Photos that have inspired me, by Elizabeth Kay
As I seem to be stuck for ideas this month, I thought I'd post some photos I've taken of places I've been and things I've seen, and link them to particular books I've written. I'm quite a visual person, having gone to art school, and pictures do tend to evoke memories for me, and one idea leads to another... This is the photograph of a feisty eleven-year-old in Mongolia, the best rider I have ever seen, herding her goats. She was the inspiration for a reluctant reader story called Lost in the Desert , about a boot camp for difficult kids. This is the foot of a phorosrachus, an extinct bird that features heavily in Ice Feathers , a book set in prehistoric Antarctica. I saw this in the Tring site of the Natural History Museum. This is the ballroom of a castle in Prague. During the depradations of the Mongols, they took it over and rode their horses in there for war conferences. I mention it in Beware of Men with Moustaches , a story about a poetry group who are in...