Me

Katherine Battersby

I didn’t always know I wanted to be a writer and illustrator. I tried many other things first but when I eventually did try it on for size it fitted like a glorious new skin. And I never looked back.

That said, my love of books did start quite young. In a white dusty box, in an old crumbly shed, in a small costal town many miles away, there are hundreds of books I created as a wee thing. One was called ‘The Magic Watch’. Many involved strange fantasy creatures. All of them were bad. But they were a beginning.

After that I grew a bit taller and got a bit older. I finished school, started uni, worked a lot and travelled even more. At some point along my journey I found writing and illustrating, or it found me, no one’s really sure anymore. But either way we’ve been best friends since.

I write junior / mid-grade novels and picture books, and have just signed with my dream agent at the Cameron Creswell Agency (some of my work is also represented by the US agency Inkwell). My first picture book will be published by Viking (an imprint of Penguin, US) hopefully some time in 2010. I’ve had a number of stories published in The School Magazine and educational resources. In 2008 I was awarded an Australian Society of Authors mentorship to develop a fantasy novel of mine with Kate Forsyth. I also came runner-up in the 2008 Ipswich Festival of Children’s Literature junior novel competition and won the 2009 CYA Writing and Illustrating Conference competition for picture book illustrations.  Visit me on my website to see everything else I’ve been up to in the last few millennia.