Saturday, April 27, 2019

Literary Lights


‪Should Jeff Kinney be nervous that I’ll be introducing him at the prestigious Literary Lights ceremony?‬

LA Times Book Prizes Ceremony


A fantastic evening at the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes ceremony. A total honor to be in the Young Adult Literature category with Elizabeth Acevedo, Kelly Loy Gilbert, and Emily X.R. Pan. And congratulations, Poet X!


RISD



It is always so very nice to return to RISD’s illustration department. I will always remember the hope I had walking through these doors to go to class, thinking about all of the alumni that studied here before me. I can’t wait to see what the next crop of graduates bring to this world.


Mary Jane and Judy Sue—two RISD professors who had a profound impact on the direction my work took. And four first names amongst them!

Happy Birthday, Beverly Cleary!




This April marked Beverly Cleary’s 103rd birthday. How lucky I am to have her work as a part of the fabric of the literature that I grew up with. Here’s a book report I wrote on Runaway Ralph. Printed on a dot matrix printer…

Thursday, April 25, 2019

Art Commissions on Etsy

If you’re interested in ordering a commission before I put my Etsy store back in hibernation mode, please follow this link: https://www.etsy.com/shop/studiojjkshop


I’m taking drawing commissions now ahead of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Also, I updated the shipping settings to send drawings outside of the US.


Sunday, April 07, 2019

Q&A Time



‪When the audience numbers over a thousand students, I go to them for Q&A... and make a Donahue reference that none of them get. See that little grey spec in the back? That’s me!‬

Indie Choice Book Awards



I am incredibly honored that booksellers have lifted up HEY, KIDDO as a Young Adult Book of the Year Finalist for the 2019 Indies Choice Book Awards. Booksellers across the country will now vote online and winners will be announced in May. But to be fair, I definitely already feel like a winner just to be in the running. 

Read with Malcolm Foundation



A total honor to help Malcolm Mitchell raise money for and awareness of his important work with Read with Malcolm foundation. I have been a huge admirer of Malcolm and his story since I first saw him featured on CBS Sunday morning six years ago. Also, there’s that whole Super Bowl thing too.

Public Speaking

 Photo by Pat Jarrett

I love presenting to large crowds. The energy is palpable! A huge irony, since I used to be terrified of public speaking. In many instances now, I'm running events where students get bused into a larger venue. If you're interested in putting something together, please contact Authors Unbound Agency. After years of organizing my events in-house, we just can't keep up with all of the correspondence. The team at AU has been such a blessing!

(And if you are looking to book an event that is smaller in scale, we're still putting those on the calendar too.)



Thanks, Joan


I am eternally grateful for people who support my work, and Joan Kindig has been doing so since the days of Baghead (2002). Joan first hosted me in Charlottesville at the Virginia Festival of the Book back around 2005, going so far as to host a party at her house to get me in front of area educators. So what a special treat that she was the volunteer to cart me around at this year’s Virginia Festival of the Book! Joan has grandkids now, I have kids now...so we had much to catch up on! I presented to rooms filled with 1,200 kids, something I wouldn’t have even dreamed of back in the day.