Five Questions with Chrysa Chouliara

Please help me welcome Chrysa Chouliara, an author/illustrator who has just publish a lovely book with wonderful illustrations, which has been described as a cross between a chapter book and a picture book. She is here to talk to us about Fenneco's Journey.

Tell us about your new book
Under the sizzling sun of the Sahara desert, a hidden world exists. A labyrinth of dark, sandy burrows that many animals find refuge against the excruciating heat. Amongst them is Fenneco, a small desert fox without any friends. Soon she will embark on a journey all around the world trying to get home. 
But what is home after all?

What inspired you when working on this project?
There are many books that the main character travels all around the world to conclude, like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz that "there is no place like home." 
But what is home? Is it the place you are born? Or a place you kind of build later in life navigating away from your familiar surroundings, picking and choosing from personal experiences.

Tell us about the creative process for this book.
While working on the book, I spoke with many people living abroad. I met refugees, immigrants, cosmopolitan expats, or just people like myself with a big enough wanderlust to fill three books. I asked them about their experience of living abroad. I was also curious about their place of origin and what were their thoughts or feelings.
Then I assigned them to an animal with similar personality traits. I think I literally spent hundreds of hours researching each animal. Its habits and habitat and I created a massive pile of rough sketches. Later I inked, scanned them, and colored them digitally using my collection of scanned textures. 
Juggling writing & illustrating was an exhausting task. Having a small company on top of it was a crazy journey by itself. But "Fenneco's Journey" had a lot of passengers along the way that affected the process as well. Louise Koopman was an early contributor to the draft, and frankly, without her, it would not be a book at all. Some friends like Ria and Chris proofread the text. And some others were always around there to give valuable feedback. 

Did you encounter anything unexpected while working on this project?
Yes, once I contacted a team of marine biologists to ask about the inside of whales. I kept reading Darwin's "On the Origin of Species," looking for any exciting wiki to add to the book. Then to my surprise, the closest airport from Australia's coast across Indonesia was the Darwin airport. 

Now for something completely different! A visit to the North Pole or a visit to the Sahara Desert, Why?
Hm... I have to go with the North or the South Pole. And for one reason only. With global warming, Arctic sea ice is now declining at a rate of 13.1 percent per decade. I want to have a good picture in my mind of all the animals living there. It will motivate me towards more sustainable life choices.

Thank you, Chrysa, for this interesting insight into the process of creating your book. We wish you and Fenneco all the best as her story greets the big wide world.

​Sandra Yoong-Chia

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Bio - Chrysa Chouliara
Chrysa Chouliara is an illustrator, writer and artist from Greece living & working in Switzerland.
Before that she lived in Netherlands and travelled a bit around the globe.
She is the writer & illustrator behind books "Die Insel/ Το νησί"- 2018, Η μέρα του κ. ΣΜΙΤ/The day of Mr. SMIT -2004, a dozen short stories, and an illustrator of many children's books. 
Nowadays you can mostly find her on top of a ladder making large drawings around Zürich or at her studio in Luzern.

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