{"id":4187,"date":"2016-10-30T00:01:23","date_gmt":"2016-10-30T06:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=4187"},"modified":"2016-10-29T21:48:53","modified_gmt":"2016-10-30T03:48:53","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-507-featuring-harriet-muncaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=4187","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks #507: Featuring Harriet Muncaster"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\nIn the spirit of Halloween, British author-illustrator Harriet Muncaster<\/a><\/strong> visits 7-Imp today to tell us all about her series, Isadora Moon<\/em>, which features a girl who is half-vampire and half-fairy. <\/p>\n

Let’s get right to it, and I thank her for visiting. <\/p>\n


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\nHarriet<\/font><\/strong>: Isadora Moon<\/em> feels like something I was on track to create for a very long time. Looking back, it was about seven years in the making, although I didn’t realise it at the time.<\/p>\n

Ten years ago, I created a different, more adult character, called Victoria Stitch [pictured below], who was a mean gothic fairy with a stuffed toy, Pink Rabbit, that followed her around everywhere. I wrote and illustrated two (unpublished) books about Victoria Stitch while I was at university, and after my degree I continued to work on her. She evolved as my work evolved over the years and eventually ended up being drawn in a purely pink and black style. I really liked the aesthetic of this and so did the publishers I showed my Victoria Stitch work to. However, I was always told she was “too mean,” “too spiky,” “too adult” for children’s books but that if I wrote a more grown up book about her, I would lose the illustration side of things.
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\nI went away and decided that the whole pink and black\/gothic aesthetic was too good to waste and that I should create something that still had the same aesthetic but was more child-friendly at the same time. I decided that a highly illustrated young fiction book would work well. So, Isadora Moon was born! She is a much friendlier, sweeter version of Victoria Stitch and also a character in her own right. Victoria Stitch was just the path that led me to create her. I debated over whether I should give Victoria Stitch’s Pink Rabbit to Isadora Moon, and in the end I decided to. Pink Rabbit suits Isadora Moon so well, and he is much happier being with a gentler and kinder owner now.
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\nI started out creating Isadora Moon by sketching out character designs for her. [A first sketch opens this post.]<\/em> I basically wanted to make her a child version of Victoria Stitch, looks-wise. When I had drawn her, though, I started to wonder why<\/em> she had little bat wings. What species was she? I decided the reason she had fairy-like bat wings was because her mum was a fairy and her dad was a vampire. I then decided that if Isadora Moon was half-vampire, she should have little fangs too.<\/p>\n

So Isadora Moon, Vampire Fairy was born.
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\nOnce I had written a story and illustrated it, I sent it of to my agent, who then sent it to publishers. This time there was interest in the book and I was lucky to get a four-book deal for an Isadora Moon<\/em> series with Oxford University Press.
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\nWorking on the Isadora Moon<\/em> series had been an absolute dream. It’s been amazing to work on a project that has come so much from my heart and that I am so passionate about. I adore Isadora Moon and the world that she lives in, and I have loved being able to write longer stories than picture book length. It is so much fun being able to really get into the stories and develop the characters. The pictures are created using pen and ink and watercolour.
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\nAll images used by permission of Harriet Muncaster.<\/em><\/p>\n

Note for any new readers: 7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks is a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. New kickers are always welcome.<\/p>\n

* * * Jules’ Kicks * * *<\/strong><\/font>
<\/center><\/p>\n

1)<\/strong><\/font> I voted early!<\/p>\n

2)<\/strong><\/font> Andy Shauf’s<\/a><\/strong> The Party<\/em>. <\/p>\n

3)<\/strong><\/font> My poetry-sharing friends. <\/p>\n

4)<\/strong><\/font> Oliver Sacks’ Gratitude<\/a><\/strong><\/em>. <\/p>\n

5)<\/strong><\/font> Story time. <\/p>\n

6)<\/strong><\/font> The girls’ Halloween costumes are DONE!<\/p>\n

7)<\/strong><\/font> A visit with a dear friend. <\/p>\n

What are YOUR<\/font><\/strong> kicks this week? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  In the spirit of Halloween, British author-illustrator Harriet Muncaster visits 7-Imp today to tell us all about her series, Isadora Moon, which features a girl who is half-vampire and half-fairy. Let’s get right to it, and I thank her for visiting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seven-good-things-before-monday","category-intermediate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}