MOTHER/FATHER -DAUGHTER COLLABORATIONS - in conversation with Joyce Dunbar

Gillian McClure and her father Paul Coltman and their book Tinker Jim in 1992


G: I remember that the collaboration with my father, Paul Coltman, on three picture books TOG THE RIBBER, WITCH WATCH and TINKER JIM, all published by Andre Deutsch and Farrar Strauss & Giroux in the late 1980s and early 1990s felt rather unique at the time, but you’ve done the same thing, Joyce, with your daughter, Polly Dunbar.

J: There aren't many such parent/child collaborations about.
Polly showed early promise. From the age of 5 onwards her Christmas present to me was a tiny picture book she had made. I saved them all - Polly has them now. I was working on books with my husband at the time. I didn’t dream that I would one day work with Polly. It all seemed so far away.

G: Polly must have been a similar age and stage in her career as I was when she illustrated your story, SHOE BABY published by Walker Books in 2005. Did you do anything together before that?

J: Polly was 16 when she published two books of cartoons about teenage life in Norwich.
followed by 4 novelty books.  Then, in 1998 we were asked to do a book for the Family Contact Centres - a place where estranged parents could meet their children on neutral territory (now dismantled of course). This was unpaid, but a great way to start a collaboration.

G: But a big difference between our two collaborations was that my father had always been a poet rather than a writer for children so it was me introducing him to the world of picture books whereas you were already a well established author of picture book and didn’t you share the same publisher as Polly? So was it your idea or your publishers that you should work together on a book? How did it all come about?

J: One day I caught a glimpse in Polly’s sketch book of an old woman stepping over a field of shoes. 6 years later, after many rewrites,  this became SHOE BABY. Polly had already published DOG BLUE & FLYWAY KATIE  with Walker so was well versed in the picture book format, and they took it on. With her student friend Katherine, Polly went on to make SHOE BABY into a puppet show - the start of  Longnosepuppets. The show won first prize at the Brighton festival in 2006 and has been on tour ever since.

G: Like Polly, I’m both writer and illustrator and I found that I was not just illustrating but involving myself in the text as well. This didn’t happen with the first book, TOG THE RIBBER, which was a poem my father had written several years before and it just happened to fall neatly into the 32 page format of a picture book. However, with the next two, WITCH WATCH and TINKER JIM, I worked closely with my father on the text alongside the illustrations as he didn’t ‘think in picture book format.’ Did Polly ask for any changes in your texts?


J: Not for SHOE BABY - where unusually, not a word was changed. However, for PAT -A CAKE BABY -  she was trying out new techniques and had this ingenious notion of making the words part of the pictures. This meant cuts and changes. We had a lot of fun - and sweat - working it out. Because we have a shared sensibility in some ways, it feels like a book by two people rolled into one rather than two separate individuals - a special pleasure for me  because I would love to have been an illustrator as well as a writer. Every publishers dream is the person who can do both.


G: And equally, did you make any suggestions at the rough stage of her illustrations? Or maybe that was all left to the designer at Walker Books? I remember sending the first roughs to my father rather than to the designer for, back in those days, there wasn’t the same close interaction with an in-house designer at the early layout stage of a picture book.

J:Polly worked closely with the designer, Liz Wood, and also with me. She showed me the dummies at each stage and I was allowed to comment. It’s a delicate balance and you have to be careful not to impose anything on the illustrator. Of course, I was just carried away by the sheer joyousness of Polly’s work so it was no problem.

 G: You’ve worked with many illustrators, Joyce, how did working with your daughter compare with other collaborations?

J: Well,  I don’t find many illustrators sitting on the end of the bed in the morning when I wake up; quite often you never even get to meet them. I take great care to keep out of it until Polly is ready to show me. I worked very closely with James Mayhew on the MOUSE & MOLE series, but never interfered or gave instructions. That is a no-no. More usually the publisher sends me the dummies at different stages for comment. The special thing is that we each know where the other is coming from.

G: When my father and I first worked together, I remember Dad finding the whole process of illustration very slow (I was juggling it with a new baby and a house move) and he would keep phoning to try and hurry it along. I expect you’re much more understanding of illustrators and deadlines, Joyce.

J: I never hurry it along, especially now that I have to wait in a long queue while Polly is working on other books.  You have to leave the illustrator to get on with their side of the dance. You are equal partners - except that I do think the illustrator makes or breaks the text. In this case, the illustrator is the inspiration for the text, and the incentive. Without Polly, neither of these texts would ever have been written. I can’t hurry myself along. I had the idea - but couldn’t make it work. Then one day Polly was ill in bed with flu and she did some sketches of these tiny candy babies making a cake - with outsize rolling pins and so on. I knew then that I had to make it work - but it was another 6 years and mountains of scribble before the text was acceptable. Now it all looks so simple.


G: The collaboration with my father ended when Andre Deutsch’s children’s list was bought by Scholastic and David Fickling, our new editor, turned down the fourth book, Proteus, Guardian of the Seals.  This eventually somehow morphed itself into quite a different seal legend, SELKIE and I returned to being both author and illustrator. Your collaboration is not yet over, though, and you have a new book coming out…

J: PAT-A-CAKE BABY comes out in April. There is something so exciting to children about making a cake - so I wanted the words to capture all the fizz and feel and frolic of the process. Polly has taken this as far as it can go - to HULLA-BALLOONY-MOONTIME. The
words, like the cake, seem edible.

Polly Dunbar and her mother Joyce Dunbar and their new book PAT-A CAKE BABY 2015

EMAIL FROM JOYCE DUNBAR

Hi Gillian,

Thanks so much for the copy of FLOOD. It's a lovely book and to me it's a marvel that you have written, illustrated and published this book on your own. A brave undertaking! You need a very special combination of skills. At first you must have been a lone ranger - but as recent articles show, more and more authors are taking charge in this way - including many who are previously published.

The rest of us are threatened on two sides - on the one hand the new breed of self published authors - often very media savvy - why else would they do it? - and good at self promotion. On the other side, publishers forming larger and larger conglomerates with a tight agenda - and with precious few exceptions, smaller publishers afraid to take risks. Which leaves traditionally published authors somewhat stranded.

It's a beautiful book, with your characteristic variety of texture and delicacy of tone - telling a story with a strong theme of survival against the odds - in such a quirky way that I couldn't help wondering where it came from. The happiness
of the ending is muted and left me with a vague feeling of melancholy.

Then, it struck me.  It reads very well as an allegory of your (our) struggles as a writer. You are Fussy Hen, Slodger the children's book industry - now getting old and lumberingly large; fox at first is the wolf at the door, morphing into the guy who helped you set up Plaister Press; the flood is what threatens us all. 'Fussy hen
found to her surprise that she could steer' - is your discovery that you can take control of your career with a bit of financial backing; the island is where you are now - a lone publisher with the big old one beside you -   not altogether secure but
not drowned either. The ending is safety on a tiny lonely island, so both happy and sad.

I didn't try to figure this out - it just dawned. Maybe it is as much my projection as your unconscious. But anyway - it is a very intriguing example of the way images indirectly and metaphorically can tell a story about change.  I think we are both
so lucky to have started our careers in the 70s and 80's. A golden time.

I can only say this because I've known you so long as a friend - and I hope you won't think I've taken liberties. I hope it sails forth into the world with as much courage as you have shown in producing it and in taking charge. Bravo! To you and Fussy Hen!

Love

Joyce

Thank you, Joyce, for your insights. My last three picture books have had a water theme but not the one I’m working on now. This new book is about a mouse with not a drop of water in sight.  I wonder what that can mean.

GUEST BLOGGER: JOYCE DUNBAR

 

Guest blogger, Joyce Dunbar tells me about her latest picture book Puss Jekyll, Cat Hyde:

Puss Jekyll, Cat Hyde, (illustrated by Jill Barton, published by Frances Lincoln), is a cat with nine lives.

    I wrote it 15 years ago. My then agent, Gina Pollinger, said the text was 'like a fine wine.' But while publishers admired it, they said it would not make a picture book for children. I made some clumsy alterations, adding a child dreamer, but that didn't work, so it sat on my file for another 11 years.

    Then one day, circa 2008, I bundled up a few cat pieces and sent them to my new agent. She picked this one out, and to my surprise, Puffin took it on for their new 'Picture Book Boutique.' We had a lovely dinner in the Strand so that I could meet the illustrator, Jill Barton, to discuss possibilities - a rare enough encounter in itself since publishers on the whole prefer to keep the two species apart.

    Jill, like me, has had an enjoyable run of bears, ducks, rabbits, and so on, but was longing to do something darker. I wondered how she would handle the text. When the bold, graphite images arrived, I danced around the house with excitement. It was so clean, clear and bold, and so different.

    Puffin was equally enthusiastic - but then came the 2009 recession. Not only our book, but quite a few of the boutique books bit the dust. The Americans were no longer buying. There was a half hearted attempt to format it as a cute Mother's Day gift book, with sugar almond background colours and a smaller format. Jill was horrified. I thought it was better than nothing. Even so, 3 months before publication, compelled by market forces, Puffin pulled the plug completely.

    To their great credit, Jill's agent and mine sped round in a taxi together to protest, but to no avail. I showed it to Henry Layte, publisher and owner of our new independent Book shop, and he rewarded me with words of great praise. I didn't expect them to make a difference. But then, wonder of  wonders, within a few months, Frances Lincoln picked it up.

    Working with the first basic layouts they wrought a subtle transformation: Maurice Lyon, the editor, coaxed me into working on the punctuation, which ended up as supremely elegant as our cat, and Jill revisited some of the spreads, doing two complete new ones. The whole thing was watched over by Judith Escreet, the art editor. There was a bit of a fracas about an elusive vole, but finally the finished copies were in our tremulous, thankful hands.

    On Thursday 25th at the Book Hive, we had a wonderful launch. The shop was filled with well wishers and the book was a sell out. It also coincided perfectly with Hallowe'en, when 'good things of day begin to droop and drowse, and night's dark agents to their preys do rouse.' Spot on!

    So we are now feeling very chuffed and purry. It has been a long and difficult journey, but what a gloriously happy ending - so far.