Saturday, August 30, 2014

Michelle Edwards

Michelle Edwards is the award winning author/illustrator of over 13 books for children, including Chicken Man winner of National Jewish Book Award. Her illustrations have appeared in several shows of children's book art including the current "Monsters and Miracles", co-organized by the Skirball Cultural Center and the Eric Carle Museum. She is a monthly feature writer for the Lion Brand Yarn Company newsletter. A Knitter's Home Companion is her first adult book.

Michelle was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and grew up in Troy, New York. She studied at the Bazalel Art Academy in Jerusalem and earned an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Iowa. She lives with her family in Iowa City, Iowa. Source
Learn more about Michelle on her website.





Friday, August 29, 2014

Lynda Mullaly Hunt

Lynda Mullaly Hunt has the best job in the world; she writes for kids! She is also a former FPS Scenario Writing Coach, third/sixth grade teacher, wife of her high school sweetheart, and mom of two teenagers.
Lynda doesn't tend to write about kids who walk through time portals or use magic wands. She writes about really decent kids who find themselves in the middle of unthinkable circumstances but find ways to walk themselves out of it. As an author, one of the things that she is most eager to do is get out and visit readers to speak with them on writing, the use of the arts to enrich lives, and the tough decisions kids must sometimes make to ensure happy lives for themselves. Source
Lynda is the author of "One For The Murphys" and the forthcoming "Fish In A Tree."
Learn more about Lynda on her website or her blog.


Hazel Mitchell 2014


Hazel Mitchell is an award winning illustrator. From an early age she drew on every thing she could get her hands on and still can't be left safely alone with a pencil. Her most recent books include Imani's Moon, One Word Pearl, 1,2,3 by the Sea, How to Talk to an Autistic Kid (Foreword Reviews Gold Medal winner and Finalist in 'Books for a Better Life'), Hidden New Jersey and the All-Star Cheerleaders series by Anastasia Suen.


Originally from Yorkshire, England, she now lives and works from her studio in Central Maine, USA. She still misses fish and chips and mushy peas, but is learning to love lobster. She has a dog, a cat, two horses and several snow shovels. Source
Hazel's latest dot is from her upcoming book, Imani's Moon

Learn more about Hazel on her website.


Thursday, August 28, 2014

Brian Won


Brian Won is an illustrator, children's book author, and motion graphics designer. He lives in Eagle Rock, CA with his wife and young son, Charlie. His debut children's book is entitled, "Hooray for Hat." His next book as an illustrator will be "Outer Space, Bedtime Race" with author Rob Sanders, due out Spring 2015. 

Learn more about Brian on his website.




Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Evan Turk


Evan Turk is an illustrator, animator, and designer working in New York City. He specializes in travel illustration, on-location event reportage, cultural children's books, and concept illustration for video games, animation, and advertising. Evan is the illustrator of Grandfather Ghandi. 


Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Brian Lies


Brian Lies was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and went to Brown University after high school, where he studied Psychology and British and American Literature. After graduation from college in 1985, he moved to Boston to study drawing and painting at the Boston Museum School (also known as the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).

At the Museum School, Brian started getting paintings in exhibitions and won a few prizes, and then was able to get political illustrations published in the Christian Science Monitor and the Boston Globe.

In 1989, he illustrated his first book, Flatfoot Fox and the Case of the Missing Eye, with Houghton Mifflin Company in Boston.

Since then, he has illustrated over twenty-five books, including the latest one, Bats in the Band, which he also wrote. Other books he has written-and-illustrated include the New York Times bestsellers Bats at the Beach and Bats at the Library, Hamlet and the Enormous Chinese Dragon Kite, and Hamlet and the Magnificent Sandcastle.

He lives in a seaside town in Massachusetts with his wife, daughter, and two cats. 
Brian writes about his dot, "The title of this one is "Make a Joyous Noise!," representing the sound version of making a Dot, creating music that pleases you, even if it’s not necessarily professional.  Each of us has music inside, stemming—as a drummer I met recently told me—from our heartbeat. It can be viewed either this way or upside down, which I’d originally intended —except that when the bat’s inverted, you can’t understand its face as well, visually."

Learn more about Brian on his website.





Monday, August 25, 2014

Caroline Starr Rose



Caroline Starr Rose spent her childhood in the deserts of Saudi Arabia and New Mexico, camping at the Red Sea in one and eating red chile in the other. As a girl she danced ballet, raced through books, composed poetry on an ancient typewriter, and put on magic shows in a homemade cape. She’s taught both social studies and English in New Mexico, Florida, Virginia, and Louisiana. Caroline’s the author of the ALA Notable book, May B. (2012), Over in the Wetlands, (2015), and Blue Birds (2015). 

Learn more about Caroline on her website.




Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Toni Yuly


Toni Yuly has been an early bird all her life, and loves to start the day in the studio listening to other early birds sing outside her window. She was born in Seattle and now lives in Bremerton, Washington, in a small house by the water. She studied painting at the University of Washington, where she worked with the great American painter Jacob Lawrence. In addition to making art, Toni works in the King County library system. Early Bird is her first book for children. Source

Toni's dot comes from her next picture book Night Owl, coming out January 2015 by Feiwel and Friends, Macmillan. Her third book Catnap will be out January 2016


Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Anne Belov - 2014



Anne Belov has been drawing and painting since the time she could hold a crayon.  After receiving a BFA from The Philadelphia College of Art, she moved west and, since she didn’t learn everything the first time, went to art school again, receiving an MFA in painting from the University of Washington.  She now makes her home on Whidbey Island.  Anne is the person behind the pandas of The Panda Chronicles (blog, four books and counting) and has recently released her first picture book, Pandamorphosis, a wordless adventure with pandas. There are, to her knowledge, no pandas in her backyard.

Anne sent this message along with her dot, "I am forever grateful to an elementary school art teacher who encouraged my creativity.  In a time when school art and music budgets are cut to microscopic proportions, this day of celebration of creativity becomes essential, not just “something kinda cool.” I don’t know where I would be today (or even IF I would be today) without creativity in my life.  It is that important."

Learn more about the Panda Chronicles.


Sunday, August 10, 2014

Anna Raff 2014



Anna Raff is the illustrator of several books for children, including World Rat Day, by Children's Poet Laureate J. Patrick Lewis, Sylvia's Spinach by Katherine Pryor and Things That Float and Things That Don't by David A. Adler. Anna has several books coming soon: Simple Machines, by David A. Adler, published by Holiday House is due in Spring 2015, Zora's Zucchini by Katherine Pryor comes out in Fall 2015. In addition two books slated for 2016 — The Wrong Side of the Bed, by Lisa Bakos, to be published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, and Little Card by Charise Mericle Harper, to be published by Candlewick.

Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Kiwi Magazine, among others; on TV on ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," and MTV's "Woodie Awards." In 2010, she created Ornithoblogical, a blog of bird-related imagery.

Anna has an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, and a BA from Connecticut College. She lives in New York City, where there are reportedly four rats per human resident.(Source)




Learn more about Anna on her website.
See Anna's original Celebridot.

Monday, August 4, 2014

Matthew Cordell - 2014




Matthew Cordell is an author/illustrator who grew up in South Carolina and now lives in a suburb of Chicago. Matthew's latest book "Hello, Hello" received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus. See Matthew's 2013 Celebridot here.









He is also the illustrator of the "Justin Case" series, check out the latest in the series Rules, Tools, and Maybe a Bully. 

Matthew is also the illustrator of the Eleanor series, check out the latest book is Like Carrot Juice on a Cupcake

Matthew has two books coming in early 2015, Wish and Special Delivery.



Learn more about Matthew on his website.






Sunday, August 3, 2014

Mike Curato

Mike Curato was born and raised in the suburbs of New York City. He has been drawing ever since he could hold a pencil. Mike attended Syracuse University and has a BFA in Illustration. After college, he moved to Seattle, where he eventually began a career as a graphic designer. 

In 2012, Mike finally achieved his lifelong goal of becoming a published author & illustrator of children's books when Henry Holt Books for Young Readers (MacMillan) offered him a 3-book deal featuring his character, Little Elliot. The first book in the series, Little Elliot, Big City, debuts August 26th, 2014. Mike currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.



Learn more about Mike on his website.