Going From Writing To Illustrating

Unlike the others on this blog, I came to children's book illustration from the writing side. I have no formal art training (middle grade author Linda Sue Park tells me I should say that I'm "self-trained" instead, heh) and up to about a month ago, I considered myself mainly a writer.

I did a guest post about my experience on the SCBWI Illustrator Committee blog recently, for those interested. Summary: after my friend Beckett Gladney strong-armed me into entering the SCBWI Illustrator Portfolio Showcase at the summer conference, I won two awards and was subsequently approached by Simon & Schuster about illustrating Michael Ian Black's newest picture book, I'M BORED (coming out in 2012).

So while the others will be posting from much more illustration experience, I'll be posting from the viewpoint of a writer who is just learning the ins and outs of children's book illustration, and how it compares to the writing side. I'm not giving up writing, by the way, so feel free to visit Inkygirl: Daily Diversions For Writers for writing-related info and comics.

This blog is hosted on my Squarespace account, so please forgive the quirks that go along with that. So far I haven't found a way to make the main banner clickable to the Mentees home page instead of my own -- the only way to do that would be to pay for another Squarespace account, and I need to get more book contracts before I can afford to do that. :-)

Anyway, do checked out our bio pages at the top of the page as well as the Mentees Illustration Gallery. And thank you for visiting!