When it all went Bear Shaped.

Publishing my first book during a worldwide pandemic.

The inked doodles of exploding fireworks, exclamation marks and asterisks on the space for April 2, 2020 had been in place for months. I had downloaded an app to my phone which gave me a countdown to glance at every morning until publication day for Bear Shaped. My first book.

Then … Covid.

One by one, the events planned – school visits in the UK and Ireland, library readings, book signings, celebratory drinks around a bear-shaped cake, were all cancelled or ‘indefinitely postponed’. Naturally enough I was gutted. I’d had no idea prior to writing Bear Shaped just how long the gap is between the stages of ‘sitting at kitchen table with idea’ and ‘grinning at book on shelf in Waterstones’. So I felt like I’d waited as long and as hard as I had worked.

The reviews that I had hoped for – and more – came. Reading them was a relief and a joy but oddly, it sometimes felt as though I was reading about somebody else’s writing and somebody else’s illustrations. Not being physically ‘around’ anyone who had read the book and not being able to watch a child react to it, removed the reality by a few degrees. And although I shared the hell out of those reviews on social media, that moment of shouting from the rooftops became like one of those dreams in which your voice refuses to rise to your throat.

Bear Shaped is a true story. So for me the saddest part of all this was that on April 2, the plan had been to go to the school of Bear Shaped’s real life hero – Jack – to read the story to him and to all of his classmates. To me, Jack is a wonder. His kind and empathetic heart is one to be celebrated. Which I hope is something that the book achieves. I wanted him to be at the centre of that day. On the bright side, I do know that on that morning, Jack bounced out of bed and announced to his dad ‘It’s today! It’s Bear Shaped Day!’

I get two copies of each foreign language edition of the book. I send one to Jack once I’ve google-translated a message for him on the inside cover. So far, he is making shelf space for Welsh, Hebrew, Greek, Dutch and Chinese. I still have everything crossed that I’ll one day be able to send him an Irish one!

As I mentioned, Bear Shaped is my first book. Previous to that I had been a copywriter, a stay at home mum, a photographer, and then, once my girls found their feet, a full-time artist. My art was initially portraits and sea paintings. I was producing work that I believed people would want to buy, rather than what I deep down wanted to produce creatively.

It was the magic of seeing the world through the eyes of my daughters that reminded me of the magic I had loved myself. I started revisiting the fairytales that my mother had given me a love for, and began producing more illustrative pieces inspired by them. A few people had described these drawings as ‘whimsy’ which I found quite belittling. That’s probably why I didn’t share them for so long. Then by a few queer twists of fate, some of these pieces were seen online by Stevie Nicks. (Yes, that Stevie Nicks.) She not only bought all that I had produced of that fairytale series, but she also wrote in a letter to me of how she felt about my work and telling me to keep drawing. I don’t think anyone needs more of a seal of approval than that in order to continue. I certainly didn’t.

I then went on to produce a series of drawings to depict the story of Nellie Melba for The Savoy and became the first woman to be one of their artists in residence. I finally felt that I could say ‘I’m an artist’ when asked what I did, instead of stammering around for an answer.

A few years on, and now to be able to say ‘I’m an author’ is insane. To write and illustrate children’s books is the kind of thing I daydreamed about. But I’d never fired my arrow toward that ambition, certain that I would fall short. Basically I was too chicken to even try.

Then, one evening I was lying on the sofa in my pyjamas, mooching through Twitter. A dad had tweeted that his six-year-old son Jack, who had autism, had lost his beloved bear. To him, Bear was his bridge between his world and everybody else’s. I was reminded of my eldest daughter losing ‘Baby Dolly’ shortly after her little sister was born, and how much worse this loss must be for Jack. I tweeted back a sketch of Bear to offer some tiny comfort that he was OK. I offered to send a portrait too, so that in some way, Bear would still be with him. That tweet changed everything. I had no idea then that the scribble of a teddy and the story that would then unfold would turn into a book that would enable me to say ‘I’m an author. I’m an illustrator. I’m an artist.’

Soon enough, schools and libraries will let authors back in, and people will be able to gather for book signings. Children will be able to go on a teddy bears’ picnic. I’ll be able to see children’s faces as they listen to the story of this remarkable little boy and his best friend. I’ll see them discover the little bear-shaped details I’ve hidden in the illustrations for them. They’ll be able to tell me about their own bears, and about the time they thought they had lost them. Then, for me at least, this particular fairytale will be real.