As soon as I could read and write, I started writing little poems in my mother tongue, French. At home, my parents had set up a playroom with a huge blackboard for my sister, my brother and me. I loved scribbling my poems on it and always tried to negotiate more space than my third of the board.
My other favourite room was…my bedroom which was on the second floor of a 100-year old house, with creaking wooden floors, in Orleans, in the centre of France. I had a nice view on black roofs which turned silver when it rained.
And English…
When I was ten, I had my first English lesson… I still remember how much fun it was to pronounce all those new words and sounds. Cat, pen, sit… the world was getting a new dimension. I enjoyed new words like warm pieces of bread. I have never stopped to love learning languages since then. And it is so nice understanding bits of conversation when I travel or making people smile when I try to say a few words!
And to illustrate:
I discovered painting on another roof, in 2022, in Morocco. It was quiet: the muezzin had just called for maghrib prayer, the prayer right after sunset, and it was Ramadan so people were happy to break fast. The light was beautiful and the city was peaceful. My two kids were quietly drawing so I borrowed one of their coloured pencils and started to look at the iron lamp on the wall of the terrace and drew it. When I looked down at my piece of paper, the lamp was there… it was a magic moment.
And write and illustrate picture books:
In 2003, my husband, my two sons and I left France and moved to Minnesota. I took drawing and water colour lessons at the Minnetonka Centre of Art. I had quit my job so had finally time to write. My very first book was “Granny’s Rug”. Then I wrote in French “Es-tu mon Papa” and its twin story in English “Are you my Mummy”. One year later, we moved to Hong Kong and MCCM published “Es-tu mon Papa/Are you Mummy“.