Chris Riddell

And I love that as a process.

And I think when any of us sort of pick up a pencil and start to draw, the great enemy is to be too self-conscious.

And we all have that tendency to try and edit ourselves and try and make that mark the important mark.

The only important way to draw is to get it right.

And in fact, by drawing live, often you get it wrong.

But it doesn't matter if you do it with a flourish, if you are enjoying it.

The end result is not important.

Well, Ashley, as I call him, as my close friend, A.F.

Harold is a wonderful literary moniker, but Ashley is a performance poet, I think.

So that to get the real sense of his work, I think you want to hear him declaim it.

And he's a wonderful sort of Edward Lear sort of figure.

He's got a great big ginger beard and sort of formidable stage presence.

And he performs his poetry wonderfully.

And I remember at the Sydney Writers' Festival, I mean, we...

we don't rehearse.

Ashley likes to get up and just read and interpret, you know, the audience reaction and go from one thing to another.

And in fact, he often asks the audience just to shout out a page number, and he will turn to his anthology and go to that page number and illustrate whatever's there.

And so I've got to listen very carefully and just go with that.

So I found myself at the Writers' Festival drawing while Ashley rolled around on the stage, sort of singing

I'm a Wallaby or Perhaps a Kangaroo, one of his finest poems, I've got to say.