Edward Picot’s blog (incorporating Dr Hairy)

Peter McCarey has just announced the completion of his monumental work The Syllabary, which comprises one short poem written for every single-syllable word in the language – 2281 short poems in all.

I wrote a review of this back in 2006, at which point he had already been working on the project for several years, so in total it has taken him more than 2 decades to complete. I’ve gone back to it regularly, and it remains one of my favourite works of hyperliterature. My impression is that it’s got funnier, pithier and more Scottish as it’s gone along. You can find it at http://www.thesyllabary.com/. You can find my review, now somewhat out of date, at http://hyperex.co.uk/reviewsyllabary.php

To celebrate the completion of The Syllabary, Peter has just published two short books of poetry, Orasho and Pogo, both of which are available from Red Squirrel Press.

For the next few weeks I’m doing a retrospective of my picture books.
The Stream is an experimental piece – four miniature folk-stories, and a
philosophical reflection, on the subject of a little stream that runs
through the woods just close to my house.

The writing is accompanied by a series of photographs, all of which have
been digitally reprocessed in one way or another.

For the next few weeks I’m doing a retrospective of my picture books.
The Doubter’s Mysteries is actually an illustrated book rather than a
picture-book – in fact it’s a series of fourteen one-act plays, based on
Bible stories, with fourteen accompanying full-page illustrations.

The idea of the project was to write plays based on Biblical stories in
a down-to-earth style with very little staging, like the Medieval
Mystery Plays; but written from a modern, sceptical, non-religious point
of view.

My favourite illustrations (apart from the picture of Eve and the
Serpent which is on the front cover) are the ones for ‘Cain and Abel’
and ‘Samson’ (the Samson design is loosely based on the Tate & Lyle
Golden Syrup tins I remember from my childhood).

For the next few weeks I’m doing a retrospective of my picture books. The fourth title is The Christmas Robins.
Three robins go looking for Christmas. Their names are Robbie, Rupert and Ropey.

This one was based on some robin decorations Mollie made. She brought three of them to work one day, and as soon as I saw them they looked as if they were marching along, and a story started to emerge. My favourite picture is where they meet a grumpy camel belonging to one of the three Kings. He’s very upset at being dragged away from his nice hot home in the desert.

For the next few weeks I’m doing a retrospective of my picture books. Third up is I’m a Parsnip!, a light-hearted look at the transgender experience.
Penny the carrot realises that actually she’s a parsnip. She has to explain this to her family and friends, then apply for a procedure to get herself changed. The process turns out to be long, bureaucratic and frustrating.
The book’s based on the experiences of a close relative of mine. Essentially it’s about someone trying to be true to themself. Transgender readers themselves seem to like it, so I’m quite proud of it. My favourite pictures are the ones of Penny’s dad receiving the shocking news, and of Penny herself after her successful procedure.

For the next few weeks I’m doing a retrospective of my picture books. The second one is The Cake Maker of Transylvania, a vampire love-story, co-written with Mollie Macgregor-Kinnis.

Hugo the vampire wants to be a baker, because Lydia, the girl he fell in love with when he was small, loves bakers and their cakes. Being a vampire, he fulfills his ambition in a vampiric way – he steals the hearts of beautiful women and bakes them into his cakes to make them extra-delicious. But then he finds himself having to bake a cake for Lydia herself, and instead of stealing her heart he wants to give her his own.

This book, like Pilchards, originated in one of Mollie’s doodles, of a vampire-character cutting into a cake with lots of blood or jam oozing out. Later on she did another doodle which I also transferred into the book – she found a clump of turquoise thread on the floor, glued it to a piece of paper and added arms, legs and a face so it turned into a picture of a girl dancing.

To be honest I find the book as a whole slightly unsatisfactory. The balance between words and pictures isn’t right: too many words on some pages, not enough on others. The pictures themselves waver between cartoonish and realistic. But there’s some good writing, and the idea of cutting out people’s hearts, then offering them back to their owners as gourmet delicacies, has a satisfying symbolism to it. My favourite illustrations show Bangers the butler standing at the front door in the pouring rain, and Lydia in her turquoise party frock doing a little dance with a slice of cake in her hand.

For the next few weeks I’m doing a retrospective of my picture books. The first one is Pilchards, a light-hearted look at bullying and teasing. Two naughty spuds keep shouting “Pilchards!” at a mild-mannered carrot called Kevin.

It’s got a special place in my heart, this one, not least because it’s based on a doodle of a smiling carrot by my friend Mollie, who also suggested that the carrot should be called Pilchards. I worked the idea up into a picture book without telling her, and presented her with the first copy as a surprise, and I can still vividly remember how delighted she was. She kept going through the pages over and over again, finding new things in them. It’s probably the nicest reaction I’ve ever had to something I’ve made.

For me, the whole book has a very sunny feel. All the pictures were created digitally using Inkscape, and I like the bright colours, sharp outlines and simplicity of them; having said which, I think my favourite one is actually the most complex, where Kevin is sitting down to his tea of pilchards on toast, on a gingham table-cloth, with the two naughty spuds tittering outside the window.

A pretty girl called Lucy has lost her favourite photograph; a naughty boy called Ryan has lost his favourite book; and a monster called Grok has lost his dead rat. The author has also lost his manuscript.

Four intertwined stories about the human world, the monster world, and a goblin who steals things from both; plus a collection of funny poems with black and white illustrations.

For children and adults. Available from Amazon, https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09DD9MQGC

Four interlinked stories and a collection of poems.

“Jenny had a little horse
Whose coat was black as coal…”