From a crooked little house beside a winding river with a luscious little overgrown garden

Peggy Collins has been an illustrator her entire life, but had her first "real" book published about four years ago with Scholastic. Since then, she has illustrated more than ten books for children.

Peggy is a graduate of the illustration program at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario. She lives with her family in Ontario, in a crooked little house beside a winding river with a luscious little overgrown garden. In the Garden is her first book as both author and illustrator.

Q:

Which books made a great impression on you when you were a child?

PC:

I pretty much loved all books, we were reading all the time, and spent so much time at the library, it is hard to remember... but when we got new books — that was the BEST, the crack of the spine and the smell of fresh printed paper. I loved the Alexander books, Ramona, Gordon Korman... for picture books, I think we had a membership to book of the month, and I had a Dr. Seuss book bag, and those books coming every month was such a treat. I forget though, which ones I loved, till I see them at the bookstore or in used book sales and I am taken right back to my mom's lap. I’m also a huge fan of Roald Dahl.

My mom wrote stories for me and making amazing pictures to go along with them made the biggest impression I think, they were so great and so special, it made me feel like she was really paying attention — you know? It is fun that I get to do that for my little guy, too.

Q:

In the Garden is your first book as both author and illustrator — how was the process different from collaborating with a writer?

PC:

Well… I never really get to collaborate directly. In fact, I have never met nor spoken to anyone I have illustrated for until afterwards. I am always so nervous about whether or not they'll like it... and now that I am writing and faced with that potential with one of my new stories (that I may not get to illustrate) it is making me even more aware. It is kind of weird, I mean you work so intimately with the text and you have no idea about the person who wrote it.

With my own book, it was great fun, because all the text came from life and I had the images already so ingrained from day one, I could not imagine anyone else doing it. But I also worked harder on this one than anything I have ever done, because I could not blame any shortcomings on anyone but me. I work as a graphic designer as well, so the publisher let me do the design as well, which I LOVED. I'd love to get into designing other people's books, you get to do things on the page that you cannot really do in any other media. It would be fun to do one that is a little crazy and not so sweet, I love those wacky books.

Q:

How did you go about the writing process? Did you write the book in its entirety and then illustrate or did you write and illustrate simultaneously?

PC:

Hmm, I followed my little guy around for a summer, and recorded like crazy. This one started with a couple of sketches. A publisher I was working with on another project asked off-hand if I had written anything and I said, “sort-of.” I had written lots, but never really pursued anything that way. So I emailed him the pages of my sketchbook where I had the story roughed out. He told me to write it — so I did. Then John Whalen, Cider Mill Press’s Publisher, hired a great editor, Liz Encarnacion, to work with me and together we made the book ( I have a thing for em dashes and ... and she is great at keeping those in-line). She was great with the tweaking, suggesting things that did not quite work and then letting me sort it out. I like working that way; it was more fluid and intuitive. You can play with words too long and they just start looking funny and stop making sense — then it is time to stop.

Interview courtesy of Simon & Schuster Canada. For more information about Peggy Collin’s In the Garden, visit the Simon & Schuster Canada’s website at www.simonandschuster.ca.