Northern Highlight Photographer Maggie Barclay Joseph Lamb 1. Why did you become a writer/illustrator? I’ve written ever since I was VERY young! I don't know if I ‘became’ a writer, or just wrote because I wanted to. I like reading other people’s stories and wanted to write some of my own.     2. Tell us about where you live. I live in Dundee, Scotland. In a ‘Regenerated’ “Village” where I used to live as a child when it was a sprawling housing scheme.   3. Where do you work? As an author, I write wherever I can, but I DO get an awful lot of work done in the “Olympia” cafe at Dundee Leisure Centre. 4. What for you is the 'spirit of the Scotland’? I see the spirit of the North being quite Nordic in places, which isn’t too unusual given our ancient history. I see us as an honourable, but proud people. And mess with one of us, and you mess with us all! 5. Has this spirit influenced your work? Without a doubt. I do tend to find I have...

 NORTHERN HIGHLIGHT     Lucy Fleming   Why did you become an illustrator? When I was at school I became enthralled by the idea of making books. I loved reading and coming up with ideas of my own, and I wondered what it would be like to be an author. People could read your words and nobody need ever necessarily know what you looked like! Readers could love your work rather than your clothes, weight or what you looked like - all the things a teenager worries about would be immaterial. What a wonderful thing to do. What joy you could bring to others. That all changed when I found a new way of creating characters and telling stories – through drawing! I became obsessed with drawing and making art, but I always came back to the storytelling as well. Inevitably, illustration felt like a natural marrying of my love for art and books. Tell us about where you live. I live in Stalybridge in Greater Manchester near moorlands and the Peak District.  I've lived in a few area...

 SPECIAL GUEST NORTHERN HIGHLIGHT Mairi Kidd, Seven Stories - The National Centre for Children's Books Perhaps you could start by giving us a potted history of Seven Stories.  When did you start up? Seven Stories was founded as a charity in 1996 by Elizabeth Hammill OBE and Mary Briggs OBE. They recognised that Britain needed an institution whose mission was to collect, champion and celebrate its children's literature. They believed that it should be founded in a place where it could make a real difference to the children and families living nearby, knowing that early experience of books and stories is vital to childhood development and raising aspiration. In the 1990s the original manuscripts and illustrations of some of Britain's influential authors were being sold to overseas collectors and institutions. There was nowhere in Britain that saw its role as protector of our literary heritage for children. Mary and Elizabeth set out, with the help of many authors, illustr...