My picture book art

I threw away most of my art because I was a perfectionist and it wasn't good enough. 

Big mistake. Don't do that.

This is my big family. I'm the middle top kid.

I won a poster contest when I was 8. 

The prize was a month of Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors ice cream cones. 

(My younger sister and brother also won!)

My first real journal came from a beloved teacher, Mrs. Elizabeth McCarthy. Before that I had sketchpads and memo pads and diaries, but they were constraining or they fell apart. 

This was the first one that I cherished. And it started me on a lifetime of keeping a journal.

I was a normal, angsty teen and I recorded it all in my illustrated journals.

Two years in a row I won Gold Keys in the Detroit News Scholastic Writing Awards when I entered specially-created journals about high school. My prizes: Two big dictionaries with my name engraved in gold on the covers.

I started working as a professional illustrator and designer in the first month of fall term, freshman year at Michigan State University.
This is a mug with my art, and if you bought a drink at a football or basketball game in the early 1980s, it probably was served in one of my cups or mugs. I love MSU.
(That's my little family with the balloon)

I still do, though they're grown up now.
This is Katie at about age 4.

I went on as many field trips as I could, and drew the students for the teachers.

I drew a gazillion clown coloring pages. Ridiculously low pay because some guy in another state was doing them for cheap. 

I understood -- the clowns were underpaid, too. 

We had a big troop. I was overwhelmed. 

But I kept drawing.

I don't especially love to cook but I have illustrated a few cookbooks -- for Michigan State University, for Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, and for the Capital Area Girl Scout Council.

I won grand prize in 5 national essay contests. I am Kudos Working Mother of the Year, 

Suave Family Manager of the Year, and

 America's Most Harried Home Cook. 

I won one statewide contest -- I am Robitussin's Dr. Mom for Michigan. I should have known this meant I should draw books for children. But I didn't connect the dots between illustrated essay books and published books.

And STILL didn't have the courage to do real art for real books and send it to a publisher.

I met the brilliant Richard Peck at a special luncheon for student authors (with my 10 year old daughter). He looked at my sketches and gave me his editor's contact information.

I had bought two books on how to write a book proposal and they seemed too intimidating. I didn't write to his editor.

That was in 1993, I think.

It was a book contest and I was SURE I would win. I worked hard from the minute I found out about it, right before Halloween, 2002. The deadline was December 31. 

I sent in my entry... and did not win.

I started working on new books as soon as I sent the contest entry out to the publisher. My second effort was about a girl and music. It was rejected, but I still kept making books.

All six of my early books were rejected. I kept trying. I dissected 53 picture books in an effort to understand why they worked, how they worked. I took writing classes.

Still, six books. Six rejections. 

I was getting desperate.

I thought maybe comics was where I was supposed to make my mark in the world. I'd had a daily comic (circulation 55,000) for three years in college. I had a couple very close calls with real syndicates. Ultimately I was rejected.

Tomie looked at my art and considered my rejections and said, "Come to New York, to the big SCBWI conference, and I bet you'll learn what you need to get published."
I said, "Okay! I will!" But we were broke.

A trip to New York seemed 100% selfish.

It was a dark time. 

Going to NY might make it much worse.

I took a leap of faith.

I kept a sketchbook of everything I learned. 

I came home discouraged.

Nobody "discovered" me. 

I vowed to work harder on my art. 

And I put every bit of my 180-page NYC sketchbook on my website.

It went VIRAL: 1000 emails from strangers.

 Some said to do a book in that journal style. 

Just two weeks after returning home from NYC in February 2005, I had 100 pages of illustrated manuscript for my new book idea which was an illustrated novel, and I had interest from an agent. 

My friends and relatives cheered me on. 

I signed with Erin Murphy Literary Agency.

The book sold quickly to Bloomsbury. 

It became a 6 book series.

It's found in 8 languages around the world.

I get fan letters in Portuguese!!

My life was now a Cinderella story, and the happily-ever-after part just keeps going.

Rejections can be painful. 

I work very hard at my craft. 

I take art lessons. I study poetry.

I want my work to be excellent.

But I am deliriously happy right where I am:

a children's book author and illustrator.

I drew this picture of me right after meeting my first editor in NYC 2006.