As part of the Writers in Schools Program you can now book Mark (ha-ha - bookmark) to visit your school! As well as hearing Cork's adventures from the (sea) horse's mouth, you'll be able to ask Mark lots of questions like: "Where do you get your ideas from?" or "Why is there a lollipop stuck to your shoe?"

Just visit the NZ Book Council website to find out more.

Some time ago we met to talk about creating picture books together. It was actually a date too, although Mark didn't know it at the time! For a while we ran our own design studio but what we really wanted to do was focus on creating books full time. So we moved from the city (Auckland, New Zealand) to a quiet corner of Northland where we planted veggies and grew our story ideas.

Cork first popped into Mark's mind while we were sailing from New Caledonia to Vanuatu - a small boat tumbling on huge Pacific seas. He was seasick but at least Cork gave him plenty to think about - besides sinking!

When we returned home we got on with making our first picture book 'Cork on the Ocean'. We really fancied being able to produce our own books for our home market, so we published Cork ourselves. It was lots of work so we were really thrilled when Cork received great reviews and was picked by the New Zealand Herald as one of the best NZ picture books of the year. We continue to publish ourselves but we also work with Random House New Zealand in the Australasian market which is great. We'd like to work with more international publishers to make our books more readily available worldwide.

Mark and I now live on Waiheke Island with our son Linden, where we like to fish up book ideas, untangle story lines, and wear our pyjamas all day! Today we are working on new picture book ideas, including the third and final instalment of the Cork Voyages trilogy.

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