I've spent most of my life getting to know characters.

I write and illustrate picture books, make things with my hands, and create stories and characters that have a habit of taking on lives of their own

Young Cindy Derby as a child, pictured with a small green lizard perched on her shoulder.

The First Stage

Before I was an adult human, I built apartments for insects. I drew creepy drawings of all my crushes, obsessively photographed my two black cats, and was always getting in trouble in class for cackling too loud.

Looking back, I haven’t changed much.

For many years I toured one-woman puppet shows through Scotland*

*

That became the thread running through all of my work.

Eventually, I realized I hadn't left theater behind. I'd simply found a different stage.

Picture books were perfect for it. Every time someone opened one, the performance could begin again.

I performed everywhere from underground railway stations to tiny village halls and living rooms.

I lived with a master puppeteer and her blind dog, built sets and characters, wrote my own shows, and somewhere along the way I realized that characters don't really come to life when I build them.

They come to life when they begin surprising me.

Different Stage, Same Process

A picture book is a stage for these characters to come to life.

That's still how I work today. I usually meet a character long before I know the story. They stagger and strut around the edges of my paper for a while.

Then, just as I'm trying to fall asleep they...