prisons or psychiatric institutions could be one of the things that evolve out of the Laureateship.
Go out and find a copy of 'The Shrinking Of Treehorn' and its sequel, 'Treehorn's Treasure.' Written by Florence Parry Heide and illustrated by the great Edward Gorey, master of the gothic and the macabre, these books are small masterpieces.
Fans write to us via our publisher and more than ever via the Internet, blogs and fan sites, and good writers should be actively seeking out that interaction. Gone are the days when writers are dead or hidden away in dusty attics; nowadays, you've got to get out there.
As the Kindle's dread grip on digital publishing is challenged by tablet computers and Android smartphones, with their bright screens and high resolution, the need for illustration is growing.
As a child, I copied Tenniel's illustrations from 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' obsessively, particularly his drawing of the white rabbit in waistcoat and frockcoat, umbrella tucked under one arm and a fob watch in paw, a look of suppressed panic in his eye.
Do you have hands? Excellent. That's a good start. Can you hold a pencil? Great. If you have a sketchbook, open it and start by making a line, a mark, wherever. Doodle.
