I've been sending cartoons to newspapers and magazines since I was ten years old-although I never sold anything until my late teens. Since then I've worked full-time firstly as a cartoonist and more recently as the author/illustrator of mostly children's books. (about 80 books to date.)

WHEELCHAIR WORLD is a picture book without words and was prompted, as a lot of my books are, by thinking about an alternative world: one where everybody is confined to a wheelchair and how that might change society and hopefully make people think differently about disability.

I've been a self-publisher for a long time, although I've had lots of books published by 'proper' publishers too. I just like the freedom of doing my own thing.

Actually, I think of myself more as an illustrator than a writer as my books tend to be mainly pictures.

I like going to schools and showing my drawings to students, they always seem very enthusiastic, but it's always nice to hear from people who have read and enjoyed my work.

At the moment I'm re-releasing a series of puzzle books I originally did for SCHOLASTIC here in Australia, including titles such as PUZZLE BODY, PUZZLE PLANETS, PUZZLE ANIMALS, PUZZLE HEROES and PUZZLE KINGDOMS. They are large format big colour books with huge double page spreads and are a challenge to self-publish now that the original series are out of print. I'm renaming the books too, so, for example, PUZZLE BODY is now STEPHEN STANLEY;S PUZZLE BODY. It all seems to be going well.

As I've always been self-employed and work from home getting out of bed and getting to work is a matter of only a few steps, but I've never had any problem with what I do. A lot of my books can be a bit of a grind however (some can take a year to draw) and this means just working away at the project knowing that eventually it will be complete. But it's fun too.

I play with my model soldiers out in my garage.

I won a 'make a book' competition at the South Australian State Library when I was a teenager (It was a saga about Vikings!). I think the judges worked out that I was only really interested in drawing Viking long-boats and such and commented that I could have perhaps put more effort into the storyline, which was fair enough I guess.

Again, being mainly an illustrator I tend to illustrate stories written by other people (authors) and so my process really begins with reading the finished story and deciding what sort of drawings would best fit the story. Sometimes I have to tell an author that I think I might be unsuited to their particular book as my style of work (like all styles) is best suited to particular themes. I don;t really 'do' cute animals or realism. But I like organized chaos and busy drawings with lots happening.