Ten Word Tiny Tales written by Joseph Coelho

As a child I used to have a recurring dream of wolves floating up to the living room window. In my dream I would run downstairs to my bedroom, and they would drift down to that window. They never tapped the glass or tried to get in, they just floated… It was terrifying.

I drew this memory for a hashtag I started: #childhoodillustrated (for drawings of our memorable moments from childhood, join in!) and I popped it on Instagram.

At The Good Ship Illustration we often talk about the importance of showing who you are in your work and sharing it online, and this is why:

Walker Books saw that drawing, which is older and spookier than the picture book work I usually do and thought I might like to illustrate one of Jospeh Coelho’s stories for a book he’d written called Ten Word Tiny Tales. Each story is only ten words long, and every one of them is a razor sharp, mildly disturbing gem. They sent me the stories to read and I could hardly believe it when I read this little beauty:

‘Invite me in,’ she says outside my tenth storey window.’

I knew ‘she’ had to be a wolf from my childhood dreams.

I relished the task of illustrating something darker, spookier and more mysterious than my usual work, hopefully the universe will send me more of this work 🤞