In 2023, I was in NYC with the publisher of Alithia Ramirez Was an Artist, Michael Sampson. (If you don’t know Michael, look him up, he is hugely impressive!) We were walking past chic boutiques in Manhattan when Michael told me about a fashion book idea about which he’d been ruminating for years. (We also brunched at Ellens Stardust Diner, seen below, which was SO FUN.)
Because he is a super thoughtful person and also a keen researcher, Michael knew some obscure facts about my history, including my former life as a theatrical costume designer.
In that moment, a collaboration was born.
Because Michael is not only talented and prolific but also gracious, he allowed me to take his idea and write it in verse. Creating the art for this dream assignment was, well, a dream! I am so grateful to Michael and to the amazing team at Brown Books Publishing, led by the brilliant publishing maven Milli Brown. Designer Danny did an incredible job. He is a magician of typography and, therefore, is my personal hero.
Book Tour
Michael and are presently touring to promote A MAKER OF DRESSES. We visited TLA (the Texas Library Association Convention) in Dallas yesterday, which was incredible, and will be making various stops across the US next week. Follow along on our social media, and if you’re in Atlanta, Miami, Austin, or Wake Forest, I hope you’ll stop by and say hello!
Way back in 2023, my friends Laura Backes Bard and Jon Bard, the couple behind the Children’s Book Insider Newsletter, Write For Kids, and Writing Blueprints, asked me to design characters for a new website that would combine all of their services.
In a Zoom meeting, Laura and Jon cast their vision: Characters representing several types of writers sitting around an Algonquin-style roundtable. I sent this sketch full of options.
We all preferred the anthropormorphic characters for this kid lit venture. Over time, Laura and Jon fine-tuned their vision and sent me descriptions of 6 characters and a color palette…
…which I illustrated in various poses.
Eventually, I also had the pleasure of athromorphizing Laura and Jon.
I mean. How cute is this?
(o:
If you’re a writer of books for kids—of if you’d like to become one—definitely check out this fantastic new website. Write For Kids Online has everything you need to get you started and send you on your way to becoming a successful author.
Sallie Lowenstein recently featured Isabella’s Shoe Studio in her newsletter, Old Books, Young Readers. Click here to read the newsletter!
An early version of the spine + front cover/French flap.
Isabella’s Shoe Studio was my first author/illustrator credit. This Doodle Storybook is an interactive design primer for little artists. Huzzah!
Isabella is out of print now and can be difficult to find. Luckily, one of my favorite bookstores on earth, Page 158 in Wake Forest, NC, has copies in stock… and they deliver. (Thank you, Page 158!)
To order Isabella’s Shoe Studio from Page 158 Books, click here.
My husband and I relocated to Malaysia just as I was finishing the art for Let’s Be Friends. We moved into the residence hall of the boarding school where he works, and got settled in.
During this transition, my friends at HarperCollins and I were discussing front cover ideas for Let’s Be Friends. We settled on an option that featured tons of children. Luckily, inspiration was all around me. It’s like the UN around here! I drew many of my new little neighbors into the cover art.
Yarema and Oleksa, highlighted above, are from Ukraine. Here they are with their parents, Oksana and Andriy.
In light of recent events, showcasing this Oleksa, Yarema, Oksana and Andriy seems not only appropriate, but vital.
Over the weekend, this lovely family hosted a StandWithUkraine open house.
Homemade flags adorned homemade brownies, and traditional Ukrainian “cushion” cookies filled out the table.
We hugged, we listened to Ukrainian music, we wrote well wishes on yellow and blue paper hearts and stuck them on the wall.
Let’s Be Friends asks, “Can friends come from anywhere?”
Of course they can.
Ukrainian friends, we stand with you.
Want to help?
CLICK HERE to be directed to Andriy’s blog, STAYWITHUKRAINE, which includes links to trusted donation sites.
I grew up in a little ranch house in a midwestern suburb. My classmates were similarly situated. We were all ranch house kids—except for one girl, who lived with her mom in an apartment. Let’s call her Valerie.
Valerie was a tough cookie, let me tell you. Feathered hair, oversized plastic comb, jean jacket. Fierce.
Mousey Me would have feared her even if she lived in a ranch house like the rest of us, but her apartment-dwelling mystique made her all the more terrifying.
Decades later, when gathering ideas for Let’s Be Friends, I found myself categorizing various potential barriers to friendship—and I remembered my bias against Valerie. A “dwellings” category was added. Can friends live in any kind of house? Of course they can!
Originally, I drew a yurt under the flap. I thought a yurt would be a funny surprise.
About the Yurt
For a while, right around the time that I was writing Let’s Be Friends, my husband was fantasizing about retiring in a yurt. With me. We even spent a few nights in a very lovely New Zealand yurt AirBNB, as research—both for retirement, and for the book.
The yurt in Let’s Be Friends was eventually replaced by a treehouse. And unless fate takes an absurd twist, I very much doubt that my husband and I will live out our days in a yurt.
Incidentally, the couple who own the NZ yurt AirBNB also rent out a ship that they converted into a treehouse. Please, nobody tell my husband. We live in an apartment now, and I’d really like to keep it that way! :o)
One of my favorite images from Babies Around the World.
A Family Affair
Written by Puck and published by duopress in 2017, Babies Around the World is special to me.
When kicking off the process of illustrating this charming book, I made some style samples. The publisher liked them all and told me to choose, so I called Graham into my studio and asked him to look over my shoulder. “Which one?” I asked. He pointed, and the rest is history. Since that day, I’ve illustrated several books in this fun, splashy style. But that’s not the only way that Graham helped!
My son also contributed a handful of architectural drawings, which I incorporated into the art for Babies Around the World. This was not our only collaboration, but alas, it’s our most recent. The little bugger grew up and into other interests. Color me gobsmacked. I used to say, “Hey kiddo, draw the Petronas Towers for me.” Ten minutes later, a freshly inked masterpiece would appear. IMHO the young man is a remarkable artist. He’s following his own path now though, studying law. (Again. Gobsmacked.)
I treasure every building my baby ever drew, including those featured in Babies Around the World. (He drew the lamp posts in the London illustration, above.) How incredible that Reader’s Digest included Babies Around the World in their auspicious list? And coming in at number four? Talk about gobsmacked!
Click here to peruse Reader’s Digest’s complete list, written by Molly Pennington, PhD. It’s a wonderful resource for anyone curating a home library for little ones.
To read more about how the art for Babies Around the World was made and see some of Graham’s drawings, click here.
And click here to order your copy of Babies Around the World. Make sure to read the reviews, they are great!
For years, I’ve been wanting to write for older kids. I’ve explored a few characters and have written a paragraph here and there, but never built momentum.
As explained in my previous post, in the spring of 2021, an idea for a YA novel popped into my head. I knew it was good, but I remained STUCK.
Thankfully, I was binge-listening to Children’s Book Insider‘s Kidlit Distancing Socials, including a Chris Tebbetts interview. Chris announced a Highlights Foundation online course that he was co-teaching with Erin Dionne: “Getting Your Middle Grade or Young Adult Novel UNSTUCK”.
I took the course, listened to it repeatedly while illustrating other books, and then, over the summer, wrote my novel!
I highly recommend the class, which delivered on it’s promise one hundred percent. I stand before you, UNSTUCK. Able to write. (And in the photo above, I stand before my beat sheet. Perplexed about how to move my plot along… but not stuck!)
Amazing.
“Getting… UNSTUCK” is now an online on-demand course at the Highlights Foundation. Anyone can take it, any time! Click here to check it out.
You’d be wise to connect with the Highlights Foundation to receive course updates. Connect with Erin Dionne and Chris Tebbetts, too! Erin and Chris are excellent writers and excellent teachers. Check out their books, and follow them on social media so you won’t miss notices about any of their other classes or workshops.
I’m a book illustrator who sometimes also writes, mostly for very small children. Writing was never one of my career goals, and writing a novel was never on my radar, until… ba-boom!
Cue lightning bolt.
Yep. I was struck by a story idea for a kidlit novel. Bonus: the subject was of great interest to my teenage son. He loved the idea, and I loved discussing it with him!
After a few years of talking, it was time to act. This book wasn’t going to write itself! Not knowing where to begin, I poked around on the internet, listened to tons of author interviews, and enrolled in a few online classes. I thought I’d share the highlights in a series of posts for any potential authors out there. Note that I am not affiliated with any of these courses, I’m just sharing my experience as an online kidlit writing student.
**********
Writing Blueprints
If you want to write for kids of any age but aren’t sure where to begin, or you’ve been trying for a while and feel frustrated or lost, look no further. Laura Backes (of Children’s Book Insider and Writeforkids.org) and her team have put together a Writing Blueprint course for every kidlit category, from picture books to middle grade and young adult novels. Each blueprint is self directed and takes you step by step through the writing process. Because the blueprint system is clear and linear, it can save endless hours spent meandering.
“I guarantee that you are going to write a first draft that wanders in a lot of different directions before you end up where you think you should be going. And you will have huge rewrites ahead of you, that you could possibly avoid, by doing this.”
Laura Backes
Before using the blueprint, I had written nearly 20K words guided by a loose outline. The scenes were good, I loved my characters, and I was thrilled to be writing my book! The more I wrote, however, the more I felt that my story was drifting. I sensed massive rewrites and restructuring in my future, which made the process feel heavy. It seemed the only way to find and work out the details of my story was to keep writing, which would mean even more eventual rewriting.
Enter: The Detailed Outline
After helping me create characters and story ideas, the Middle Grade/Young Adult Writing Blueprint guided me through the process of outlining. Creating a detailed outline for my story was not easy for me, but it was so worth the effort! I am much more at ease as I’m writing now, because I know exactly where I’m going.
In addition to the instructional videos and worksheets, the Writing Blueprints package includes lifetime access to the course, and inclusion in a private Facebook group.
********
If you are ready to invest in your writing career, Writing Blueprints is a great way to start. Terrific bang-to-buck ratio.
Click here to be redirected to the Writing Blueprints website.
Click here to be redirected to a free trial of Writing Blueprints.
********
Want to follow along on Twitter as I write my book? Click here!
What online writing classes have you enjoyed? Let me know in the comment section. :o)
On May 18th, I had the pleasure of joining the amazing Laura Backes Bard, the founder of Children’s Book Insider, for a live Zoom chat focusing on board books.
Click here to watch the replay on CBI’s YouTube channel. Considering that this was my first live interview, I think it went pretty well. Whew!
An Unexpected Cover Reveal
While prepping the day before the interview, I discovered that HarperCollins had revealed the cover of my latest board book, Let’s Be Friends, several weeks earlier than I was expecting. How perfect! I was able to share the cover during the interview.
Board Books
If given a do over, I would spend a few minutes gushing over little ones and their caregivers, all of whom have my heart. Board books, after all, are at the center of the sacred ritual of reading to babies and toddlers. When I was a young mother, I took every opportunity to snuggle with my baby and a book. Libraries and bookstores were our regular haunts. At night, when my son begged me to keep reading past his bedtime, I usually indulged him. Childhood is fleeting, after all. In hindsight, I know I made the right choice, despite the brain cells that I certainly lost to lack of sleep. :o)
Human babies are only tiny for an instant—their growing up is as swift as the beat of a hummingbird’s wing.
Kelly Barnhill, The Girl Who Drank the Moon
Board books give authors and illustrators opportunities to share in all of that good stuff. What a gift.
This CBI interview made me realize that board books are a sweet spot for me. I absolutely adore babies, and two-thirds of my writing credits are board books, but before this interview, I had never considered that I had a specialty. As I learn to write for older kids, it’s comforting to think of board books as home.
My friend Michelle and her daughter Sophia, enjoying “Healthy, Healthy, Love, Love, Love.”
Dreaming of Writing for Children?
Laura Backes and her husband Jon Bard have spent decades collecting helpful information for children’s book writers. If you want to get into the business of children’s books, explore Write4Kids.org and Children’s Book Insider.
CBI’s YouTube channel is a great place to start! There are tons of topics from which to choose. I’ve listened to every interview, and have learned from all of them.
Write4Kids.org is chock full of helpful info, too. While you’re there, sign up for the CBI newsletter, which is amazing! Priceless content, for the price of a cup of coffee.
If you’re looking for a class, CBI has got you covered. Their Writing Blueprints are revolutionary self-paced online courses tailored to various genres, at a very reasonable rate. I’m about to begin my own journey with one of these blueprints, and will keep you posted!
Meanwhile, if you have any questions about board books, give a shout!
Here are my two most recent board books. :o)
Click here to order Healthy, Healthy, Love, Love, Love
Click here to pre-order Let’s Be Friends (available everywhere on Dec 1, and in stores on Dec 14)
illustories 