The Quick Six Interview with Fiona Merrin on My Mum’s A Pillow

We are thrilled to welcome Fiona Merrin to the blog to talk about her recent picture book release, My Mum’s a Pillow. This is an encouraging story about seeing and valuing people for who they are, and not what they look like. It’s about reaching out to others who may have their own ‘rocks in their hearts’, and most importantly, it elicits a sense of warmth in reminding us to accept, and love, ourselves, just the way we are. Fiona Merrin’s words are gentle, sensitive and humorous, accompanied by Simon Howe‘s soft-toned but energetic and telling illustrations, which together, create interesting opportunities for visual literacy and discussion amongst readers. Thanks for sharing your story with us today, Fiona! 🙂

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Fiona lives in North Queensland and has a passion for writing stories and loves to create stories based on her son’s experiences. Her love of storytelling began at a young age and she is very excited to embark on the author journey.

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‘My Mum’s A Pillow’ was written by Fiona Merrin, illustrated by Simon Howe and published by Empowering Resources.

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The book is called ‘My Mum’s A Pillow’ and is about a close relationship between Mum and her little guy. It explores topics such as school yard bullying, self image and health. My favourite part of the book is when the main character, the little boy, puts all his trust in Mum to solve a big problem and they work together to solve it. Mum turns from being this fun loving, possibly sometimes almost irresponsible character to a soft place for her son and support for him. All the things a good pillow is!

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OUT NOW!!  The best thing to come from 2020 if you ask me!

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My own relationship with my sons and my (still in progress) journey to a healthier lifestyle.

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‘My Mum’s A Pillow‘ is real and unfiltered. It started life with a basic anti-bullying message with compassion but became so much more. Messages in this book are infinite and some surprise me still… and I’m the author! Most prominent, is the issue of self image and being happy with where you are on your journey. In this way ‘My Mum’s A Pillow‘ is completely autobiographical and touches parents and adults in the same way as it touches our children. It was beautiful to have a mother say she’d opted out of the fun of being a mum because of her view of herself and after reading my book made a promise to herself and her daughter she wouldn’t do that any more. That comment in itself made my jump into professional writing worthwhile.

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The illustrations are magical! A huge credit to Simon Howe. I could comment for days how his work compliments my ideas. There are so many details I’ve discovered! The most profound was when I noticed that the school community (where the bulk of the story is set) are of all different ethnic backgrounds. I’m almost embarrassed to say that I hadn’t even noticed until after the printing so the inclusion is unintrusive but intrinsic to the message of ‘My Mum’s A Pillow’.

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Being a first time author I have bowed to the practised hand of my publisher, Empowering Resources for book promotion. The team are working hard to support my efforts and I’m learning a lot from them.

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‘My Mum’s A Pillow’ is available through the Empowering Resources website and Booktopia.

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