Newcastle skateboard legend Poppy Starr Olsen has combined forces with award-winning Newcastle children's book author Jess Black on a new book, The Colourful World of Poppy Starr Olsen.
The 230-page book was launched early in September by Penguin Books. It focuses on a moment of time in Poppy's childhood, when she was conquering the skatepark and learning her world-respected craft at Bondi where the Olsen family lived at the time.
Now 22 years old, Poppy is a global skateboarding identity. She placed fifth in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo (held in August 2021).
While she is a frequent global traveller in skateboarding circles, she and her family have called Newcastle home for nearly a decade.
Poppy is also an artist, and the new paperback book is full of her work.
"It was fun," she says of the illustration work. "It was hard at the start, 'cause I was like, 'I always draw whatever I think of', there's not much planning to it. So when I was drawing, I had actual things I had to draw in the book, so you could read it and see it in the picture. That was tricky. But once I started slowly figuring it out, it became so much fun."
The project came together quickly, by publishing standards. The two only met in December to get the book underway, and it reached print in nine months.
While Jess Black has written 47 books, this one took her into new territory.
"It's the longest story I've written [35,000 words]," she says. "And I've never written in first person before. I'd never spent as much time with a subject before. I prefer not to meet them, only because they've often been a different age. I was writing about the young David Warner, young Ed Woo.
"Because Poppy is close to the age we are writing about, and because she's a Novocastrian, and because I'm writing about the family, I felt like I really had to get to know her and her family."
Black suggested several topics for illustrations in the book, which Poppy followed up on, producing about 10 A3 pages of drawings, with five to 10 drawings on every page.
Poppy had more downtime to work on the illustrations than she usually does in her busy life. She badly injured her left ankle in a skateboarding accident in 2022, and was off the board for about four months.
She describes the accident, which was captured on video: "On my skate team, there's a guy called Man-ramp, he's kind of like ... he dresses up in a construction suit and holds a bit of wood. He's, like, really strong. We make funny videos skating over him.
"That was the first time I wanted to get a video skating him, I had two tries and rolled my ankle. I actually thought I just rolled my ankle, a normal roll. But I couldn't stand up.
"I tore two ligaments in my ankle, and then I had a bit of cartilage damage they had to file down. I was probably out for just over four months, which isn't that bad compared to some people doing their ACL. For me, that was the longest time I was out of skateboarding."
Poppy has grown up in the era of social media, and has become an icon for a new generation. She has 64,000 followers on Instagram (and is not active on Facebook). But, she's not addicted to it.
"I don't post too much. Sometimes I might post every couple of days. Sometimes I might go a month. I'm not strict with it," she says.
"A lot of people stay up-to-date on statistics and what is going to grow their 'Insta' fame. I'm not really interested in that. ... if I like something I'll post it."
The book, aimed at young adults, ideally ages 7 and up, conveys the messages of girl empowerment and a balanced, active lifestyle. In the book, besides her own skateboarding journey, Poppy talks a lot about her family and all the things they enjoy doing together. It begins with the family doing cliff jumping into the ocean.
In the book she also talks about selling her first artworks at a stall at the Bondi Markets, even comparing skateboarding and art.
"All creation requires some kind of risk, and putting your creations out in the world, sharing them with others - that's another risk," reads one passage in the book.
The book also contains several factoids about skateboarding.
Non-skating author Jess Black admits she had to do a lot of research, from being a fly on the wall at skateboard bowls and parks to watching videos and reading skate magazines, to get the lingo down. And it's one area where Poppy probably got to call herself editor of the book.
The point-in-time in the book was at a critical juncture in Poppy's career - the start.
"When I was 12 I started getting a bit more serious," she says. "I got invited to my first World Cup, which was at the end of the book, I starting winning my first national competition. So things started picking up a lot."
Nowadays, skating is her lifestyle.
She's only just returned from a month in California where she spent time in LA, San Diego and Newport Beach.
"That was the first time I was getting back into skating since I hurt my ankle, like, skating again," she says.
As soon as the plane touched down in Sydney she was away for three days in the snow before coming back to Newcastle.
It was only during this interview that Black and Poppy had met for the first time with the final book in their hands. It's only the first book on Poppy, but probably not the last.
"I'd love to do more projects like this," Poppy says. "We'll see how this book goes. It would be so cool to do another one. Once I got into the swing of illustrating it and stuff, it was so fun."
