A Conversation with Posy Simmonds

In this article David Lewis talks to Posy Simmonds about her career in illustration, cartooning and the writing and illustration of picturebooks. Together they discuss her early experience of working as an illustrator for newspapers and magazines; her first attempt at creating a weekly adult cartoon strip and her subsequent career as a regular contributor to the Guardian newspaper. They consider her approach to writing and drawing picturebooks; the balance of realism and fantasy in her work; her mastery of colour effects; her liking for drawing cats and her attempts to capture the truth of a situation in pictures and words.