Nate’s Noisy Nose follows the hilarious and heartwarming journey of a boy whose musical nose disrupts his life until he discovers the power of embracing his unique melody. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

I honestly don’t know where this idea came from! It just popped into my head and away it went! I liked the idea of having a noisy book where kids join in to repeat the sound words and I had great fun thinking up the words to accompany the character’s noisy nose.

I like to write stories that are fun. There are so many books out there that want to teach a moral lesson or highlight a particular theme – and although my story does have an underlying message, it’s not the main idea of the book. The main idea is to make readers laugh.

How did you develop the character of Gabby the Geek, and what was her role in shaping the story’s resolution?

My illustrator and I dreamed up Gabby. We wanted a mad-looking techy person who could invent a machine to help Nate. I liked the idea of kids being inspired by Gabby and designing their own machines. Initially, the machine Gabby invented was going to solve Nate’s problem by having a dial on it so he could turn the volume up and down, thereby being noisy when necessary but quiet in school and around town. But we thought it would be much funnier if the machine caused Nate’s nose to ‘explode’ and spew out the instruments! Do I give a spoiler alert here and say what happened next – perhaps not!

The illustrations are incredibly vibrant. Did you work closely with the illustrator, and how did you bring Nate’s world to life visually?

Dotti Colvin is an extremely talented illustrator. She illustrated one of my other picture books, Baby Worries, and I just knew she would be perfect for this story. We had great fun inventing each character and Dotti is an expert at adding hilarious detail to every scene. Her illustrations brought the story to life in a way that many other illustrators could not achieve. Nothing is left to chance with her illustrations – they are expertly planned and beautifully finished.

Can we expect more adventures featuring Nate, Rascal, or Gabby in the future?

I already have plans for future tales involving Nate and Rascal – after all, Rascal does become world famous! I am thinking of creating a chapter book series as a spin-off. There’s so much that these characters could get up to. Will have to wait and see what happens.

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