Experience a heartfelt and often comic journey through Western Europe in Pastel & Pen: Travels in Europe — a “non-collaborative collaboration” between artist Gregg Simpson and novelist Carol M. Cram. Their adventures engage your senses and tweak your funny bone.

Plunge into a flamenco club in Seville, roll down ocher cliffs in Provence, survive a disastrous performance of Aida in Verona, and find out what the heck is Robbie Bubble. Carol M. Cram’s eye for the hilarious and the poignant keep you turning the pages. Gregg Simpson’s lusciously beautiful artworks encourage you to pause and enjoy.

Pastel & Pen: Travels in Europe even includes a story by Julia Simpson, the long-suffering daughter who shared many of the adventures chronicled in the book.

Carol M. Cram is the award-winning author of four novels including The Towers of Tuscany, which won the Grand Prize Chaucer Award for best historical novel pre-1750,  A Woman of Note, and The Muse of Fire. Her most recent novel is Love Among the Recipes, a witty and engaging romp through pre-pandemic Paris that has received a Publishers Weekly starred review.

Gregg Simpson is an internationally-exhibited artist with work in museums and galleries in Canada, the U.S., Italy, France, England, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Chile Australia, and Malaysia. Simpson’s work is the subject of A New Arcadia: The Art of Gregg Simpson, a Bravo TV documentary, now on YouTube. Carol and Gregg make their home on beautiful Bowen Island, near Vancouver, BC.

With Pastel & Pen: Travels in Europe, travelers can relive their own experiences through the eyes of an artist and a writer, and armchair travelers find new places to dream about.