Meet Gill Lewis: Vet, children’s author, and environmental campaigner

On my quest for a nature-inspired series for my six-year-old daughter, a friend introduced me to the wonderful world of Willow Wildthing. I was delighted – Willow was the antithesis to the unicorns and fairies threatening to overwhelm our bookshelves. She’s a young girl with family worries, who finds solace in a patch of urban wilderness at the bottom of her garden, which she explores with a group of wild and earthy new friends.

I then discovered Willow was the brainchild of fellow vet, Gill Lewis. I eagerly got in touch with Gill, who generously gave her time to talk me through her early life and how her career as a vet inspired her passion for writing nature books for children.

Animal stories

“I was one of those children who was obsessed with anything in the garden…anything that crawled, or swam, or flew”, Gill told me, describing her younger self as a ‘nerdy child’ who treasured her fossil museum and loved climbing trees. She also found joy in creating stories from a young age, which to this day always start with a drawing. Having struggled with writing at school, Gill now advises children to “start with a doodle, if you can’t think of the words”.

With undiagnosed dyslexia, Gill lost her academic mojo at secondary school. But determined to work with animals, she pursued her ambition to go to veterinary school, landing a place at the Royal Veterinary College in London. Gill spoke warmly of her years at vet school, where she enjoyed anatomy and physiology, with a fascination with how animals work. After graduating, clinical work led her to Cornwall, Somerset, then Zambia and Zimbabwe, where Gill and her husband Roger explored the world of tropical veterinary medicine.

On returning to the UK, Gill found it challenging to balance work with motherhood in a rural community. So she turned her attention to her lifelong love of writing, in the process discovering a creative outlet that was previously missing in her veterinary career. Her early submissions were sadly rejected by publishers, but recalling how hard she’d tried to get into vet school, Gill realised she just needed to keep pursuing the dream. With that in mind, she signed up for a Masters course in writing for young people at Bath Spa University.

At university, Gill learnt how to craft a story and express her characters, and during this steep learning curve, she unlocked the magic ingredient - 'writing from the heart'. For Gill, this meant connecting her love of animals and nature with her passion for story-telling. Understanding how 'animals connect us through stories', Gill attributes many of the themes in her books to the “emotional weight” behind the human-animal bond, which she witnessed during her work with owners and their animals in clinical practice.

A writing career in flight

Leveraging her veterinary experiences through her writing, Gill won the 2009 course prize for most promising writer, and her first book was snapped up for publication within hours of being offered to publishers. Her writing career took flight with Sky Hawk, inspired by the idea of migratory birds connecting children on different continents. Numerous works followed: ‘White Dolphin’, a story about bottom trawling and its damage to sea beds; a novel called ‘Moon Bear’, tackling the issue of bear bile farming in South East Asia; ‘Sky Dancer’, charting the plight of hen harriers on grouse moors; a book called ‘Gorilla Dawn’, exploring the impact of deforestation and mineral mining in the DRC – and many more. More recently, Gill has written on issues affecting domestic species, for example in her book ‘A street dog named Pup’, and her series ‘Puppy Academy’ and ‘The Island Vet’.

I pressed Gill on whether her veterinary background helped – or even hindered – her journey to becoming a published author. She told me she wouldn’t have written the books she has written without having been a vet, and reflected on the robust learning curve of becoming a veterinary surgeon, which she has also experienced in becoming a writer. Being a vet also gave Gill a sense of validity for what she wanted to say, which helped her early conversations with publishers.

Writing as a superpower

The common theme running through Gill’s work is the belief that animals connect us as humans. She asserts that children’s stories can be powerful levers for change, bringing attention to the pressing animal and environment issues of our time. Her titles do not shy away from big topics, and Gill acknowledges some can be tricky for children to deal with – but she balances this by offering rays of hope for changing the world.

The impact of Gill’s stories on her readers is evident - in the letters written to MPs, the careers inspired by her books, and the up-and-coming authors nurtured through the Young Wild Writer’s competition, founded by Gill alongside Hen Harrier Action. She explains that science is our understanding of the world, but creativity is our link to each other – and by connecting to two, she believes we can shape a better world.

“I say to children – writing is a superpower. You can [use it to] change hearts and minds, and the world.”

Peninsula life

Our conversation turns to her life in Pembrokeshire, as part of a peninsula community, where Gill balances writing with campaigning to protect local wildlife. She describes her love of British wildlife, and the animals she is lucky to see around her local coastline - seals, otters, peregrines, choughs, razorbills, manx shearwaters, storm petrels, and many more. Yet wildlife disturbance is a growing problem in her community, and she can often be found presenting at literary festivals, speaking in schools, and campaigning with her local community brandishing a papier mache seal and razor bill to raise awareness of the plight of these creatures and how to appreciate them without causing disturbance.

When it comes to writing – Gill can be found sinking into her latest story between 9am and 1pm. Finding her headspace is uncluttered in the mornings, Gill describes this time as like “swimming underwater”, and she still uses lots of visual story mapping. I’m told there’s a big (secret) project in the pipeline for Gill, and I can’t wait to see where her writing will take her next.

I conclude our conversation by asking Gill how veterinary professionals can support sustainability. She suggests that young vets can lack confidence and courage in their convictions, and can be fearful of making mistakes. Yet, vets go into the profession because they are deeply caring people, and empathy is the basis for creating a better world. Gill believes vets can work within different layers of society to use their voice to enable change.

I come away from meeting Gill with a renewed conviction that there are so many ways ‘to vet’ – regardless of whether we have animals under our clinical care, there are ways to use our unique perspectives, backgrounds, and lived experiences to fulfil our oath to animals. Gill is the perfect exemplar, and my daughter and I can’t wait to sink into her next story.

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Thank you to Gill Lewis for generously dedicating time to talk to Vet Sustain and share her story.

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Links

Explore Gill’s work further via her website – Gill Lewis

Gill’s books – Buy now from Hive