About

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Hello! I’m Meghan, a children’s novel writer and picture book maker. I’m currently writing, crafting and photo-illustrating stories for children, starring two handmade puppet animals, set in nature. My studio is a beautiful forest, where I imagine their tiny world through the lens of a camera. It might seem an odd vocation, but it feels quite natural to me…

As a quiet child called ‘Meghan Mouse’, I learned to read and sew at an early age, as the big human world felt too loud to me. I was more at home in a miniature world, which I created for toy mice. I made their houses out of any source I could find – food packaging, Lego, clothespins and old clothes. When I wasn’t crafting, I studied my collection of picture books, absorbing the images until I felt I could crawl inside them.

As an adult, I studied costume making and worked in the film industry on live action TV shows, before landing a job by chance as the costume designer for the 6-inch high stop-motion puppets of the animated TV series, Lunar Jim. It was my tiny, detailed work there that reminded me how much I love miniature worlds. The rediscovery of my passion inspired me to write The Stowaways, a novel for children about a tiny mouse who yearns for adventure. I was thrilled when it was published, but then I got to thinking…

While walking in the woods one day, I started taking photos from the perspective of a mouse toy I had with me, imagining how it would actually feel to be a little mouse in a big forest. I was immediately taken away to a calm, creative world filled with depth and possibility; inspiring me so much that it became my next big project – to make the diorama picture book I would have loved as a child. After designing and building two wire-framed puppet animals, I began to illustrate a story for them, set in the forest and captured by camera.

I spend a lot of time, muddy and mosquito-bitten, trying to get the perfect shot of these puppets. It’s hard work, but fun! When the weather isn’t right for the shot I need to take, I make props for the sets. The environment is important to me, so I like to re-use discarded scraps and found materials in nature. The result is pretty quirky – and very much the world I was trying to craft as a child.

My goal in all my writing is to inspire children to connect with nature – to notice its tiny details and the patterns in the chaos – and to find a sense of belonging there. 

To experience the tiny written worlds I like to create, my children’s novel The Stowaways is available in hardback, paperback, e-book, or your library. It’s best for children aged 7-11, and their parents, too. To follow my journey making picture books, you can find me on Instagram, where I share some of the practice photos I take with Maileg toys as well as the process of making miniature props. When the books are published, I’ll be able to share my puppet characters with you.  Looking forward to that! See you soon…