We invited author and illustrator Rowan Kingsbury to tell us about herself, and the inspirations behind her comic book, Avery and the Fairy Circle. Take it away, Rowan…
My name is Rowan and I’m an illustrator, author and maker based in Portland, OR. I love creating things full of wonder, warmth and whimsy as well as telling stories that elevate mundane moments into the memorable and magical!
I’ve always wanted to wander into the forest and stumble upon a fairy revel or step into a mushroom circle and shrink down to the size of a toadstool. It couldn’t be helped since I grew up on stories of fairies, hidden worlds and magic such as Cicely Mary Barker’s Flower Fairies books, classic picture books like The Circle of Cats and The Wishing of Biddy Malone and movies like Thumbelina. They filled my head with daydreams of soaring through the sky on paper thin wings, eating berries as big as my head and having tea parties with an acorn teapot in a little house made of twigs and moss. While I’ve yet to achieve these dreams, I decided it would be best to channel them into my own story, alongside memories from my own childhood, and so Avery and the Fairy Circle was made!
It’s no surprise to anyone who knows me that I became an illustrator; I knew it was what I wanted to do from the moment I first took a crayon and some printer paper and started drawing sparkly fairies on the coffee table in my living room. If you took me to a library, I would beeline to the how-to-draw books and return with as many as I was allowed to check out. When I finished those, I threw some graphic novels into the mix too, further solidifying a passion for books and a desire to see my art in one. I followed this passion all the way to the Pacific Northwest College of Art where I got my BFA in Illustration and created the initial draft of Avery and the Fairy Circle as my final project! Since graduating, I have been hard at work illustrating cute creatures and magical things to turn into all sorts of treasures, alongside developing this story that is near and dear to my heart.
Outside of art, my time was often occupied by nature as a kid. My mom is a botanist and I was raised in the Pacific Northwest (not to mention being named after a tree) so I’ve always had a curiosity for the natural world around me. I came to know many of the plants hidden away in our lovely evergreen forests. I fondly remember all sorts of adventures – from crawling across huge, moss-covered logs with my siblings pretending we were in another world, to pressing through blackberry bushes to get the best pickings, to learning to make shelters out of giant sword fern fronds at summer camps.
One of my favourite things to do was to find licorice ferns growing from trees or logs, low enough for me to reach. I would pull them out by the root and carefully scrape the dirt off before nibbling on them as I continued through the forest. If you haven’t tried some yourself, they do taste like licorice!
Inside Avery and the Fairy Circle, you’ll see that I snuck many of these anecdotes into Avery and Birch’s adventure. I was careful to imbue as much of the curiosity, wonder and joy that infused my childhood memories of the forest into Avery’s story as I could. Creating a fantastical and educational journey of friendship, magic and botany that encourages readers to take a closer look at the world around them, whether in search of interesting plants or, perhaps, something more magical hiding just out of sight.
Thank you, Rowan!
Avery and the Fairy Circle
Rowan Kingsbury
Whilst exploring the forest next to her new home, Avery stumbles into a magical circle that transports her to a tiny, wondrous fairy world.
Avery’s family has just moved to a small cottage in the forest. She is obsessed with plants and loves exploring nature outside her home until one day she stumbles into a magic fairy circle. Shrinking to the size of a teeny tiny fairy, Avery tries to find her way back home. A young fairy named Birch agrees to help her reverse the magic, but only if Avery helps her complete some fairy chores! Hopefully, Avery can befriend Birch and complete the tasks required if she wants to return home before her parents discover she is missing…
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