Creating Thornhill
Drawing, Playing, Making, Exploring
On Friday, 7 September 2018, author and illustrator Pam Smy gave a public talk as part of the conference 'Synergy and Contradiction: How Picture Books and Picturebooks Work'.
The Cambridge Children’s Literature Research Centre, a collaboration between Homerton College and the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education, hosted author and illustrator Pam Smy as part of the conference “Synergy and Contradiction: How Picture Books and Picturebooks Work”. Pam Smy revealed aspects of the creative process of working on her illustrated novel, Thornhill, using observational, imaginative, and technical drawings through to doll-making and charts. She also shared her inspirations and showed how she has interwoven these into the text and the imagery of Thornhill. The book has been shortlisted for both the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal 2018 and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2018.
Pam Smy studied Illustration at Cambridge School of Art, part of Anglia Ruskin University, where she now lectures part-time. She has illustrated books by Arthur Conan Doyle (The Hound of the Baskervilles), Julia Donaldson (Follow the Swallow) and Kathy Henderson (Hush, Baby, Hush!), among others. She lives in Cambridge.