I really enjoyed the process of working on Ling Li's Lantern with Steve Heron and Anna Solding from MidnightSun Publishing. I was captivated by Steve's story right from the start. There is something special and fable-like about it - something that echoed from my own childhood.
For me at least, Ling Li's Lantern really is all thanks to SCBWI. Ever since joining SCBWI right at the beginning, the conferences that have been my highlight. They bring the creative book community together and you get to share your interests, support one another and get to know people better and better....especially when we might normally be separated all across Australia.
It was in 2012, one of the first conferences I attended, that I first chatted to Steve, and then in the 2014 conference I met him again and showed him the portfolio I had submitted. In it was an illustration I had done for a story I had written called Night Town).
Night Town
Steve remembered that one illustration and in 2018 when his manuscript for Ling Li's Lantern was accepted by MidnightSun he asked if they could track me down. By the 2019 conference I had completed the storyboard and we were able to meet once again and work through it. I'm really glad he has such a good memory and Steve distinctly remembers saying back in 2014 that he hoped we would have the opportunity to work together. And so in 2020, almost a decade since we first met, that hope has come true in Ling Li's Lantern... to be released on 1st September. So thank you SCBWI conferences for bringing us all together....
It was an interesting premise - writing and illustrating a story outside your own culture - but I believe it has been achieved with respect and resonance. In undertaking the illustration of this story I researched carefully the fashion, architecture and the landscape paintings of the Qing period of China and took those as inspiration.
I also used photos from my own travels and drew upon the brains-trust of some of my Chinese-born friends to help check the details of what I was working on. I wanted to ensure I created as authentic a setting as possible. Steve and I are very pleased with the result.
