What are you most looking forward to at the 2016 Festival? I’m of course looking forward to meeting up with people who like books, that’s what the festivals are about, but festivals are also a great place to meet up with fellow writers and illustrators. Being an author can be a lonely job sometimes. I’m also hoping to go to some events myself. The list of speakers is huge. When did you realise you wanted to be a writer? I studied fine art and worked mainly as a graphic designer. It was when my first daughter was born that I started to illustrate books for children. The first were books written by somebody else, later I wrote the books myself. It was quite a natural process and it’s much easier to illustrate your own text. At the time when I wrote my first picture book I was thirty years old. What book do you find yourself re-reading most often? My favourite book is The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. I’ve read the book a couple of times. If you weren’t a writer, what would you be? I would probably still like to do something involving paint, pencils and brushes, but I also love the smell of wood. Maybe a carpenter, that would be nice. And finally, we have a number of aspiring writers attending the Festival. What one piece of advice would you give them? Keep writing. See it as a game. Just play. Be honest with yourself. Enjoy the work. Don’t rush it. When it’s finished, put it in a drawer for three months. If you still like it when you take it out, then that’s a good sign and starting point. It doesn’t matter if you don’t finish a story. It’s okay to start another one. One day you will finish a story and it will be good.