Laurence Anholt |
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Catherine and Laurence Anholt are one of the world’s leading writer and illustrator teams. Together, they have created over sixty picture books including A Kiss Like This.
THE BASICS: CATHERINE
Born: London, 1958
Jobs: Nurse
Lives: Lyme Regis, Dorset
First Book: Truffles, 1983
THE BASICS: LAURENCE
Born: London, 1959
Jobs: Door-to-door encyclopædia salesman, tropical fish salesman, laboratory assistant, picture framer, sign writer, kitchen porter, cinema usher, joiner, art teacher
Lives: Lyme Regis, Dorset
First Book: Truffles, 1983
THE BOOKS
When Catherine and Laurence work together, he writes and she illustrates. Laurence has also written work for other artists, including Tony Ross, Arthur Robins, Martin Chatterton and Sheila Moxley. To make things even more confusing, Laurence also sometimes illustrates his own books!
Catherine grew up in the Cotswolds as part of a large Irish family - she was one of eight brothers and sisters! After a brief nursing career, Catherine found her true vocation as an artist. She took an Arts Foundation course in Banbury and then a Printmaking Degree at Falmouth School of Art. She met Laurence during her time at Falmouth. Catherine went on to take a Masters Degree at the Royal College of Art in London. Catherine has the unusual quality of total childhood recall – right back to being swaddled in a hairy blanket as a baby! Her work has been acclaimed as having a uniquely personal quality.
Laurence comes from a Dutch family and spent his early childhood in Holland, where he developed a lasting passion for Art – especially Van Gogh. His father had been an artist and his mother was an English teacher. He went to a co-educational Outward Bound school, leaving at 16 to take a three year Foundation Course at Epsom School of Art. Laurence claims to have a “butterfly mind” and is happiest working on several diverse projects at once; this might explain the rather confusing list of early careers (see above). Laurence studied painting for eight years and finished with a Masters Degree in Painting at The Royal Academy of Art in London. He taught Art at Swindon School of Art and residential Painting Courses at Adult Education Centres such as West Dean College and Missenden Abbey. Laurence has been described by William Watt as “one of the most versatile authors writing for children today.”
The Anholts live and work from a converted farmhouse overlooking the sea at Lyme Regis. Parts of the house are very old and it is reputedly haunted by an old lady who stirs a pot in the kitchen. Family life has always been the Anholts’ biggest influence and they get many ideas from their three young children, who road-test every book.
The Anholts’ work has been translated into around fifteen languages worldwide, including Chinese, Hebrew, Icelandic and Welsh!
Catherine and Laurence actively support many literacy and reading organisations and are especially passionate about libraries. In 1998, they were commissioned by the UK government to produce a booklet, Babies Love Books, for the Bookstart scheme.
WHAT LAURENCE SAYS…
“One of Cathy’s first books was called Good Days, Bad Days. I’ve always liked that title because it seems to sum up family life. For us, ideas, creative work, business and family life, all co-exist in a hectic jumble.”
“Our first books were made during rare quiet moments at the kitchen table. Now, Cathy and I have separate work rooms and she is at her drawing board almost every day, although we have many weeks in the year when we plan, dream-up and develop new projects together.”
“We love children’s books because it is one of the few places where words and pictures work side by side. Ideas can be elusive – sometimes the harder you try, the less likely they are to come, so once in a while, the best thing is a long walk by the sea. We have to be receptive and trust our intuition, but there is a lot of hard work too and deadlines have to be met.”
“There are many other sides to our business – we don’t have an agent; which means endless letter writing and discussions with publishers – some of our editors are almost part of the family now! There are unexpected avenues too – Braille and cassette editions, trips abroad and a couple of animation projects in progress. Throughout the year there are many wonderful book events and school and library visits; best of all are the piles of fantastic letters from kids all over the world.”
“Do we enjoy it? Yes, we love it; although the down side of working together is that it can be difficult to switch off. But, at four o’clock in the afternoon, the door bursts open and suddenly the most important thing in the world is homework, football practice, cleaning out the hamster, a bruised knee – that phone call to the publisher will just have to wait.”
WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT CATHERINE & LAURENCE ANHOLT...
"A Kiss Like This wins favourite bedtime story, providing opportunities for blowing raspberries on your tiny tots tummy.” Times
“This is an adorable story about a father lion and his excessively kissable cub. It has softly shaded, amusing pictures and the storyline is repetitive so that young children can ‘read’ along. The book is beautifully presented and takes an everyday subject and turns it onto an unusual story with a cast of various friendly characters.” Baby on A Kiss Like This
“The repetition of the language is wonderful, and the book also lends itself to actions, as you kiss and cuddle your child behind her ears, on the end of her nose and on her tummy.” Junior on A Kiss Like This
AWARDS
Highly Commended for the Right Start Best Toy and Book Award 1997 for 3 Orchard Titles.
Shortlisted for the Sheffield Book Award, The Nottingham Children’s Book Award, The Federation of Children’s Book Groups’ Children’s Book Award.
» Visit the Anholts website at www.anholt.co.uk.
DATES OF BIRTH:
Catherine: London 18.1.58
Laurence: London 4.8.59
FAVOURITE BOOK:
Catherine: Restoration by Rose Tremain
Laurence: The Catcher in the Rye
MOST TREASURED POSSESSION:
Our children of course!
FAVOURITE SONG:
Catherine: Dixit Dominus by Handel
Laurence: The Long and Winding Road by The Beatles
FAVOURITE FILM:
Catherine: Cider with Rosie
Laurence: If
Laurence and Catherine Anholt talk to Penguin
When did you start writing?
We started making children's books in 1984 when our eldest daughter, Claire, was born. We had just finished at Art School and we were very poor. All our first books were made on the kitchen table surrounded by highchairs and soggy rusks. By the time our twins, Tom and Maddy came along, we had published five or six books and the whole business began to grow with the children. Since then we have made about 70 books and those babies are towering teenagers!
Where do you get your ideas and inspiration from?
This is the question that everybody asks and there isn't an easy answer - I wish you could just walk into an Ideas Shop and buy a sack of ideas! We certainly get a lot of ideas from our three children and Catherine comes from a very big Irish family, (she was one of eight children) so she knows all about family life. But I think the most important thing to say is every one of us is surrounded by a million interesting things every moment of our lives, it's just a question of looking at things the right way. For example, if you had just arrived from another planet, you would think that 'ordinary' things like trees or cars or dogs were absolutely amazing... and as for PEOPLE! So it's not all that difficult to find ideas - the hard bit is squashing and hammering all those ideas into stories which really work.
Can you give your top three tips to becoming a successful author?
1. First RELAX, take a walk or put on some nice music and just enjoy playing with words or pictures.
2. Trust your 'inner voice' - that's your imagination really. Write down any phrases which pop into your head no matter how weird or silly they may seem.
3. Be CONFIDENT. Do you sometimes hear a little voice in your head which says "You're no good!", "You can't do this!", "Everyone else is better than you!"? If you do, just tell that voice to BE QUIET. It isn't helpful and it stops you concentrating.
Favourite memory?
Our favourite memory is a holiday we took with our children on a tiny island off the French coast. There are cycle tracks all over the island and beautiful sandy bays. We spent two weeks just pedalling from one beach to another, swimming and eating great food in little restaurants. We did some work though - I had been asked to help judge a children's book award when we got back, so I took more than a hundred shortlisted books with me and we sat and read every one!
Favourite place in the world and why?
We have two favourite places. The first is where we live and work, on the edge of the woods above the sea at Lyme Regis in Dorset. One of the best things about being an author or illustrator is that you can choose to live anywhere you want; we looked at lots of different houses all over the country and even thought about moving abroad. Then somebody sent us a photo of this house - it's an old farmhouse with a huge garden, an orchard and even a swimming pool.
The trouble was that the house had been empty for about four years so the garden was like a jungle and the whole house needed to be restored, which was very hard work. But we fell in love with the place and especially the beautiful hills and forests and beaches all around. We've been here ever since and I don't think we will move for a very long time.
Our other favourite place is very different. Laurence comes from a Dutch family and lived in Holland when he was young. He still has relatives there and almost all our books are published in Dutch. We often go to Amsterdam which is a wonderful city; it's beautiful, fairly clean and full of amazing canals, shops and art galleries. Best of all are the incredibly friendly people who really know how to enjoy themselves.
What are your hobbies?
We are always busy and that's the way we like it. We travel a lot with work, visiting schools and book events here and abroad. Catherine is a governor at our children's school, which takes up quite a lot of her time, but most of all we love to do things as a family - walking or going to the theatre or just shopping.
Now that our kids are older, they are crazy about music, so we recently spent a few days at the Glastonbury Festival, which was excellent. We both have big families, so the house is often full of relatives of every age. When there's a bit of free time, we enjoy pottering about in the garden or, best of all, a long soak in a warm book!
If you hadn't been authors, what do you think you would have been?
We both trained as artists before we started making books - at the Royal College of Art and the Royal Academy, so we would probably be doing something to do with art. Having said that, we had a lot of unusual jobs in the past - Catherine trained as a nurse and Laurence had done all kinds of strange things including selling encyclopedias and tropical fish. He was also a night receptionist at a hotel, a carpenter and a school teacher! The truth is, it's hard to imagine doing anything else now because we
both think that writing and illustrating children's books is the best job in the whole world.
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