Sophie Beer | Growing daisies in concrete

Sophie Beer completed a double degree with distinction in Creative Industries and Law. To the bewilderment of her parents, Sophie is now a successful illustrator and author of many children’s books. Her first middle-grade novel, Thunderhead, was launched in October 2024 and is based on her experience of losing half of her hearing due to an acoustic neuroma, a noncancerous tumour on the main nerve leading from the inner ear to the brain.

The QUT Alumni team sat down with Sophie to discuss her inspiration and what drives her to encourage kindness, diversity and change in children facing an increasingly difficult future.

Can you tell us about your journey since graduating from QUT?

Of course! I tried to be a lawyer with dismal results (I kept doodling in the margins of affidavits) and worked in arts marketing for a university—also with dismal results (I kept doodling in the margins of press releases). In 2016, I was diagnosed with an Acoustic Neuroma and had to take time off work to recover. During this phase of my life, I fell into writing and illustrating kids books, something I always wanted to do but never in my wildest dreams thought was actually a real job, and my life has never been the same. I have since sold over a million books, had my work translated into many languages, and a book banned in the United States (a true mark of pride!). I've worked with publishers such as Penguin Random House New York, Simon and Schuster, Harper Collins, Scholastic, Hardie Grant, and Walker Books. As an illustrator, I've worked with the LEGO Group, Disney, Google, and The Boston Globe, and have been published as a writer by The Guardian, The Big Issue, and Frankie Magazine. I've also had my own line of homewares in collaboration with Myer. I guess the doodling paid off!

What might a standard week look like for you?

At the moment, I have my eight-month-old baby at home with me, so we usually hang out together during the day, doing rhyme time at the library, getting groceries, investigating cold cases with the help of a hardened ex-cop with a heart of gold, you know, the usual. When the baby and my toddler are down for the night and my partner and I have sufficiently recovered our wits, I work on the latest looming book deadline! I usually try to cram in a few Writing Pretentiously At Cafes hours, but this does not appease my baby, who is singularly hellbent on derailing my writing career until he gets to daycare next year.

What inspired you to become a children’s book illustrator and author?

I've always been passionate about children's literacy, art, and literature, but I could never find a means of marrying these interests in a way that I felt was making people's lives better until I fell into children's publishing. It was a circuitous route to find my path, but being able to facilitate preschool and primary school literacy through my books and school visits makes me feel like I have a superpower and am actually doing some good in the world.

As both an illustrator and an author, how do you decide to use illustration to advance the storyline over text?

The collision of text and image is so interesting to me: it was initially one of the things that drew me to picture books. The frisson that happens when text is saying one thing and image another is beautiful. Making an element of a story unspoken, with just images hinting at it, can be even more powerful than expressly spelling it out in text. Whichever method hits harder emotionally is what I go for.

Can you share with us five favourite kids’ reads for the summer?

Certainly! I'll even break it down into age groups!

• Young Adult: Into the Mouth of the Wolf by Erin Gough
• Middle Grade: The Six Summers of Tash and Leopold by Danielle Binks and Laughter Is the Best Ending by Maryam Master
• Junior Fiction: Hazel's Treehouse by Zanni Louise, illustrated by Judy Watson
• Picture books: Bernie Thinks in Boxes by Jess Horn, illustrated by Zoe Bennett

If you had a magic wand, what is the one thing you would like to change in the world?

No child should be in poverty and not have access to a quality education. I am very passionate about public library and public school funding; as a kid who grew up in low socioeconomic circumstances, I credit the education I received as the biggest factor for my breaking out. Early literacy intervention is one of the most powerful tools we as a society have to better kids’ outcomes for life.

Cheeky question for the fans in the room—what can we expect in 2025?

I have a very special book coming out next year with Hardie Grant about rainbow babies, having gone through a bit of a mission to have my second son. I have a couple of sticker books coming out with the British Museum and am working with Penguin Random House NY on some more baby board books. I'm also starting work on my second middle-grade novel, my first, Thunderhead, having come out in October with Allen and Unwin. My baby came on all of the flights and hotel stays for the book tour, which wrapped up in December, so it was a really lovely experience!

Can you name some of the individuals who inspire you? What qualities in these individuals do you admire and seek to emulate in your own work/life?

I’m inspired every day by my family:

• My mum, for her fierce love for her kids and for ensuring I got the best education possible despite it all
• My grandpa, for fighting the same genetic condition I have, and never letting it win over his joy of living
• My mum-in-law, for being unflappable (I am very flappable, I thus envy her unflappability)

What is one skill you couldn’t live without and why?

I think I'm supposed to say something technical like ‘critical thinking’ or ‘Adobe Photoshop blur tool prowess’ here, but really the best skill I've acquired has been hard-won: the ability to see the humour and beauty in the everyday. It's something I do with my kids books (for what are books for children if not everyday beauty strung together!) but also something I try to mindfully practise in my quotidian life.

Sophie Beer

QUT Degrees -  Bachelor of Creative Industries/Bachelor of Laws (2016)
Do you have a question for Sophie? Follow her on Instagram.

Photograph by Sophie Vaughan of Studio Gentle.