Introducing Paper Tales and an Interview with Anje Stoeckigt

Introducing illustrator Anje Stoeckigt and her beautiful new picture book, Paper Tales.

Anje Stoeckigt is a very familiar illustrator to South African Picture Book readers…

All the Hello and Goodbye magic, and their colouring books, as well as The Boy and the Tree, The Amazing Deep Sea and Underground Adventures.

Paper Tales

Paper Tales is a wordless picture, perfect for South African children in every language!!! It is the story of three feisty gals, who are delightfully bored. Until… A pile of papers come flying by…

Their world is transformed into a magical origami landscape…

With glorious ocean waves…

And a particularly grumpy dragon…

Each double page spread is more glorious than the last. And the final page in the book is dedicated to creating your very own piece of origami, the beginning of a fantastic new paper folding adventure.

There is everything to love about this book, children of all ages and stages will be able to gather round and share their own, personal version of the book. It is a delightful and imaginative adventure, from start to finish… a vibrant and colourful book to add to any picture book collection.

Meet the Author/Illustrator Anje Stoeckigt

1. Tell us a little bit about your writing journey. How did you become a writer? Did you always want to become a writer?

So I am definitely more of an illustrator that fell into the author role, and maybe that is why my first book is a mostly wordless book. I find that illustrations can speak louder than words sometimes and with this book I wanted the child to be the author and use their imagination and come up with their own storylines and ideas. So no, I did not always want to become a writer, images and pictures are my first love.



2. Who or what do you think had the biggest impact on you becoming a writer?

I think people like Oliver Jeffers and Albert Arrayas, who create the most beautiful and funny stories compel me to want to produce things of the same caliber. I also had a need inside of me to create this story and I wanted the world to see its beauty.

3. Tell us about your work style: Are you compelled to write when inspiration strikes or disciplined, or do you just squeeze it in whenever you can?

My inspiration usually starts with an image and an idea and grows from there. It can be anything as small as two dogs sniffing each other’s bums to a leaf tumbling from the sky that inspires me. And usually this strikes in the early hours of the morning, while my husband is still snoring contentedly next to me. So I have to creep out of bed and write down my ideas in the freezing cold, while trying not to wake the household. This is usually how I start my days.



4. Where do you work best? On the couch at a desk? While you are at it, tell us about your dream workday.

Usually either at my desk or snuggled up in my bed with a cup of hot chocolate and my notebook. My dream workday is to create all day, whether it be writing, drawing or my latest passion printing; unencumbered by anyone until my stomach tells me that I have worked long enough and it is time for a break. I love losing myself in my work.

5. I love your characters, they are so full of life, where did you find them? Where do you get your inspiration to create them?

I often base one of them on myself (the bear girl is based on my own character) and the others are often loosely based on friends and their character traits. So I watch and observe the people around me and then take snippets from real life and put that into my characters.



6. What made researching for this book great, did you get to do any interesting interviews or visit any unusual places?

I googled a lot of origami images and fell in love with the imagery and history of it. I also folded A LOT of origami birds. And the wave in the book for example is based on the famous Japanese painting “The Great Wave off Kanagawa”, so I like to hide little easter eggs like that in my art.


7. Do you have something to tell our followers who think that they might have a book inside of them, a word of encouragement or some advice?

If you think you have an idea brewing inside of you, explore it, write it down, read it out loud, ask for help, play around with different versions, be open to positive advice and just go for it. When you are passionate about something it will shine through and your love for it will show!



8. And where can our readers find you?

Instagram – @paper_tales
And on my website: www.papertales.co.za

This book was beautifully packaged and given to us for review purposes by Penguin Random House South Africa. This is not a sponsored post and opinions expressed are entirely our own.