I’m so excited to announce a new publication and a new genre for me: illustrated works!

All three of my kids have had a block of time spanning several years during which they constantly asked for stories (I am in the middle of it with the two year old). I remembered and then wrote down the best of these stories, and I promised I would create them one day.

With my kids young enough to still appreciate them, I figured it was time. “One day” was now.

Life with a 2, 7, and 10 year old is busy, to say the least. Throw my full-time teaching job on top of that, and time becomes a precious commodity.

There is a lot of running around, taking kids to Taekwondo, swim, soccer, wrestling. My challenge as a creative person had been how to use some of that time productively.

I do what I can: jogging during half of morning swim, bringing a laptop to edit or write afterwards. But even with my first child, it was clear that mental silence during waking hours was to be a thing of the past. Almost right away with my oldest, I turned to drawing as a creative outlet that allowed me to work even while a very loquacious child was practicing her craft.

It started with bringing a sketchbook everywhere and trying to fill it with everything from pencil sketches to acrylic paints to alcohol markers.

But life on the go necessitated that I create art the same way I create writing: in sometimes short, stolen moments between (or during) appointments and lessons.

After a year or so of physical drawing, I turned to digital pen and a tablet (Android FTW!), since digital paint never dries. I even splurged on a drawing screen that hooks up to my computer.

The first of my illustrated kids books is Billy the Earthworm Finds His Courage. It started on a grumpy, rainy day when my son needed something to do in the car. I told him to imagine ways an Earthworm might try to cross a driveway that was being guarded by birds. My oldest chimed in right away, helping my son to brainstorm ideas. Many of those ideas made it onto the pages of the book.

What I like most about this story is that Billy is so content in his life, and when he hears the call for something better, he hesitates. I think we all at some point have felt that safety is more appealing than risk, and we forego the chance to improve our situation because we are afraid of the unknowns of change.

This book was several years in the making if you take into account the learning curve for digital drawing (after honing regular drawing/painting skills, filling several sketchbooks, and trying to work in fragmented chunks between kid activities and distractions). With the learning curve conquered, books will hopefully emerge must more quickly now.

My current work in progress is about a girl and her friend/toy dinosaur who decide to melt fruit snacks in a hot car and the ensuing mess. You would never guess which of my kids (ahem, toddler!) is the inspiration for that one.

But I am also working on illustrating my Corgi Capers series. I’ll be illustrating the first three (re-releasing them), and I have two more books in the series written and ready for illustration.

I am proud to have taken the time to produce human-created artwork that is imperfect yet has a soul. I am against generative AI for writing and artwork, as I believe the expression of art and the work that goes into creating it is part of what defines art and makes us human. The magic of written and visual art is finding something that resonates with you and realizing that you and the author/artist share a thought, idea, or feeling – whether you are living down the street, in a different time zone, or decades and decades apart. I hope a piece of my new work resonates with you.