My name is Reka Hall, I am originally from Hungary and lived in Brighton for over 10 years. When I finished the university in Pecs and got my degree for becoming a Maths and Computer Science teacher, I came to the UK for a summer, and here I am 11 years later married, being a mum and settled down. I started writing when my daughter was born 6 years ago. My dad passed away 6 months after she was born, and writing helped with my anxiety, it was always easier for me to express myself in the written world. I also felt talking to kids was somehow easier than talking to adults, so I chose to write stories for kids.  My debut book, When Millypop and her mummy visited Ice Cream Land came out just at the end of August.

The book was inspired by my daughter. She was 5 when one evening she got scared, she had a bad dream. We talked and after asking some questions to take her mind off the dream and with some positive encouragement she created a magical wonderland; a place she could visit as she drifted off to sleep. She slept through the whole night and woke up the next day excited telling me all about her adventures in Ice Cream Land.

It took about 1 month to write my first draft then about 4 months to edit it to the shape when I was happy to share it with publishers. I also did some amateur sketches based on my daughter’s detailed descriptions which professional illustrators could use. There were even more elements that I had to leave off. Probably will keep them for the next book.

I would like to help people with my work, especially kids. Mental health is close to me, having anxiety myself I know how hard it can be to understand what you are going though. I always cherish positive thinking and visualisation, it helped me overcome fears and I am trying to tech techniques to my daughter as well to make it easier to process.