10 Quick Questions with Beth Norling…

Beth Norling, illustrator and author author of children’s books,
answers 10 quick questions for us…
Read Beth’s full interview about writing and illustrating for children’s books here.

When are you at your happiest?

Sitting on the back step first thing in the morning, with a cup of tea, before everyone else is up. Other than that, I am at my happiest chatting over food with family and friends, or being embraced in a hug with my partner, Dean.

What is your earliest memory?

Sitting on the back porch and seeing a plane and saying ‘plane’ and knowing I had said that word for the first time. I was probably two.

Have you ever googled yourself? What made you laugh, what made you cry?

Yes it’s all embarrassing and not up-to-date or correct, and this is concerning because I Google other people and think its all true, then realise its probably at best it’s kind-of-true, with a lot that is made up. According to Google I am still married, and that ended almost a decade ago!

Favourite decade? (20s, 30s, 40s, etc) Why?

The 80’s because although the fashion was cringe-worthy (pirate shirts, tube skirts and fingerless gloves) it was creative and home-crafted, put-together and genderless. It was almost an era pre-‘labels’.

Do you have a favourite quote? What is it? Why?

“Live simply, so that all may simply live.”
I try to live by this saying.

If I went to your place and looked in your fridge, what would I most likely find?

Lots of chutneys, pickles, goat’s cheese and a soggy bag of lettuce mix.

Describe your week as a type of landscape or weather forecast:

Drizzle, with a chance of sunshine. Rocky mountains with cyan blue lakes.

What do you miss most about childhood?

Freedom. Running down hills full pelt. Lying in the grass and imagining I was miniature.

If you were being granted three wishes, what would you wish for (not for more wishes!)?

I’d love a lake and a pontoon in my backyard. Other than that I’d wish that no child had to suffer poverty or abuse, and that women really were treated as equals.

Favourite place you have ever travelled to, and why?

Florence when I was six and the hills were covered in fireflies and I ran about catching them in my hands; little floating fairy lights.