Thule Quacks

Some pencil-and-watercolour sketches of the Road to Babylon, and the very large and intelligent Thule quacks, from Diana Wynne Jones’ Deep Secret.

Deep Secret is one of my favourite Diana Wynne Jones novels — funny and shifting and faceted. It’s also at the foundation of much of my career: it taught me that there were such things as science fiction conventions, and convinced me to go to Canberra for my first Conflux, where I hid in corners drawing. It brought me friends who proof-read things in emergencies (these were thank-yous for that). It brought me to the Diana Wynne Jones fan email list, which is where I met many wonderful people, not least Emma Falconer (whose Fire & Hemlock print is all over my house on wall and mugs) and Gili Bar Hillel, for whose Utz Books I was, incredibly, able to illustrate a book cover for Diana’s The Power of Three. It took me to Bristol last year for the Diana Wynne Jones conference (and a paper that ties to my PhD topic).

And of course in Bristol we went to the Clifton Suspension Bridge and danced a witchy dance, to the profound indifference of the ghost of Isembard Kingdom Brunel.