Drive-by: Kathleen Jennings

Kathleen Jennings won the inaugural Kris Hemsbury Encouragement Award at this year’s Aurealis Awards. She writes, she illustrates, and she bakes – all these things she does superbly. And she is Queen of the Pikelets. She did beautiful illustrations for my Worlds Next Door story (FableCroft Press) and the below will give you some idea of her talent:

1. If I had to choose: writing or drawing?
Hieroglyphs.

They’re complementary – both are forms of story-telling, and I can procrastinate from each with the other (productive procrastination – what’s not to love?).

2. Which sale caused you to Snoopy Dance around the room?
I’ve never mastered the Snoopy Dance – it’s not compatible with hyperventilation. I did sit down and miss my chair when Small Beer Press asked me to do the cover for Cloud and Ashes.

3. When did you know you wanted to be/had to be a writer?
When people started telling me not to talk so much. I think I was about 3. Also, I wanted to be Katy Carr (from What Katy Did) when I grew up, so I spent a lot of time writing very dramatic scenes and pretending to be injured as a result of a terrible rope-swing accident.

4. How do you react to crits?
Blind panic. I stop breathing when people are reading my story (I nearly passed out the first time I put something up for critique at a Vision meeting, when people still read the  (and oddly, those by the people who don’t like my style of writing have often been the best <cough>thankyouJasonN</cough>) and have been helpful, so I always apply them and think they are wonderful after the event.

5. Donuts (or doughnuts) or danishes?
Pikelets.

She blogs here.

This is one of the drawings she did for Genevieve and the Dragon in Worlds Next Door.

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