After all, with this never-ending rainless summer, having a sea breeze and the chance to jump in the waves after a day of work and chauffeuring the kids about is a huge benefit. Apart from leaving friends behind, I don’t regret leaving the city at all.

Obviously, it does make travelling to events harder, but I enjoy getting out and seeing the world. I’ve been doing it a lot of late – and there’s more to come…

UPCOMING EVENTS

I’ll be back and forth over the next month or so with Captain Sunshine events, so if you fancy coming and saying hello it would be excellent to see you. Here are the details:

Next Monday, 17th August, I’ll be back in greater London at Paper Cat bookshop, Herne Hill.

On the morning of Sunday 23rd August, I’ll be doing an event at Watts Gallery in Guildford for the Guildford Festival.

Friday 28th August, I’ll be up in Nottingham Waterstones at 2pm! I used to live in Nottingham, and haven’t been back for almost twenty years, so that will be fun.

Saturday 29th August, I’ll be even further up in Edinburgh for the Literature Festival!

Saturday 12th September, I don’t have to travel anywhere as it’s the Hastings Book Festival, and I’ll be doing my event in the morning at the library!

And then on 27th September, I’ll be heading west for the Bath Festival!

COMING SOON?

I find it hard to rest, or to put it another way, I find it hard to not be making things. I was trying to explain to my agent recently that I don’t ever really have downtime because when I’m not writing or drawing books I’m doing all my other hobbies, which generally involve making or creating things. Lots of these will be related to book ideas.

If my hands aren’t doing something I go mad, and yes, at some point I will explode. At least tinkling on the guitar is like some sort of meditation.

Any way, I like to use school holiday mornings (those days when I have a break from making packed lunches) to spend an hour or so writing something different. This time around I’ve been enjoying dipping back into the world of The Little Shop of Magic with the plan to do a new Kickstarter soon for book two.

I’ll put up details soon, but it’s really fun to be back with all those characters and I’m really excited by the new storyline! I will write about this more in the coming weeks.

Until then, here is a photo of that writing process in action:

Which brings me to…

KITTENS

Yes, the house has been desperately quiet since our lovely Aggy died earlier in the year, and it’s now anything but quiet as two kittens have moved in. We love Devon Rex cats in this house (if you’ve never met one, they have curly fur, curly tails and curly brains!) and we now have two little brothers living with us.

Devon Rexes are not like normal cats, being more like dogs. As my wife Katie says, they’re unbearably delightful, and are already a firm part of the family.

So, it’s been a very busy few months with a few more busy ones to come. It’s been quite the year so far and though I have an awful lot more to write about (did you know I’ve just made a large model of Ludo from the Labyrinth film?) I hope to see you at some of the events coming up!

• If you don’t have your copy of Captain Sunshine yet, you can get it from all good bookshops (and Amazon).

• My website has loads of freebies and bits and pieces on it, including a free Hotel Flamingo story to download. Check it out!

• There are more kitten photos on my Instagram

All the best!

Alex

I’ve been talking about it for months, but today’s the day! Captain Sunshine is officially out now, and I’m so excited to see it sail into the world.

Inspired by a little cruise ship I drew on a map that you’ll find in the first few pages of Hotel Flamingo, Captain Sunshine follows the adventures of Bella Day as she gets her first job as Captain of the Sunshine cruise ship. Though a completely new series, the story is set in the same world as Hotel Flamingo, and has an equally sunny disposition. It’s about teamwork, solving problems, and making sure the passengers have their best holiday on board ship.

In this first instalment you’ll meet Bella’s walrus auntie, a tattooed seadog and a pack of magical merdogs, not to mention a slightly sniffy cat with a very useful clipboard.

Captain Sunshine is perfect for 5-8 year-olds, and anyone who enjoyed Hotel Flamingo, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed making it!

Available from all good bookshops and online!

👉 Signed copies are available at Pickled Pepper Books and Paper Cat!

Meet me at the Book Nook in Brighton this Saturday!

Also, if you’re about in Brighton/Hove this Saturday, I will be at the Book Nook bookshop, drawing and singing and reading! Come along if you’re nearby :)

I will do a proper post all about my songs later, but as a taster I’ve posted a video from the launch party where I managed to get many adults and wonderful children’s authors and illustrators to bark like a Ruff! Ruff! seadog!

You can’t beat a good singalong!

All the best,

Captain Alex

There is something very nerve-wracking yet joyful about planning a window. I can’t really describe the mix of dread and cheer. Obviously nothing can be left to chance, which is very unlike me, but I do like going through the whole process of painting it (thinking about which colours to paint first and the order of them,) and then stepping back to see the finished thing. I always worry I’ll make a mess, but then I tell myself, I can always wipe it off if I have to.

I’ve been working on my school events, preparing songs and fun activities, as well as putting the finishing touches to my Captain Sunshine hat.

As with every other event I’ve planned regarding a book series, I’ve created some sort of song or dance number, and this one is no different. I’ve written a Seadog’s Hornpipe, and when I go into schools will get kids up on stage to be a part of the dance troupe. It’ll be great! And I must remember to warm up beforehand…

Frosty Fiesta in the USA

Some brilliant news has just come in regarding both Hotel Flamingo Frosty Fiesta and Captain Sunshine, and I’m really excited to say that both titles will soon be published in the USA. HOORAY!

Captain Sunshine is also coming-out in the Netherlands, which is terrific. Published by the wonderful Lemniscaat, I can’t wait to see a copy.

I’m definitely very much living the books at the minute. If any of you have thoughts of writing children’s books, it does feel like to get the most out of it you have to be willing to say yes to everything, and get good at lots of things other than writing. One of these things is navigating public transport, another is learning how to make Instagram reels.

But still, this is a brilliant time to be in the world of books. I love seeing all the amazing young fiction out there. It’s such a colourful, wonderfully rich world to be a part of, and I can’t wait to see Captain Sunshine amongst all those books on the shelf.

And there’s still time…

Don’t forget, there’s still time to pre-order Captain Sunshine through Pickled Pepper Books, and be in with a chance of winning a very one-off painting I made of a Merdog!

You can also pre-order signed copies with Paper Cat Bookshop as well, and obviously it’s also available online at Waterstones and Amazon.

To be ready for a launch requires me being on top of a long list of tasks. I’ll need to have planned and designed shop window displays, created a new event to take into schools and festivals, made lots of new marketing videos and posts for social media, and of course I’ll need to be fully understanding of how calendars work. (I’ve only ever had to cancel one event through double-booking, but I will carry the guilt with me to the grave.) And all this is extra to the day job of writing, which doesn’t stop, of course, and deadlines remain…

I’m now writing book three of the Captain Sunshine series, which is most bizarre when you’re about to launch book one, but it’s great to write them all while the story is so fresh in your mind. Books whizz by so quickly, you have to grab hold, hope you’re making the best stories you can, and enjoy the ride.

WIN SOME CAPTAIN SUNSHINE ART!

I have a few events and bookshops I’ll be visiting to sign copies of Captain Sunshine, however you can pre-order signed copies from both Paper Cat in Herne Hill and Pickled Pepper Books in Crouch End. (If you order from Pickled Pepper, you’ll be entered into a competition to win a real-life watercolour painting of mine! It’s not quite finished yet, but it will be!)

I will also be visiting Book Nook in Hove for an event on Saturday 4th July in the morning. After that I’ll be in Edinburgh over the August Bank Holiday weekend and in Bath late September – more on those soon!

If any of you have local bookshops that might be interested in a visit from me, do get in touch and I’ll see if I can arrange one!

Each year on the May bank holiday there is a wonderful celebration of Jack in the Green in Hastings Old Town. If you’ve never witnessed a British May day celebration, it’s definitely one of the more eccentric, bewildering and incredibly local events you’ll find in any area of England. There’ll be people dressed as trees, Morris dancing, folk singing, brightly ribboned maypoles, giant headed figures parading through streets, and more often than not an Obby ‘Oss or two.

My mum always had a love for Padstow, and for as long as I’ve been around, this little bit of ‘Obby ‘Oss art hung in our home.

The ‘Obby ‘Oss is a big part of Padstow’s identity, and with this strange bit of art hanging in my childhood home, it’s become a bit of mine.

I had a free day at the end of last year so I decided to make my own ‘Oss, as you do. I’m fascinated by folk art and traditions, particularly the figures and creatures, and I’ve fallen in love with these strange horses of our area, which include the Hoodening Horses of Kent and beyond. They are often naughty and bothersome, and if you’re inside one you’re allowed to be noisy (the lower jaw is attached to a piece of wire that CLACKS loudly!) and bit of a pain.

This is very much not in keeping with my personality, which is probably why I wanted to make my own one and wear it occasionally. I think in the back of my mind I thought it would be a nice way of becoming even more a part of the community.

The Hastings Jack in the Green procession is the main event in a weekend of celebrations. It’s a wonderful carnival of oddities and wonder. The whole of Old Town Hastings is dressed in green foliage and colour, and it’s an amazing event which I think everyone should witness at least once in their lives.

I mentioned I might take my ‘Oss along to watch and my friend Paul suggested we go one better and take part in the procession itself. Well, you can’t say no to that. Thing is, anyone inside an ‘oss can see next to nothing, so you need a guide, and Paul was happy to take up this very important position. Experience tells me Paul is always game, which is perfect when you’re tied together by a piece of green rope four hours on the procession. We clacked and danced and larked about, and had so much fun. It was a terrific (and long) day, and while the ‘Oss tried to bite many hands it hopefully didn’t scare too many children.

One of Paul’s friends took this video, and I can’t remember who it was, but thank you! It was a blast, and I’ll be doing it again next year for sure!

My Lovely Aggy

A day after the massive high of the procession, I came down to earth with a crashing thump as we had to say goodbye to my lovely dog Aggy. She’d been coping well with cancer for about six months, but over the May bank holiday it finally got the better of her.

Aggy was a gorgeous black (blue grey-ish in places) mini-schnauzer, and she’s been the most brilliant friend for ten years. The house is desperately quiet without her, the garden is increasingly full of annoying cats that want to eat our wild birds, and I’m now at a bit of a loss. She loved cuddles more than anything, and there’s a spot on the sofa next to where I sit that’s missing her dreadfully.

Captain Sunshine Pre-order fun!

In cheerier news, it’s getting close to the launch of my new series Captain Sunshine, and my publisher has teamed up with Pickled Pepper Books in Crouch End to launch a pre-order competition. If you pre-order the book through their website or in store, you can be in with a chance of winning a bit of my artwork!

There’ll be plenty more to come regarding Captain Sunshine over the following month, so stay tuned for news of events and more!

I worked solidly on it from a detailed plan, and finished it in about 30,000 words. It’s a fantasy book, full of wonder and fun characters and it feels exciting. I sent it to my agent and made a little facsimile booklet of my notebook for her to send out to people. Who knows where it might end up!?

From then on, I’ve been working solidly in the world of Captain Sunshine. This is my new series which comes out in the UK on 2 July, and I’ve been completing the artwork for book 2, titled ACROBATS AHOY!

I’m so excited to launch this new series. It feels like Hotel Flamingo all over again, which I take as a good thing. Did you know that Hotel Flamingo has now sold to twenty four different territories/countries! I still can’t believe it, but I do love the idea that Madame Le Pig is out there shouting rudely in so many languages.

Bologna Book Fair

To celebrate Captain Sunshine, My publisher invited me out to the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, which is a huge global industry fair solely about children’s books. I’d never been before, so it was a real pleasure and privilege to go. The level of talent out there is off the charts!

I bumped into old friends, made new ones, and got to see a million wonderful children’s books being promoted and celebrated. It really is the greatest event, and makes you realise just what an amazing community and industry this is. There was thankfully very little AI on display, and instead just a huge amount of brilliant human illustration and ideas. I LOVED IT!

The trip was a real adventure. I don’t travel much abroad (this was my first time in Italy, where it rained solidly,) and I realised that in the eight years since my last expedition I had pretty much forgotten how to get on an aeroplane. I was brave though, and soldiered on.

There are always ‘first times’ involved when travelling, and for me, this time around it was getting a driver-less pod from a hotel at Heathrow to the terminal. It was like travelling in a vehicle from Star Trek, but in a slightly more bumpy uncertain manner, and with fewer fluffy or heavy-browed aliens. Would definitely do that again.

So much happened over my two days in Bologna and I kept a very messy diary in my notebook, so I thought I’d post them here.

EVENTS

The year is shaping up to be a really busy one, and I’ll be touring out and about quite a lot over the summer and autumn months. I’ll put up a calendar with everything soon, but I do know I’ll be at the Edinburgh (late August), Hastings (early September) and Bath (late September) book festivals, including many bookshop and school events from June onwards. I’ll keep you all posted, but it would be amazing to see some of you there. I’ll have new songs and characters to draw, and there’ll be plenty of Captain Sunshine fun! I can’t wait :)

SHOP

Lots of stock in my shop currently, including Little Shop of Magic, which is exclusive to Alexmilway.com.

I’ve been throwing in some of the original artwork from my various books in a bid to reduce my paper mountain. They’re not the finished work, since I used to draw by hand, scan them in, and then fiddle about with them on the computer. Now I do the whole thing on my iPad, so these sketches are a dying breed. Get them while you can!

PS. This month, my wife got shortlisted for an award for a short film she wrote back in 2021. It previously won the Berlin Flash Film award and it was so nice to see it getting some love again. She writes both crime fiction and comedy sci-fi, so if either of those excite you, check out her Substack.

My Top Secret Project

My short film is up for an award!

I write this on the train on the way to a screening of my short film Your Hand Found Mine, which has been shortlisted for a Curzon short film award. This is a nice surprise, since I didn’t even know it was being entered…

Read more

5 months ago · 16 likes · 14 comments · Katie Lee

Just like everyone else who grew up in the eighties, I love Labyrinth. It’s one of the most imaginative films ever made – and how could it not be, being a blend of Jim Henson, Monty Python and David Bowie. It’s a modelmaker’s dream, and ticks every box for me.

I never film these things, but I did force myself to take photos. So…

THE GOBLIN

I use Super Sculpey for everything. It’s a grown up version of Fimo clay, which needs to be baked and painted. It’s not cheap, but it’s really versatile, enjoys being sanded and drilled, and is basically perfect for detailed models.

However, I knew I wanted some good proper eyeballs, so I bought some glass ones off eBay. They were pricey - about £15 - but look at them! Unfortunately, I had no idea how big to buy so I picked what I thought would be about right. Turns out they were actually quite large and human-size, and I therefore had to build the goblin’s head to fit. This is why I ended up with a life-size goblin…

Once I’d got the shape right, I added some texture to the clay. I just used the back end of a stick I think, but it gave the skin a lovely mottled texture. It might not seem much, but it’ll make a massive difference later on!

With that done, it was time to bake him! I was a bit scared about cooking the glass eyeballs, but it bakes at such a low heat I shouldn’t have worried. He came out beautifully, meaning it was time to prime him ready for painting!

I use a mix of acrylic paints (I occasionally paint pictures so have a box full of ageing tubes!) and modelling pains from the Army Painter range. I start out with a basic layer of colour (this was an orangey flesh tone I think,) then I add some rich darker earthy colours as well as some highlights. Because it’s plastic-based paint, it does look a bit shiny, but actually that’s probably more in keeping with the original goblin puppet, so I didn’t spray a matt varnish on it to deaden it.

With the face done, it was time to sort out his helmet! Working in 3D poses so many problems, so to make the front half helmet (so that the model can sit flush on a wall) I utilised a mixing bowl as a former!

The hair was a lot of fun to get right - this was a bundle my daughter had bought from a junk shop nearby. It was the wrong colour but I could paint it, and that would help make it look oily and gnarly. When the helmet was in place the hair really made it come alive.

SIDE NOTE: As an indication of how big this model is, I should say that the helmet fits me comfortably.

THE END RESULT

After a bit of detailing on the helmet – just a wash of orange in the crevices to mimic rust – I had to build a solid wooden mount for it to sit on behind. I glued it all together, drilled a hole through the helmet into the wood then fixed it to the wall. It now sits above a door, and says ‘hello’ to me each morning.

I really love it, those eyeballs absolutely bring it to life, and I now want to make the whole cast. How many goblins can a man make in a year, I wonder?'

SIGNED BOOKS AND MORE IN MY ONLINE SHOP

We’ve got the shop open for international orders once more, but it’ll just be for the coming week otherwise Christmas postage will cause problems. We’ve got FROSTY FIESTA on there now (which is selling brilliantly, thank you to everyone who’s bought a copy or mentioned it or reviewed it on Amazon or social media – that means such a lot!)

I’m excited to say I have some lovely new HOTEL FLAMINGO stickers, so I’ll pop some in with every order!

More soon, Alex.

I suppose getting things on demand - from fast food to streaming films - is part of modern life, but as a creative person there’s no joy to be had in a finished product that you didn’t have to work at. The journey and the process is all. I’m a grafter, it turns out (and yes you must say ‘grafter’ with a country accent!)

The books

I can remember the first time all the book ideas I have ever had came into being. Making a book is a long process, but that time and distance grows you in so many ways.

With the Mousehunter, I was writing a blog of whimsical tales, having ideas on the commute to work and jotting them down in a notebook. What if a pirate kept mice in his beard? A simple question, but one I had to answer. I like seeing things to completion, and to do that with this story led to nearly 200,000 words and a trilogy of books.

And then there were the yeti books (which are out of print and I must re-publish as I love them). My cat would make a terrible smell in his litter tray, so we sometimes called him Ponkerton. I thought Ponkerton was a good name for a general, or military man, and then I wondered what sort of troops he’d manage. As I sat in the Yorkshire Grey pub in central London, basking in the glow of a roaring fire while waiting for a friend to arrive, I drew a trio of yetis. I was determined to see what these books would look like, so… a lot of planning, a lot of drawing comic panels, (a near Dreamworks miss,) and four books later - as well as a tour around Colorado - all that work feels like it paid off.

Pigsticks and Harold? Well, I had the silly idea of wondering what a pig might be like who believed that he actually could fly. I drew a picture of this little snouty creature sat on a branch, and next thing I knew I was drawing a squidgy hamster and his friend and a new series was born. It took ages to get the setup right, but for Pigsticks I learnt to use a brush pen, build complicated books with a heavy mix of illustration and words, find out what it’s like to have something optioned for TV, travel on many trips to China, and make me friends with some of the nicest people in publishing. It was so worthwhile.

I’ve told the story of Hotel Flamingo many times, about how it originated from a chance moment of me finding my youngest daughter playing with her animal toys. Despite all the books that came before, Hotel Flamingo was probably my first really successful book born out of wanting to write something positive and soaked in joy. I could talk about how much work it’s taken to get the series to the point it’s at now, with five books and I think about 23 international publishers, but that would take revisiting the Covid era, crossing my fingers and dealing with my mum dying of cancer.

Big Sky Mountain, again was an idea that came to me as a way of processing a relationship with a family member - specifically my gran. She’d recently died, and in those moments of remembering all the good times, the ones that stood out were of her taking me for hikes up the Malvern hills (in all weathers.) This was a difficult series, mainly because it launched in the Covid times, so I couldn’t tour and give it the push it needed. But four books later, it’s a series I’m deeply passionate about for talking about rewilding and living alone in the wilderness, amongst nature.

Grafting and crafting

Currently I’m building a library in my home. I’m not a man of precision, so it is killing me. The hours I’ve spent planning, drawing and measuring, I could probably have walked to Scotland and back. The hours I’ve spent cutting wood, (often badly) I could probably have walked to Wales and back. The hours I’ve spent trying to get it vertical and horizontal I could probably have swam to France and back. You get the idea.

It’s a huge and possibly daft undertaking to do something like this in your free time when not working, but there’s no way I could afford to pay someone else to make it as that would cost thousands. Just the wood alone is now so expensive.

However, doing a physical real-world project like this really is a joy, because unlike writing a book, it has a very clear ‘no-turning back’ moment when all you can do is carry on to completion. I could stop writing a book at any time, but not with this. When it’s finished, it’ll likely be a bit wonky (like my books) but I’ll be a much better skilled human, I’ll finally have some storage, and it’ll be full of books. The graft will be worth it on every level.

So if you’ve ever thought about typing a few story prompts into ChatGPT and not going through the graft of learning to write - or learning what it is to battle through difficult passages – I’m pretty sure you’ll never know that incredible feeling of reaching the end. I can’t wait to reach the end of the bookcase, because I know it will be JOYOUS!

Events

As a final note, I recently went to Guildford Book Festival for a Hotel Flamingo Frosty Fiesta event. It was so brilliant, and in the signing queue I got chatting to Hugo (who reads this newsletter) and Edwin’s mum. Apparently she’d mentioned to him that it was very unlikely that I wrote my own mail out. Well, just in case you were wondering, I do! It may be not as regular as I’d like, but it’s definitely me. :)

This book feels like a long time coming, and mainly because the central storyline was supposed to be in book four. Production schedules got a little stretched, meaning the wintry book (did you know that the original four in the series were based around the seasons?) would have come out in Easter time, which wasn’t ideal, so I scrapped that manuscript and wrote a different book: Fabulous Feast.

I always wanted to write more about the tortoise guest, Mrs Turpington, and this is her story. I wanted to discuss her thoughts about getting older, and particularly those concerning going into hibernation. It must be wonderful getting to snuggle down warm and sleep for so long, but there must also be some trepidation about what you might find when you wake up.

This is a story about the cold and dark winter nights, how the snow changes the world, and how the animals deal with hunkering down in anticipation of Spring. Of course, in Hotel Flamingo, they deal with it by throwing a party.

I should add, it’s also a story about making the most of the snow. I love snow more than anything, and I also love snowboarding and skiing (though I can do neither!)

WHEN YOU’RE A TORTOISE

Obviously, I had to write a new song for the book, so here it is… As sung be me, or rather Mrs Turpington. If you want to join in, here are the lyrics :)

When you’re a tortoise and getting old,

Make sure you eat well and stay warm, and never catch a cold,

And if it’s winter you need some sun,

Make sure you take care and bed down, for hibernation.

Because the years go by, the well runs dry, your skin grows tough and sore,

Your friends depart, it breaks your heart, they’re gone forever more.

If you’re a tortoise and feeling sad,

Find nice memories, remember, and you won’t feel so bad,

And if you’re lonely, I’m sure you know,

There’s a place to be, a bed for you at Hotel Flamingo!

Signed books and events

I popped into Paper Cat bookshop in Herne Hill yesterday to sign some books, and they do have a few now in stock if you’d like one!

I’m also doing an event this Saturday (11.30 am!) at Book Nook Hove, so if you’re local to Brighton do come along :)

It’s so exciting to have Hotel Flamingo back in the world again, and I hope you enjoy the new book!

One lovely thing to add is that it has the first chapter of Captain Sunshine added into the back. It’s really great for me – and for you! – to get a sneaky preview of how it will all look, and makes the eight-month wait more bearable.

EVENTS!

As I mentioned in the last newsletter, I’d been working behind the scenes to arrange some events to celebrate its launch, and I now have dates! YEEHAA!

11th October - Book Nook, Hove

12th October - Guildford Book Festival

8th November - Pickled Pepper Books Crouch End

15th November - Paper Cat Bookshop Herne Hill

It’s very much south-based, and I apologise for that, but hopefully I’ll be able to come further north and even west very soon!

I’ve also set up a pre-order link for the new book with Paper Cat, so if you want a signed and dedicated Hotel Flamingo: Frosty Fiesta, go there! I will probably have some in my own online shop at some point, but doing it this way helps out bookshops and means the sales figures get clocked, which makes everything and everyone look better :)

I have so much to talk about but I’m currently swamped with writing/drawing/animating badly/singing/DIY, so I’ll leave you with a picture of something I’m really excited about. Yes, it’s Mrs Turpington, and one day soon she’s going to sing you a song!

She’ll be selling her books - including her brilliant new comedy Sci-fi Max Star: A Massive Inconvenience – and I’ll have lots of my books for sale. I’ll probably be sitting drawing characters for people if you ask nicely enough. There will also be some copies of The Little Shop of Magic for sale as well. If you’re near do come and say ‘hello.’ (The new cafe/bar on the roof of the Observer Building is brilliant, and well worth a visit, too!)

I’m also in the process of planning a Hotel Flamingo event for October to celebrate the release of book five. It could be local to me (around Hastings/south coast area), or if there is enough interest maybe in London somewhere. If you’d be interested in hearing me read/sing/draw and talk all things Hotel Flamingo, then please get in touch and let me know. I feel it deserves a party of some sort or other, don’t you?!

And yes, summer seems to have truly been and gone now. The wind is howling, the rain is swirling, and it feels like the house has already dropped ten degrees in temperature since last week.

The past month has generally been about DIY. Rotten floor joists soured an otherwise fairly simple job, so I spent a few weeks breaking things apart then putting them back together again. I properly opened a can of worms, but I’m going to thank myself in a few years when the floor doesn’t fall in.

In book terms, I have spent my spare hours drawing and world-building in a notebook. I love working in notebooks, and don’t do enough of it because I’m usually too busy actually making the books or cooking dinner or sleeping.

I love the area I live in, it has all sorts of terrain, from cliffs, to beaches, to hillsides and rolling countryside, and I’m in the middle of creating a world set here. I love the idea of building upon this land, so that’s what I’m going to do!

I’m losing myself in thoughts, building ideas into something grander and more epic than I’ve done since probably the Mousehunter, twenty years ago. It will probably take a long time to surface, but I’m loving the world that’s forming, and excited to share doodles and characters as they grow and change. We all want a world with giant mushrooms and I hope to provide it!

I always think I have to jump on ideas and build them into something cohesive before the excitement wanes. Notebooks of mine are filled with half formed ideas and notes, so I was determined to flesh this one out to the point that I know the story. I can now put aside this promising idea and get on with my other work without worrying I might forget things.

I think this one has legs. It also has characters and a plot, which is a big bonus.

And lastly, I was really excited to be on Emily-Jane Clark’s Cringe Club Podcast, talking about all my young embarrassments and things that still make me want to throw my head into a pillow and hide.

EJ’s new book series is great, really funny, and all written in txt spk. Do check it out, she’s brilliant!

Don’t miss out! Follow this link to the Waterstones site, and remember to use the SUMMER25 code.

It’s so exciting, a I almost wish the summer holidays would go by really quickly! (No, not really, I’m loving them so far.)

This past weekend we took a trip to our wood. It’s a beautiful place, one that we’ve cared for over the past twenty years. It’s always inspiring, and has totally inspired my books, especially the Big Sky Mountain series.

It’s always lovely to introduce new friends to our wood. I feel it’s a massive privilege, and one we have to share with all. Our german housemate came with us and introduced us to a german tradition of cooking sweetened bread over the fire by wrapping it around the end of a stick. It was so great, and I’m definitely going to do it again.

I’m now off to build a bench for our garden. I’ve just come out of the end of a year of solid work, and I often like to wind down by doing days of hard physical labour. Over the past week or so, I’ve removed a fireplace, re-used the bricks to make a garden path, built an outdoor toilet and also baked some viennese whirls. I’m am preparing to collapse at about 5pm tonight…

Let’s hope the sun shines a little longer. Have a lovely summer everyone.

I always enjoy visiting schools. It makes writing books so worthwhile, especially when you get such lovely feedback from the children.

(And getting to the Isle of Wight involves almost every form of public transport, which makes me especially happy!)

You also get to make new friends, and I always enjoy that.

This time round, the day I returned home I fell ill, and I’ve been pretty much laid up since. This is absolutely not a perk of the job, but very much part of the territory. However, in the moments I’ve felt up to it I’ve been reading either reading a book or playing a video game.

Those who know me well will know I rarely sit still, leaving reading to the half hour before bed, and video games to those times when my daughter wants to play or, again, the evenings - and usually in winter. So it’s great to just while the hours away doing things I rarely do, even if I’m feeling down in the dumps.

I wanted to read something unchallenging, so picked up the Lord of the Rings. I’m always planning one fantasy book or another (I have about ten of my own fantasy books part started never finished, and one day I’d like to return to older fiction like my Mousehunter books,) so it’s fascinating to look back on past reads with a slightly older more critical eye.

LotR is obviously very much a children’s book, that with some judicious editing for length could fit very nicely into a middle grade book shelf. I think I was 14 when I last read it, and the films have totally obscured the original text for me, but blimey, there’s a lot of eating, going to bed then waking up over the first 300 pages. At least the songs they all sing provide the reader with the chance of a metaphorical toilet break.

Tolkien has some beautiful description, mind, and very quotable lines. One particular that I like is Bilbo asking:

‘Don’t adventures ever have an end? … I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on the story.’

I’m skim reading it, I suppose, but as you get older, lines like these do take on greater meaning. I like to think the seeds sown at my school events might one day blossom into new authors or illustrators, continuing in the long tradition of storytellers and artists in the world. Someone else to carry on these stories!

As for video games, I’ve dipped into No Man’s Sky, newly updated for the Switch 2. If you’ve never played it, it’s a massive open world (galaxy?!?) game in which you’re a lone astronaut, roaming planets with a ship, learning about yourself and the entirety of existence.

I played it a few years ago, never quite taking off, but now it’s been super enhanced I’ve really enjoyed pootling about the planets, occasionally bumping into an ominous alien monolith while learning a few words of a foreign language. It’s super chilled out, populated with other friendly, if bizarre space beings and traversed by all sorts of wonderful ships.

Pretty much the same as the Isle of Wight, I suppose.

Hello everyone!

Here's a reminder for this afternoon's live chat with me at 4pm GMT. I'll chatting about The Little Shop of Magic and Hotel Flamingo, amongst other things, as well as reading, drawing, and probably singing a song!

If you want to ask me a question, get in touch here with a comment!

I hope to see some of you there :)

Here's the link to join!

I’ve now completed three full books over the past year (one of them through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign) and written another. Writing series books are the best way of burning through ideas quickly, not to mention burning yourself out, however, it feels a bit like I’m riding a wave and making the most of it. Make hay while the sun shines, and all that.

Most importantly, now that this latest book is finished it’s time to do a live event to launch my Kickstarter book The Little Shop of Magic.

(If you missed out on the Little Shop of Magic Kickstarter campaign, I have printed extra copies which are now exclusively available in my shop – along with a handful of art prints and some stickers.)

A date for your diaries

To celebrate, I thought it would be great to do an online live event and Q+A to answer any questions about Hotel Flamingo or all my other books. If there’s anything you want to ask me, do let me know by leaving a comment or replying to the newsletter. I promise to answer as many as I can.

We'll be going live on Sunday 8th June at 4pm GMT. You may have already been sent an alert to notify you, but here’s the direct link.

I’ll be using Substack to host it, so to see the stream live you’ll need the Substack app, but I will link to it here and post it on Youtube later. I’m so excited to finally be doing this! It’s the future, I swear!

Add to your Calendar

What else have you been up to Alex?

Truthfully, not much. A bit of gardening (we have newts in our pond!) a bit of reading, lots of tidying. We now have a German family staying with us for a few months, which is lovely. My German is very minimal, but it’s magical trying to converse with a three-year-old who speaks to me as though I’m a native. Hopefully while they’re staying with us I can reach toddler level in German small talk. I have successfully already learnt the phrases for different kinds of British weather: mist, rain, cloudy, sun – in that order.

Do you play an instrument? I’ve been playing a lot of guitar to take my mind off things. I find fingerpicking an act of meditation and an hour passes before I know it. It’s easy to sit back and play the same old things over and over, so I’ve been trying to push myself and learn new songs. I’ve also been trying to learn lyrics, which I really struggle with. For some reason when I type, my fingers say the right things. When I speak, more often than not my mouth fails me. I think this is also true when it comes to playing the guitar, as I can finger pick a tune fairly well, but try to sing the words and everything goes awry.

But anyway, I’ve been lost in a world of folk and Americana, learning Bert Jansch techniques while reading books about The Band and Richard Thompson from Fairport Convention. There’s something about the brutal honesty of an acoustic guitar that I find thrilling, in much the same way as a dirty distorted guitar rocks my world. In the next phase of my life I aim to become a troubadour travelling from medieval village to medieval village, singing songs for coin. A lute would be nice, actually. I am on a quest to own every instrument ever made, which I feel is a perfectly acceptable and achievable task.

So then, until next weekend and the live event! Remember to send me some questions. I can’t wait :)

It’s been a solid week of signing, packing and posting out my crowdfunded Kickstarter book, The Little Shop of Magic. (If any of you missed out on backing it, there will be some copies going up on my website shop soon!)

Having never done anything quite on this scale before, it was an incredible experience. I’ve always wanted to do a Kickstarter campaign, so yes, it does feel like an achievement. I can definitely put my feet up now for at least twenty minutes a day (YEAH RIGHT! WHO AM I KIDDING?)

As you probably know I pretty much did it all by myself – apart from actually printing it of course – from doodling the idea years ago right through to sending the printed, finished book out to readers. What you’re getting with this book is TOTAL ALEX. Yes it was effort, and an awful lot of responsibility to get things right (and a BIG thanks to for her tech input, editing nous and helping out at every stage), but I would absolutely do it again and tell everyone who could do it to experience it for themselves.

If nothing else, I’ve learned a great deal about how books and the publishing industry works. But also, and more importantly, the direct connection with readers has been wonderful. It’s a lovely thing popping thank-you notes in a book, doodling on an envelope, being a bit ‘customer service assistant’ about the whole thing. I used to work in a shop and I really liked helping customers. It’s these relationships and conversations with readers that make me love my job. And then seeing the books in the hands of happy readers afterwards is the icing on the cake.

What now?

So what next? Well, I’ll likely do a second kickstarter later in the year with book two in the series. I have the ideas and the determination to go through it all again. It’ll pose new issues I’m sure, but second time around things will be much easier. I just need to work out how to fit it in around everything else. I need another six hands!

As for everything else, I’m currently writing the second Captain Sunshine book while the kids are on their Easter break. I’m hitting my required thousand words a day and thoroughly enjoying doing it. Sometimes writing comes easily and this seems to be one of those moments. When you’re in the groove, much like Austin Powers, you just have to keep being groovy.

As you’ll probably see from the photo, Captain Sunshine is set on a bright orange cruise liner. It’s a totally new, standalone series, but it feels very much like a natural extension of Hotel Flamingo as it’s set in the same world. (If you look at the map at the beginning of the Hotel Flamingo books, you’ll see a cruise ship just leaving port, which makes me think I must have thought about animals taking to the seas at least seven years ago...)

So, expect a host of new colourful characters forming the crew, and with each new book there’ll be a bunch of different passengers with problems on each voyage.

Meet the crew

It’s been a real joy working up the characters for the books. Sometimes, building a new world from scratch can feel like an impossible task, especially if you’ve not written the manuscript at that point, but most of the crew popped out fully formed. It’s helpful that they all have different jobs on ship, much like T. Bear or Madame Le Pig at Hotel Flamingo, so you can try to imagine them at their duties as you draw them.

The main character – our Captain Sunshine – is a girl called Bella Day, and as you can see, once again she’s in a world of animals. My favourite element about this book is that her auntie is a walrus, and a sailor too. Probably best not to ask too many questions there.

I’m working on the final art at the minute and it’s so much fun to do. I don’t really have a favourite character yet, although Flip and Flap, the silly twin penguins make me laugh and are super easy to draw (always a delight when that’s the case!), and Mrs Purrpot (the clipboard-wielding passenger liaison cat) and Mr Tatou (the tattooed seadog first mate) make me happy every time I have to put them in a scene.

The Art Deco world

Just like Hotel Flamingo, this series will contain visual elements of the Art Deco period. It’s been so great to draw from all the posters and art of the time, and learn about the sumptuous world of cruise liners. These ships were truly something! I really wanted to capture some of the beauty of the time, as well as enjoy that feeling of speed and adventure that came with going on such a holiday.

As I’ve probably said a milion times, I do love the art of the period, especially those posters of seaside towns, selling holidays to the south of France and the Mediterranean. If I could, I think I’d spend all my days drawing pastiche animal versions like this one.

SIDE NOTE: I remember my art tutor at Shrewsbury College of Art and Technology (back in 1995) being mad about the college library buying a book of cat versions of Impressionist paintings. I absolutely agreed with him at the time and yet here I am making pretty much the same thing. Still, they make me happy and that’s all that counts!

Coming July 2026!

There’s still over a year to go until the series hits the shelves in July 2026, but as is likely obvious, I’ve a good feeling about this series and I’m already so excited. You’ll find the first chapter in the new Hotel Flamingo book, out in October, but I promise to share some more info soon!

For now I will leave you with another photo of the cover taken by Steve Wood at the Bologna book fair… Full steam ahead, Captain!

I’ve wanted to write a new Hotel Flamingo title for ages. It continues to sell well (I learned last week that the series has sold over 440,000 copies in the UK including audio and digital, which is mind-bogglingly brilliant,) and find new readers six years on, so I think my publisher finally felt it was a good time to go back on holiday to Animal Boulevard!

Needless to say, writing about all the animals at the hotel was like hanging out with all my old friends. It was joyful. I’d write another four in a heartbeat.

Frosty Fiesta!

This new story is all about Mrs Turpington (remember the tortoise from book one?) holding a little party before going into hibernation. FUN FACT: this was the book I was supposed to write for the fourth in the series but schedules drifted and, suddenly, a winter book publishing in Spring didn’t feel like a great idea.

I love snow and I love snow sports, so there’s a whole snowboarding and skiing competition taking place at the hotel, and there’s a very fun, very chilled out pair of board bunnies taking part - one of them is there on the cover!

It’s already up for pre-order on Amazon and at Waterstones, and as soon as I find a local bookshop to help out I can maybe organise sales of signed copies through them!

I can’t wait!

NEWS ALERT!!!

A very brief NEWS ALERT… News came out last week about my new series launching in 2026 called CAPTAIN SUNSHINE (which is about to head out to the big children’s book fair in Bologna, and will be a massive poster on the Piccadilly Press stand!)

I want to write about this properly, so I’ll share all the news and artwork from Captain Sunshine next week! A sort of sister title to Hotel Flamingo, I’m already loving illustrating it and spending time in the world.

Honestly, I’m so excited about these new books at the moment, that not even those thieving AI-scraping monsters over at Meta/Facebook can spoil my mood. (Yes, they have scraped most of my copyrighted books without asking…)

So then, til next time.

This year is already whizzing past and I knew it would. I’m busy, and I’d prepared myself for a few months of head-down hard graft. I’ve barely surfaced for air, which is a key reason it’s been so long since my last newsletter.

However, after three years of dealing with long covid, feeling this good and achieving so much is to be celebrated. (I must remember to stop occasionally, I must remember to rest… and these are always the hardest things when you’re enjoying your work.)

After completing the artwork for my Kickstarter book The Little Shop of Magic and getting that ready for print, I ploughed straight on into writing the first book in a new series. This is going to be announced in time for the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, so in a few weeks news will be out and I promise to write about it then. I can’t wait to show you the cover and talk about it, as I really like this new series. It’s lightly linked to Hotel Flamingo, so I’ve had the chance to create a whole new cast of characters while expanding that world. It’s been brilliant fun thinking it all out.

All I will say right now is that I’ve been drawing lots of merdogs.

BOOKS!

I’ve also been doing lots of reading. For some reason I always tend to do a lot of reading at the beginning of the year, although it’s mainly tied in to how long I lie in bed before falling asleep.

These are the books I’ve read so far… SAS Rogue Heroes was such an easy read, easily the equal of the TV series. And the fact that most of what the TV series depicts really happened is quite astonishing.

The Wichita Lineman - a book about one of my favourite songs – was far too long, but about 100 pages of it were great. I hadn’t realised quite how important Glen Campbell was in the history of popular music.

The Pebble Spotter’s Guide is super, with lovely illustrations of pebbles. If you know anything about me, you know I like a rock and find it quite impossible to walk a beach and not pick a few up. My wife hates me for it.

Speaking of hate, The Lie of the Land is incredible, although each chapter made me so angry for many different reasons. As a briton it will make you hate the Normans for all they dumped upon us a thousand years ago. Being a bit general here, but unlike the Romans, they didn’t build infrastructure for the people (such as sewers and road systems,) instead they focused on implementing a crappy hierarchical class structure for us all. And we’re still dealing with their legacy to this day. Time for a change, methinks!

I’ve almost finished The Bone Chests, but thought I’d include it here to make me look like an even better reader. It’s fascinating, if sometimes dense and occasionally mind boggling, mainly due to its anglo-saxon content. When a book concerns characters with names such as Earwigthegif, Aethelfluff, Oooda and… Edward (I made all these up, apart from Edward,) it can be hard to follow. Still, a book about ancient kings and queens and Winchester Cathedral is me through and through, in much the same way as a book about pebbles is.

Now this is very exciting. I also want to add that I’ve read a murder mystery by KJ Lyttleton - whose Substack link is below.

My Top Secret Project

Did I mention my debut novel is out now??

Greetings…

Read more

2 years ago · 6 likes · 12 comments · Katie Lee

I should mention that this is the pen name for my wife, Katie Lee, but that doesn’t take a way from the fact that her first book, The Man in the Wall is brilliant. Set in a town very like ours on the south coast of England, it’s immense fun. If you like murder mysteries a la Kate Atkinson, this might be for you! It’s amazing being a part of something like this, seeing someone create a book from conception to publication is utterly wonderful.

EVENTS

Feeling more myself, I’ve been back out on the road doing events! It’s been so brilliant, taking in schools and the Isle of Wight Story Festival. It’s always tiring, but I love it. So many of the children who came to the Isle of Wight event were there because of the audiobook (on the Yoto) which is incredible, really. I even signed a reader’s Yoto card! This is the future!

Best of all was meeting new friends and old. I even got to spend a wonderful day with writer and illustrator extraordinaire Neal Layton. We went on a hike up a hill in the fog and I ripped his waterproof trousers on some barbed wire. Those are the best kind of days!

IS THIS SPRING?

What else have I been up to… Well, I’ve been getting cold a lot. I’m a little bored of winter now, and I would like a few weeks of only wearing one jumper. However, excitingly, the sun is shining today and I’ve noticed there are shoots on my willow cuttings that I planted a few weeks ago in my garden. I thought I might try harvesting it to make baskets or little fences, but we’ll see how it goes.

If nothing else it’s a sure sign that Spring is near. I CAN’T WAIT!!!

Next update won’t be so long in coming, I promise. And then I might have news of my new series, and discuss how I’m trying to learn a bit of coding in order to attempt a little home-made video game. From little lines of code comes big games, so I hear!

PS. Some of you subscribed on my website many years ago and have not heard a thing from me since. That’s because you fell into a technological hole and have only just been unearthed. I am very sorry. If your children have since grown up and moved out (or just moved on from my books), please do unsubscribe with my apologies. If you’re happy to hang around, that would be lovely!