Louise Wills

This article appeared in the Hunter and Coastal Lifestyle Magazine in 2022

The Hunter Writers Centre and Create NSW have published a junior fiction anthology featuring 14 tales about endangered animals that will raise awareness and promote action in our youngest citizens to help protect vulnerable Australian wildlife. Local Writers and Illustrators worked together to create the book available from the Hunter Writers Centre online shop.

My Illustrations help visualise Judy Johnson’s engaging story titled “Ernie the Reluctant Devil”.

Excuse me, but my name is NOT ‘Mittens’! is the self published debut picture book by the award winning illustrator, Louise Wills, 2021.

This is the charming and surreal story of a girl who has her stubborn and quick-to-judge mindset challenged by her neighbours cat. She assumes her neighbour’s cat is old and boring and not worth playing with. When the cat eventually speaks to her, he takes her on a journey through his internal universe, where she realises that the assumptions she has made about him are further from the truth than she could have imagined.

Using striking illustrations, symbolism, and surrealism the author/illustrator tells a heartwarming tale of friendship, acceptance and imagination. Encouraging you to slow down and look. As you journey through this book with the characters you awaken a sense of wonder and find your self reflecting on the minds of all the people you haven’t met yet, and even those you think you know well.