Picture book bio on Charles Schulz sold to Henry Holt Books For Young Readers!!!

                                   

I am thrilled to report a picture book idea I had back in late 2015 on cartoonist Charles Schulz of "Peanuts" fame was recently bought by the wonderful publisher/editor, Christy Ottaviano at Henry Holt/Macmillan!!! 

After 16 years in this business this is truly a dream job and a deeply personal one to me.

Here is the recent announcement in Publishers Weekly and some new character sketches. I also just traveled to Schulz's hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota and spent several days researching his old neighborhoods. 

Work has begun in earnest with a publishing date of 2019!

Scholastic Storyworks magazine project

I recently completed a painting for the March/April 2017 issue of Scholastic's Storyworks magazine. It's a charming story about a brother and sister who find pirate treasure on the North Carolina coast. Illustrating for the fine Storyworks magazine is always a pleasure and I enjoyed seeing my work used as a double page spread for them for the first time!

A childhood love of cartoons

As a young child I learned to draw better by copying my favorite characters from such popular comics of the day like "Peanuts" by Charles Schulz and "Garfield" by Jim Davis. I have since learned after reading a biography on Schulz that he was also inspired by the comics of his childhood back in the 1920's and 30's.

Luckily my parents kept a lot of my old drawings. The drawing below of Charlie Brown and Snoopy was done when I was around 10 years old in the early 1980's.

Currently I am being considered for a dream project for a wonderful editor and NYC publisher that involves this subject matter. I found a story idea I was excited about and asked a talented and successful writer friend for help, who then wrote an inspiring story for children. Now it's out of our hands and that's also all I can say! I'm sharing this drawing, now over 30 years old in order to send out positive vibes. I will share more later if it's good news!