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Daniel Postgate |
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Daniel Raymond Postgate was born in Whitstable, Kent in 1964. After attending Canterbury Technical College he worked as a chef and a painter of horse and sea scenes on old wooden boxes. The main influences on his work have been his family and other illustraters and writers such as Roald Dahl, Quentin Blake, Tony Ross and Kurt Vonnegut. In 1987 he moved to London where he became a freelance strip and newspaper cartoonist, a life long interest of his. "I have drawn cartoons and made up characters ever since I can remember and it has always been my wish to illustrate picture books".
He began writing and illustrating books in 1994 and has had several works published, notably It's A Dog's Life and Kevin Saves the World. He still lives in Kent and his interests are cooking, swimming, rowing, badminton and tennis.
PLACE AND DATE OF BIRTH:
Whitstable, 5 February 1964
FAVOURITE BOOK:
For Esme - With Love and Squalor - Short Stories by J D Salinger
MOST TREASURED POSSESSION:
A moth-eaten clanger called Thomas
FAVOURITE SONG:
'Brown-Eyed Girl' by Van Morrison
FAVOURITE FILM:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
When did you start writing?
I was doing cartoons for newspapers, which I hated. So I escaped to Spain and got work on a building site. They wanted me to work up on the skeleton of a block of flats, the very idea made me dizzy. So I escaped back to England. I was twenty eight. I thought 'I better start doing something with my life.' I chose writing and illustrating.
Where do you get your ideas?
I don't know. I sit and sit and sit in my room thinking about all sorts of things. Often I become very frustrated and unhappy. Then suddenly, out of the blue, I get a good idea, and if I'm very, very lucky someone else thinks it's a good idea too. And if I'm very, very, very lucky, that someone is a publisher.
Can you give your top three tips to becoming a successful author?
1. Self-belief. You have to believe in yourself and what you're writing. You must be single-minded. Perhaps that means being arrogant or naive. You musn't let others knock you off course.
2. Be determined. It takes a lot of determination to get going. It's very easy to simply give up as soon as you're disappointed by a reaction. Don't do it! Press ahead!
3. Humility. However much you love your stuff there are others, such as editors, who might think there are ways to improve it. You must learn to listen to them - they might be right.
Favourite memory?
When I was a kid I went to summer school. In the boy's dorm we found all our pillows missing. Us boys searched everywhere for our missing pillows. Eventually we found them - in the girl's dorm. The girls had piled them all up and were jumping from the balcony some fifteen feet above and landing on them. We all joined in. It was great fun.
Favourite place in the world and why?
I like it here, in Whitstable, on a hot sunny day. With my son in my arms and my feet in the sea.
What are your hobbies?
I like watching films, but there aren't many good ones these days. I like cooking (which is just as well as my girlfriend doesn't). And I really, really like sleeping - I'm very good at it.
If you hadn't been a writer, what do you think you would have been?
I'd have been a chef, it's much more sociable than writing. Hopefully I'd have had my own bistro. At the end of the evening I would leave the kitchen and walk amongst my clientele. It would give them a chance to throw their leftovers at me!
