Up to scratch

POLITICAL correctness almost put paid to Darlington artist/writer Helen Stephens’ best-known book before it went into print… because it was about a dog called Fleabag, who obviously had fleas.

“I try not to think about political correctness at all, but unfortunately the publishers have to consider it.

With Fleabag we had to have a meeting about whether we could have a dog with fleas. Even though we know that children wouldn’t mind at all, the marketing people were worried that parents might not buy a book where a boy meets a dog with fleas.

“Fortunately, that problem didn’t linger and as soon as we said ‘no, it’ll be fine’ nobody seemed to pursue it,”

she laughs about the book which has picked up Picture Book awards at Sheffield and Dundee and was shortlised for the Blue Peter Best Fun Book With Pictures prize.

“Fleabag started with a trip to Battersea Dogs Home and I always take a sketchbook out and draw anywhere that takes my fancy. I try and draw somewhere every day. I had no idea Battersea it would lead to a story, but the original drawings of Fynn (the scruffy mutt with bushy eyebrows she spotted) were in my book for months,” explains 37-year-old Stephens who was originally thinking of basing the Fleabag character on a man.

“One day I realised I had these drawings of a scruffy mutt and I had this word fleabag and that was it. I thought this is a dog with no home who had fleas and that’s how it started,” adds the creator who is currently house hunting in County Durham having lived in London for the past 20 years.

Fleabag looks like a yorkshire terrier crossbreed but the original subject she recalls was bigger and had longer legs.

“When Fleabag was nominated for Blue Peter I wrote to Battersea Dogs Home. I thought ‘how amazing would it be to go on Blue Peter with the original dog’. I told them the day I visited and told them that Fynn was adopted while I was there and had gone on to become a stunt dog. I asked if I could put in touch with the new owners but I never heard back from Battersea. I keep meaning to get in touch with them again because I’m sure the owners would be excited to see that he’s in a book,” she says.

Stephens has always worked from home and has only realised the difficulties of combining family life and work when she gave birth to daughter, Freida, 18 months ago and admits she’s still trying to find her feet again. “Before that I used to rent studios with other artists but I’d just end up talking all day and getting nothing done. I need lots of thinking time and staring out of the window time. Whether it’s going to carry on working with an 18-month-old I’m not sure,” says Stephens about her decision to sell her flat in London and return to the North-East where she grew up.

“We’ve had Christmas with the family and now we’re going to start looking for a new place. Freida is already an inspiration for a new set of books I’m doing about babies called The Baby Bunch. When I was in London I made a group of friends who all had babies at the same time and everyday we’d meet up and have coffee or something and I’d take my sketchbook and draw them all. The books will have five babies getting into all sorts of adventures, each book is based on a real event that happened,” Stephens says.

“At the moment I’m drawing at Bowes Museum and I’ve been there four or five times and I think that will lead to a new book idea. I wanted to do a story about two children and it’s already been signed up by the publisher, but I wasn’t quite sure in what direction it would go in because I hadn’t written the story, just given them some drawings of the children.

At Bowes I suddenly realised if you had two children growing up in a house that was huge with huge furniture, the children would look absolutely tiny and you could use the scale of massive harpsichords and grand paintings of Napoleon with these teenie-weenie children,” she explains.

Stephens say she was fortunate to get a publisher and this was mainly because she k knew nothing about the rules involved.

“My naiveté really helped because I went to London to get published and thought I’d just go and knock on a few publishers’ doors, why on earth wouldn’t they want to publish me? I’m so glad because since then I’ve met lots of would-be authors who have been given all sorts of rules about sending manuscripts in certain forms, only having a certain number of words and not approaching anyone with a manuscript unless invited to and ‘you have to get an agent first’.

There are so many rules and I’m glad I knew none of that because I spent every day ringing up publishers asking them to look at my portfolio and seeking advice. I’d go home and take their advice and go back and eventually one publisher said ‘go home and write a story by next week’ and that’s what I did. I went back and worked like crazy and came up with my first book I’m Too Busy in 1998.

Once you’re published people take you seriously and it gets easier. It was a really amazing and exciting time… it’s exciting now to see my books in the book shop. I sneak in an turn them face out if they’re spine on,” says the trained illustrator who often creates the book cover before she’s started on the story.

She grew up in Darlington until she was eight and then moved to Staindrop before doing A-levels at Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College and studying illustration at Glasgow School of Art.

Blue Horse and Tilly won Best World Theme Story. Twinkly Night was shortlisted for the Sainsbury’s Baby Book Award.

Her next book is called The Night Iceberg and is about a girl who decides to run away from home on an iceberg.

“Despite being a writer of children’s books I’m often asked when I’m going to write a book for adults, as if that’s a kind of progression,” Stephens says with a laugh.

■ Helen Stephens really enjoys giving book readings and the next will be a Fleabag reading with drawings at Seven Stories, the Centre for Children’s Books, in Newcastle on January 23 at 10.30am. She is also looking to do some school visits in Darlington and is available on contact anauthor.co.uk or helenstephens.com