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The cover of Zanna and the Something! 2019

As I was tidying my desk today, I came across this little gem. Many years ago, I was part of a group of writers reading their works in progress to a roomful of children at the Library in English in Geneva. I read my then unpublished, unillustrated manuscript “The Elephant in the Room”, and then asked the children to draw the illustrations for it… This was the story that would eventually become “Zanna and the Something” – which is published next week at the Festival du Livre Jeunesse in Yverdon. One of the children gave me her illustration to keep – and keep it I did! This drawing has been giving me so much courage to keep writing over the years, to submit and re-submit my stories, even though writing can be so hard… Because this was the very first time that a child (outside my close family) was clearly inspired by something I had written – and that, all these years on, still makes me very, very happy :-).