Backstory
I suppose, right from the start, I was always a writer. They made me do it at school - reams and reams of the stuff - which kind of put me off, although it was at school I started to write, mostly teen angst poetry. But that was for me, not for them.
Being completely obsessed with painting, drawing and design, I ended up going to Harrow School of Art to study Information Graphics. During the three years I was there I also carried on writing poetry and it was in my final year I met Paul Peter Piech, an American graphic artist and illustrator who turned up one day as one of our visiting tutors. He discovered my writing and he liked it; I recognise now that what I was doing was connected in a way that, as I get older, I realise isn't as easy to do any more. I think maybe that's what attracted him to it.
Even though I was now a published writer I didn't take the hint and went straight to work as a designer, spending nearly ten years in partnership with Keith Faulkner producing children's illustrated non-fiction, first as the Faulkner/Marks Partnership and latterly as Theorem Publishing. It was fun, for a while, but there are only so many kid's encyclopedias and dinosaur books you can do before you start having to look outside the box for some inspiration.
Outside my particular box I discovered there was a whole new world of children's fiction and I spent a few years art directing those sort of books. Which was when a hand-written manuscript landed on my desk one day. It was by a hugely successful adult author who had made the classic mistake of thinking anyone could write a kids' book. And then gone on to prove, quite conclusively, that they can't.
Even though this book, if it had been written by anyone else, would never have seen the light of day, this one duly got published. Which just goes to show that all too often celebrity wins hands down over having any real ability. I walked away from the project muttering loud enough to be heard that I reckoned I could do better, and then felt honour-bound to have a go.
