About A Felix

“This is where the story really begins — not on a page, but in this moment. This book was dedicated to my twin girls, and when I fell pregnant with our rainbow baby, I knew I wanted to leave personal touchpoints in the visuals — quiet things that were mine, that held meaning beyond what most readers would ever know. The teal dress I'm wearing here was one of those touchpoints. I wore it during my pregnancy, and I asked Margarita to find a way to bring it into the illustrations. She did, and she did it with such gentleness. Some things don't need to be announced to be felt.”

“Margarita and I met over coffee to talk about the book. What I didn't expect was how quickly it stopped being my book and became ours. In our conversations I kept likening souls to stars — it was just how I naturally described them. Margarita noticed that, and this sketch was her first response to that idea: star houses, stardust trails, hearts scattered everywhere. She hadn't just read the manuscript. She had felt it. That meant everything to me.”

“Who is the soul? That was the question we kept coming back to. Because I had been talking about souls as stars, Margarita began her explorations there — moving from a free-forming, shapeless concept toward something more star-like. You can see that journey here: round, soft, glowing, almost like a little star finding its form. When the golden one appeared, we both just knew. It was the one.”

“Choosing the colours was one of my favourite parts of the whole process — and the teal was never just a colour choice. It was personal. It came from the dress I wore during my pregnancy with our rainbow baby, a quiet tribute to the twin girls this book was written for. Margarita wove it in so gently — into the soul's eyes, into the world she built around it. We went back and forth before landing on that exact shade. The moment she sent it over, I think we both stopped typing and just sat with it for a moment. That was it.”

“When Margarita sent me this, I cried. Genuinely. There was the soul — glowing, golden, with those teal eyes — exactly as I had imagined it in my heart but could never have drawn myself. This is the moment I realised we were making something truly special together.”

“Once our golden soul had a face, Margarita's imagination really took flight. She started building out the whole universe — other souls, companions, the world the little one inhabits before birth. I hadn't asked for any of this. She just brought it, because she was as invested in the world as I was. That's the kind of collaborator she is.”

“This storyboard is the backbone of everything. Margarita mapped out every single spread — from the soul floating through the cosmos to the moment it finds its family. Seeing the whole journey laid out like this, I remember thinking: this is really happening. We're really making this book.”

“Once the soul-as-star idea took hold, Margarita began building the world around it. I gave her very little direction — I just said the soul should feel free, weightless, like it belongs to the whole universe. She came back with this: a spiral of stardust, the soul at the centre of it all, completely at peace. The galaxy, the trails, the sense of cosmic belonging — all of it grew from those early conversations about stars.”

“This came from a conversation about movement — if the soul is a star, how does it travel through the universe? Does it float, does it spin, does it orbit? Margarita tried so many things. I loved watching her work through it. This orbital ring was one of those ideas that opened the door to the planets and star trails that eventually became part of the book's visual world.”

“This is the one that made me laugh out loud when I first saw it — in the best way. The soul as a comet, shooting through the sky, trailing light. It was the soul-as-star idea fully realised — not just floating, but flying, blazing, alive with joy. That energy — that sense of pure delight in simply existing — is exactly what I wanted the book to feel like. Margarita nailed it.”

“From that first coffee to this — a finished page. The soul whispering to the wind, ready to find its family. Every colour, every line, every choice along the way was made with so much love and care. I started this project thinking I was writing a book. What I didn't expect was finding a true creative partner in Margarita, and a story that would mean so much to so many people.”