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Irish Examiner

Books are my business: Illustrator and author Margaret Anne Suggs

Margaret Anne Suggs is an illustrator and author. Her book, The Dandelion's Tale – An Allegory of Migration (Graffeg), was nominated for the 2025 Yoto Carnegie Medal in illustration. Originally from the US, she lives in Portmarnock, Co Dublin. She lectures at Ballyfermot College of Further Education, where she founded the illustration course, and is also director of Illustrators Ireland. How did you get into illustration? I just always wanted to draw. I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child in America, and my mom carried around colours and pens and pages in her bag the whole time and would get me to draw something to keep me occupied. So I always knew that I wanted to make pictures. I really liked that there was a story behind the pictures. I did a Bachelor of Fine Art in the US and then, the easiest way to live abroad was as a student, so I came to Ireland and did a masters at the National College of Art and Design. What does your job involve? I taught full-time until I realised I was teaching my students to do what I should be doing myself. So now, three days a week, I'm here in the studio at home. I guess it's like anybody else, I get up, coffee is first, and then I answer any pressing emails. I can't focus on one project for very long, so I try to have about three going at the same time. The teaching really suits me, because I can weave that in as there's more planning for that. I'm happier when I'm quite busy with a few different things. What do you like most about what you do? I like working with my hands. I think that would be the difference between me and a lot of illustrators. I don't work digitally. I'm still working with what's here on my desk, coloured pencils, paints, it's like sketching on paper. I'm still really traditional and hands on. I do a bit of digital clean-up, but that's the stuff that I put off to the very last because I don't enjoy it. What do you like least about it? Finishing a project. I rework and rework and change it up, and then I'm forced to finish something because of a deadline. I would never finish anything if there wasn't a deadline, I would just keep going. Three desert island books My first one would be I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. It's such a beautiful coming-of-age story and so wacky, and maybe there's a bit of the American coming to a new culture as well. It is a book that I've always wanted to illustrate. So that's my dream, some day. The next one is my very favourite children's book, Andrew Henry's Meadow by Doris Burn. It's a kind of old-fashioned, black and white story, about this little fella who doesn't feel appreciated by his family, so he moves to a meadow and starts his own village. People find out what he's done, and they're like, 'oh, would you build me a house?' So he starts building houses for loads of the neighbourhood kids. It's magic how they think they can manage on their own, and then they all go home. I guess the message is if you don't like your life, change it. My final choice would be a sketchbook because if I'm on a desert island by myself, I need to be able to draw, that's what I love doing. So I would take an empty sketchbook and fill it up with drawings and my own bits and pieces. Robin & Pip by Margaret Anne Suggs, published by Graffeg, is out now Read More Saturday with Leona Forde: We are spoiled rotten with the phenomenal writers we have here