Want to get to know some of the incredible creative minds behind the Your Next Read junior fiction novels? Read on!
Today, we say hello to Kylie Howarth, an award-winning, bestselling, internationally published author and illustrator from Western Australia. Kylie was raised in the country alongside her brother, dog, sheep, several orphaned kangaroos and one very cheeky echidna.
Her obsession with animals also extends underwater as she has braved lionfish in Egypt, piranha and pink dolphins in the Amazon, marine iguanas and hammerhead sharks in the Galapagos Islands and swum with whale sharks, manta rays and humpback whales at Ningaloo, Western Australia.
The textures in Kylie’s book illustrations are created with her two adventurous young boys during their backyard art sessions.
Kylie recently won the Western Australian Premier’s Book Award – Writer’s Fellowship, the WAYRBA Hoffman award and KOALA Honour award. She has been shortlisted for the SCBWI Australian Picture Book Illustrators Award, CBCA Book of the year awards, WAYRBA and the YABBA awards.
Below is an edited extract from an interview with Kylie in episode #6 of the Your Kid’s Next Read podcast Summer Series.
YKNR: You have been a children’s author and illustrator for a decade now – how did you get started?
Kylie: ‘I did the usual thing that most people do where they hook up with a friend and decide to make a book – you know, ‘you write it, I’ll illustrate it’. So, I did all the wrong things. But then I started going to some SCBWI events (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators), and that’s where I learned the correct way of submitting stories to publishers – where you shouldn’t really try and find your own illustrator, as the publishers like to do that.
‘Once I started following those rules I had a little bit more success.’
What what made you want to illustrate a picture book in the first place?
Kylie: ‘I was a graphic designer and I was freelancing. I went over to London and freelanced for two or three years, and the industry over there was just incredible. Then I came back to Perth and design firms over here at the time were very, very small. I couldn’t see myself going from such a huge, flexible industry into a small office once I got back to Perth, so I continued freelancing for some design firms in England.
‘Then I started just playing around with some ideas. I remember specifically seeing an Oliver Jeffers picture book in the airport on my way back and thinking, ‘oh, I just love these picture books –I feel like I should do one of these one day’.
‘And then of course, I had my kids when I got back to Perth as well, and when I started reading picture books to them, I fell in love with them, and I was like, ‘yes, I definitely need to have a crack at doing one of these’.’
You are now the author-illustrator of 12 books. Do do the words or the pictures come first for you when you are dreaming up story ideas?
Kylie: Having a graphic design background, I’ve been trained to think of interesting concepts, so it’s usually a concept that comes first. But a lot of my books are driven by the idea of a character first, so I’d say the pictures and the words come together.
‘I might start with some drawings of a character, but then go off and write a story for it, and then come along and do the illustrations. So perhaps beginning with a visual of the character and then the story.’
Your 2022 picture book, ‘Bush Magic’, was a particular favourite of Megan Daley’s. But there’s always an animal element in your work, which is obviously important. Why do you lean into animals?
Kylie: ‘I think people can relate to animals because there’s no specific gender, no specific race. So people can see themselves more in an animal on the page sometimes than if you have shown the colour of somebody’s hair, for instance. So that works really well in storytelling.
‘But also, my mum was a wildlife carer, so I grew up with sheep and kangaroos in our house and animals and chooks and everything. I always thought I would be a vet, when I was younger. So I’ve always had that passion for animals and I think that’s where it comes from, too.’
How do you decide if a story idea is strong enough to withstand the hours of work you will need to put in to write and illustrate it?
Kylie: ‘I test them on family – my kids are pretty good at expressing whether they enjoy something or not. So it’s feedback I get from reading a story to my family. It’s also feedback from whether a publisher says, ‘yes, we’ll publish this or not’. Plus, I think you get a vibe.’
What do you think is the biggest lesson you’ve learned in your decade in children’s publishing?
Kylie: ‘The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that with any story that you thought was a fantastic idea, you always hit this point in the middle where you’re like…ah, maybe this isn’t so good. Maybe this is terrible. This is awful. What was I thinking?
‘I’ve learned to trust the process, and I learned that through my graphic design career as well. That if you just keep trusting the process and keep going, you’ll find that high point again, where you’ve made everything work again. So when you hit that low, don’t worry because it’s just part of the process and it happens in every project.’
Listen to the full interview here.
About ‘Dragon Beach’ by Kylie Howarth, illustrated by Gus Gordon
Do you like ANIMALS, FAMILY and MAGIC?
Then this book is YOUR NEXT READ.
When Jack’s dog Franky eats something strange at the beach, he turns into a giant dragon! But Ranger Roz doesn’t think a dragon can be a pet and wants to take Franky away. Can Jack save his best friend before it’s too late?
Buy here from your favourite online retailer
Want to know more about Kylie’s work in ‘Dragon Beach’ (including where she got the idea for the story)? Watch the video!
