A bit about the author - Heather Summers & the illustrator - Paski
A bit about Heather
'The Voyage Of Van Rouge' draws on my personal experiences and some of the tricky situations from which I have had to extricate myself on my travels.
I am widely travelled, a musician who often journeys to different countries to work, who plays music for the love of it as well as for the income, in the street and on the stage. I have sung for my supper and played the musical clown. These days I am a wandering minstrel, walking down my lane every day playing my violin to help folk smile during the ‘lockdown’.
My travels have often been and continue to be adventurous; around Australia in an old Landrover and on crowded trains and rickety buses in Southern India and Kenya, to name a few. I have been driving to Greece each year since 2012 in a battered old camper van, Van Rouge with my now former partner. I am currently a solo traveller in a similarly old but less worn Van Blanc. Sadly the first road trip in my 'new' van to Lesvos has been postponed due to Covid 19. I am a linguist and lover of languages, hence the Welsh, French, Italian and Greek words that come into the story.
As community music and arts tutor I have worked with children, mental health groups, women who have survived abuse, migrants, refugees, and many others. As a teenager I kept diaries and wrote poetry; as a performing musician I write and perform songs and spoken word; as a traveller I keep logs and write stories. As a grandparent I am writing for children in the hope that they will follow their own dreams. I am dedicating the book to my own grandchildren, Caleb and Layla.
Heather
heatheresummers@gmail.com
A bit about Paski
Bonjour!
Heather and I became very good friends when I used to live not far from her in beautiful and rainy West Wales. The Welsh weather is a topic that provokes much light-hearted banter; Heather insisting it rarely rains whereas I maintain it does so all the time!
Many years later, after far reaching travels, I moved to the south of France in search of sun, forests, sitting on cafe terraces and speaking my native language.
So here at the foothills of the Pyrénées, not far from the Mediterranean sea (but a long way from Lesvos), I live in a small village and work as an artist. My main art forms are painting and making sculptures in clay and other materials. I enjoy playing with shapes, colours and ideas. I love ink and the way the black lines run on paper and tell a story.
When Heather read me her very funny manuscript and asked me if I might like to illustrate it, I decided that this was a challenge I would like to accept. This is the the first book I have illustrated.
Voilà, les histoires nous enchantent encore.
Paski
