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A Maker of Dresses

A Beautiful Collaboration with Michael Sampson!

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!

CLICK HERE to order your copy of A MAKER OF DRESSES today!

Tags: A Maker of Dresses, author, book tour, creative kids, dress design, dressmaking, illustrator, kidlit, Michael Sampson, new book, picture book, sewing, Violet Lemay

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Categories books

Eric Hoffer Grand Prize

19 May

I am honored and completely flabbergasted to have been awarded the Hoffer Grand Prize for Alithia Ramirez Was an Artist, a picture book biography of Uvalde victim Alithia Ramirez that I wrote and illustrated in 2022. Alithia Ramirez Was an Artist was released by Michael Sampson Books in association with Brown Books in October 2023. All thanks to the Eric Hoffer Award committee, the publisher, my agent, and especially to Alithia and her family.

In addition to the honor of winning and a lovely cash prize which I will share with Alithia’s family, the Hoffer committee also provided the following commentary:

Hoffer Grand Prize

The Eric Hoffer grand prize is the highest distinction awarded each year.

Alithia Ramirez Was an Artist, Violet Lemay, Michael Sampson Books – A life itself can be a lasting image. Alithia Ramirez loved to express herself through art and share that passion with others. In fact, “her art voice was love.” She dreamt of studying in Paris and worked hard to become a better at her craft. This vibrant picture book combines the author’s illustrations with young Alithia’s original drawings, while honoring this gifted child and the love, color, and creativity she brought into the world. It was written with the support of Alithia’s parents, who lost her in the Uvalde school tragedy. The book does not however focus on the tragedy, but instead tastefully mentions Althia’s death only in the postscript. This could simply be avoided for the youngest audience or at least presented in the way of the parents’ choosing where death is part of life itself. It’s not easy for a children’s picture book to outscore expert works of fiction or heavily researched nonfiction. This book was wonderfully arranged, poignantly delivered, and brilliantly executed.

Order Signed Copies of “Alithia Ramirez Was an Artist”

Page 158, Wake Forest NC
E. Shaver Bookseller, Savannah GA
Brazos Bookstore, Houston TX
The Novel Neighbor, Webster Groves MO
Books of Wonder, New York NY
The Twig Book Shop, San Antonio TX

Or of course, you can always order an UNSIGNED copy from amazon.

Tags: Alithia Ramirez, Alithia Ramirez Was an Artist, authors, book-review, books, Eric Hoffer Award, historical-fiction, Hoffer Award, Hoffer Grand Prize, picture book, poetry, Uvalde, Violet Lemay

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Categories Alithia Ramirez Was an Artist, Awards

The Apartment Girl, Yurts, and “Let’s Be Friends”

9 Feb

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)

Let’s Be Friends is the perfect gift for Valentine’s Day. Order your copy today!

Tags: amwriting, children's book, diversity, flap book, Harper Festival, kidlit, picture book, Violet Lemay

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Categories books, family

Artists and Their Pets

18 Aug

Artists-and-Their-Pets

I’m excited to announce the imminent release of a wonderful new book, Artists and Their Pets—written by Susie Hodge, with illustrations by Yours Truly, Violet Lemay. The book is full of fascinating stories. In light of recent world events, I thought I’d share one in particular.

Matisse, Picasso, and The Dove of Peace

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Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, two of the twenty artists featured in Artists and Their Pets, had a lot in common. Friends and rivals, they both loved animals and kept pigeons and doves. Toward the end of his life when Matisse was ill, he entrusted Picasso to look after his fancy pet pigeons. Here is a snippet of the story from Artists and Their Pets:

Matisse-sample

There wasn’t room in Artists and Their Pets for this part of the story:

peace dove *

Picasso’s lithograph “La Colombe” (The Dove)—which was actually a rendering of a pigeon—was used on a poster commemorating the Peace Conference in Paris in 1949. The poster was plastered everywhere, making Picasso’s dove famous, and linking his art with the cause of peace.

Picasso continued drawing doves, stylizing and simplifying the form of the bird as he went.

I originally had the pleasure of illustrating Picasso and his doves for Mauricio Velázquez de León’s 2014 picture book 100 Pablo Picassos—a lovely and creative biography of Picasso for small children. Here is a sketch… hands y dove … and a peek at how the whole thing came together.

peace

In response to the recent terror attack in Barcelona, duopress—publisher of Artists and Their Pets and 100 Pablo Picassos—posted a snapshot of these pages on Instagram today, along with these words: Picasso’s simple drawing of a dove became a symbol of peace in 1945. #picasso would be shocked by the attacks in #barcelona, a city he loved. This image from our book #100pablopicassos is our message of #peace to all the victims of yesterday coward attack and all the citizens of #spain #love #noviolence #stopterrorism #nomoreviolence