Anansi is still around, isn it?
Yes. It kind of went into remission during much of the 1980s. Mostly they were just keeping the backlist in print and there were a lot of really terrific books by then that Anansi had done. And then Stoddart bought it and regenerated it and it’s now an imprint within Stoddart, but they’ve started doing original publishing again, of an adventurous kind, actually. You don’t have an involvement with them? No. [Although] I published a book with them — a book of essays called Body Music — about two years ago. You are still writing for older audiences — adults — as well? I’ve gone on playing the field that way all the way through. I wrote adult stuff before I wrote children’s things. When I published Alligator Pie especially I was really nervous because most of what I’d written up until then… my first book really was not a classic for the ages so I was still finding my feet. I guess when Wiggle to the Laundromat came out — that was 1970 — an artist called Charlie Proctor came in and
