About Me
I'm an author, illustrator and artist living in the wilds of Gloucestershire with my family and four enormous white wolves. I am continually inspired and profoundly moved by nature and natural landscapes and feel most at home amongst the little woods and rivers of the Cotswolds or the untamed wildness and raw beauty of my beloved Dartmoor and New Zealand, where I spent four glorious months travelling around.
I have a Post Grad in Education and a BA (Hons) Degree in Fine Art, specialising in painting, drawing, printmaking and sculptural ceramics, though I also excelled in my landscape and studio photographic modules. Visual arts has always been a great passion of mine and I was blessed to be able to draw to a high standard from an early age. In fact it was often joked, that I could draw, paint and write before I could walk properly! My one regret was not accepting the MA place I had been offered at the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art in London, the folly of youth! One day, I will correct that mistake. :)
I'm a freelance illustrator and work for HarperCollins after they approached me in February 2017. Most recently I have begun illustrating for Penguin Random House among other publishing houses and have been an Artist-In-Residence for Oxford University, producing all the artwork (50 hand drawn and painted images) for a huge new project they are funding, a creative thinking card game called 'Mycelium' invented by 2016 and 2017 World Creative Thinking Champion, poet and entrepreneur, Dan Holloway.
Most excitedly, I was a shortlisted 'Best Artist' for the 2018 British Fantasy Awards and most recently 'Best Artist' for the 2019 British Fantasy Awards! Yay!! I'm SO honoured and chuffed to be a shortlisted nominee amongst such well established and world renown artists! :)
I'm a published novelist and have been a full member of The Society of Authors and ALCS since 2013. I had a very successful Waterstones book signing tour in 2012/13 for my debut novel, White Mountain - Book 1 of The Darkling Chronicles, which was first published in September 2012 and has been re-published in a vastly superior second edition by BFS award winning, Grimbold Books, 1st December 2014. I also took part as a participating author and illustrator in the Cirencester Literary Festival in 2015. I have written several published short stories, including my sci-fi short story, 'Silent Running', in acclaimed anthology, Fight Like A Girl, published by Grimbold Books in April 2016 and 'The Orphan and the Iron Troll', in dark fairy tale anthology, Shadows of the Oak, published by Tenebris Books in December 2016. I have also written two short novellas in the Darkling Chronicles universe, 'A Friendship Forged' and 'The Siege of Kallorm', which was published 1st December 2018 and am currently writing the second book in my Darkling Chronicles novel trilogy, Darkling Rise, and hope to have that completed next year in addition to several other projects for 2020 and beyond.
I was a full-time teacher for 16 years and was able to indulge in my passion for art, books, storytelling and reading and pass this passion onto the pupils in my care.
Now, I am fortunate enough to be living my dream as a full time artist, creating individual one-of-a-kind artworks for clients, commissions and direct sale. When I'm not painting, writing and illustrating, I also work as a librarian, another dream job surrounded by books all day!
I have a huge and eclectic range of interests and hobbies, from chess to astronomy, ancient history to geology, conservation and ecology issues and of course, reading, writing and art! I try to visit Hay-on-Wye every year, either the festival itself or just the town with its wonderful second-hand bookshops, though I now have limited room given that I have 13 bulging bookcases at home and am now desperately running out of wall space for my growing library!
I'm a nut for good writing, am an avid film buff, a lover of nature and conservation and a fantasy & sci-fi geek and am also a proud member of The Alliance of Worldbuilders, a group of extraordinarily talented fantasy and sci-fi writers who first met on the HarperCollins writing site, Authonomy. I also have a little blog which has just passed 56,000 visitors, https://sophieetallis.wordpress.com/
For more information about my writing, books & artwork, please check out my website: Sophie E Tallis and if you would like to buy any of my original artwork, then check out my new Etsy shop - Sophie's Artisan Arts!
Let's see where our imagination takes us! 😉
Many thanks for visiting Sophie E Tallis Illustrations. x
I'm an author, illustrator and artist living in the wilds of Gloucestershire with my family and four enormous white wolves. I am continually inspired and profoundly moved by nature and natural landscapes and feel most at home amongst the little woods and rivers of the Cotswolds or the untamed wildness and raw beauty of my beloved Dartmoor and New Zealand, where I spent four glorious months travelling around.
I have a Post Grad in Education and a BA (Hons) Degree in Fine Art, specialising in painting, drawing, printmaking and sculptural ceramics, though I also excelled in my landscape and studio photographic modules. Visual arts has always been a great passion of mine and I was blessed to be able to draw to a high standard from an early age. In fact it was often joked, that I could draw, paint and write before I could walk properly! My one regret was not accepting the MA place I had been offered at the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art in London, the folly of youth! One day, I will correct that mistake. :)
I'm a freelance illustrator and work for HarperCollins after they approached me in February 2017. Most recently I have begun illustrating for Penguin Random House among other publishing houses and have been an Artist-In-Residence for Oxford University, producing all the artwork (50 hand drawn and painted images) for a huge new project they are funding, a creative thinking card game called 'Mycelium' invented by 2016 and 2017 World Creative Thinking Champion, poet and entrepreneur, Dan Holloway.
Most excitedly, I was a shortlisted 'Best Artist' for the 2018 British Fantasy Awards and most recently 'Best Artist' for the 2019 British Fantasy Awards! Yay!! I'm SO honoured and chuffed to be a shortlisted nominee amongst such well established and world renown artists! :)
I'm a published novelist and have been a full member of The Society of Authors and ALCS since 2013. I had a very successful Waterstones book signing tour in 2012/13 for my debut novel, White Mountain - Book 1 of The Darkling Chronicles, which was first published in September 2012 and has been re-published in a vastly superior second edition by BFS award winning, Grimbold Books, 1st December 2014. I also took part as a participating author and illustrator in the Cirencester Literary Festival in 2015. I have written several published short stories, including my sci-fi short story, 'Silent Running', in acclaimed anthology, Fight Like A Girl, published by Grimbold Books in April 2016 and 'The Orphan and the Iron Troll', in dark fairy tale anthology, Shadows of the Oak, published by Tenebris Books in December 2016. I have also written two short novellas in the Darkling Chronicles universe, 'A Friendship Forged' and 'The Siege of Kallorm', which was published 1st December 2018 and am currently writing the second book in my Darkling Chronicles novel trilogy, Darkling Rise, and hope to have that completed next year in addition to several other projects for 2020 and beyond.
I was a full-time teacher for 16 years and was able to indulge in my passion for art, books, storytelling and reading and pass this passion onto the pupils in my care.
Now, I am fortunate enough to be living my dream as a full time artist, creating individual one-of-a-kind artworks for clients, commissions and direct sale. When I'm not painting, writing and illustrating, I also work as a librarian, another dream job surrounded by books all day!
I have a huge and eclectic range of interests and hobbies, from chess to astronomy, ancient history to geology, conservation and ecology issues and of course, reading, writing and art! I try to visit Hay-on-Wye every year, either the festival itself or just the town with its wonderful second-hand bookshops, though I now have limited room given that I have 13 bulging bookcases at home and am now desperately running out of wall space for my growing library!
I'm a nut for good writing, am an avid film buff, a lover of nature and conservation and a fantasy & sci-fi geek and am also a proud member of The Alliance of Worldbuilders, a group of extraordinarily talented fantasy and sci-fi writers who first met on the HarperCollins writing site, Authonomy. I also have a little blog which has just passed 56,000 visitors, https://sophieetallis.wordpress.com/
For more information about my writing, books & artwork, please check out my website: Sophie E Tallis and if you would like to buy any of my original artwork, then check out my new Etsy shop - Sophie's Artisan Arts!
Let's see where our imagination takes us! 😉
Many thanks for visiting Sophie E Tallis Illustrations. x
