MBC’s roving reviewer, the lovely Sarah Broadley, has been finding out how author and illustrator duo Ross MacKay and Catherine Lindow worked together to create their recently published picture book Daddy’s Bad (bed) Day.
- Many family units have someone with mental health struggles. ‘Daddy’s Bad (Bed) Day’ is a fantastic resource to help explain to younger people why many parents or guardians cannot do the things they would like all the time, as they need to rest and conserve their energy. Can you give us an insight into why you wrote this lovely book?
Ross – My first child was due in June 2020. Before Noah was born, I had been going through a rough patch with my own mental health. Because my health can be up and down – I knew that this would be something I would need to chat about eventually. I looked for resources and found lots to explain to a child their own emotions. There was also a lot of support for parents to access. But I couldn’t find anything that might help explain what was happening to my child. So I set about to make it and that was where the book came from.
- The spreads created sum up this amazing story in such detail and honesty. It contains a lot of emotive facial expressions and body language to convey the struggle the dad is going through. Did it take a while to create the characters as they are in the publication or did they come quite quickly? Did you see the text before starting to draft the characters?
Catherine – thank you for such a lovely comment! Body language and facial expression are important to me and are something I give a lot of thought to. They are like little speech bubbles in their own right – I think they add a lot to our understanding of characters.
There was definitely a process of getting to know the characters during the process. Once I had a sense of them, though, they crystallised on the page more easily. My early spreads have many workings, but as time went on fewer were needed.
I identified a lot with the Granny in the story. Sharing a sofa with someone who has stuff on their mind is a role I know. I wondered if it might have been strange for Ross to see me start to wonder what her internal monologue might be but he was very generous!
- How did you and Catherine start on this project together? Did you see samples of her work?
Ross – I met Catherine on a project with the Scottish Book Trust Bookbug programme. I didn’t know Catherine at the time but after we met I went to look up her work and fell in love with it. When the publisher asked me about opinions on illustrators I was able to show them Catherine’s work. It was pretty obvious that the care and heart Catherine puts into her work would help create something special.
- As you both worked on this project, what did a typical day look like as author & illustrator?
Ross – My working day changed a lot through the whole process. I work on a few projects at once, so even on days when I concentrated on the picture book it was seldom my sole focus. At the beginning it was arranging meetings and chats with a variety of parental support charities. I wanted to make sure anything I wrote was grounded in expert advice and the lived experience of parents with mental health struggles. It didn’t take me too long to write once I had all that information at hand. Then when Catherine came on board we worked in tandem to see how the words and visuals would interact. This was a hugely collaborative process and resulted in changes to the text, whole pages rewritten and characters cut. It was lovely to see how much the pictures could carry the story.
Catherine – Lots of batting Whatsapp messages and emails about. ‘Should the door be open here? How open?’ was often the key point. Lots of rough drawings. Lots of insights, actually. The process for me was quite linear as I was coming on board when the story was already well-formed but I really loved having conversations about ‘what works and what doesn’t’. This was an unusual process as the publisher was happy for Ross and me to work through our ideas together and allowed us lots of space to do this. I know that’s uncommon and I appreciated it a lot.
- Helpful information and links about mental health are provided at the back of the book, what would you like your readers, regardless of age, to take away after reading it?
Ross – I hope that readers of all stages are reassured that everyone can have bad days but that they don’t last forever. For me the key message is, while we can’t play today, we will play tomorrow. It is hard when you are in the middle of a bad mental health period, or around someone who is going through that, to see that this isn’t permanent. But there is always hope in tomorrow.
- What has been the most rewarding element of illustrating such an important picture book?
Catherine – This was always going to be a project that had a shape all of its own. It’s my first published picture book so I relished that – but it was amazing to work so collaboratively with Ross. A lot of our conversations were around how the book might land with its audience. How to take that on that responsibility to young readers who might have big stories of their own in their minds while reading, and to keep a sense of optimism throughout. I enjoyed looking that challenge in the eye!
His debut novel and picture book were released in 2022 in both the UK and USA.
His plays have been performed across Scotland and his adaptation of Treasure Island will premiere in Cumbernauld this Winter.
Ross previously worked in theatre as the artistic director of Tortoise in a Nutshell. His productions toured across the world. His shows have received numerous prestigious awards including a Scotsman Fringe First for New Writing and a Critic’s Pick from The New York Times.
Catherine’s water colour and pencil illustrations have been twice shortlisted for the Kelpies Design Prize and her clients include Greener Kirkcaldy, Fife Cultural Trust and the Scottish Parliament. She works part time for Edinburgh Libraries and is passionate about bringing children and books together, and using pictures to tell stories. She is a graduate of the ‘Picture Hooks’ mentoring scheme.
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