Artful Publishing

It’s all Judy’s fault. My creative brain has been on overdrive for publishing another children’s book, or doing custom reprints of my original alphabet books. When Willie

 was born in the late 80’s, I wrote and illustrated the Alaska Animal Alphabet and later the Amazing Animal Alphabet. I wanted to create a “stay-at-home mom” cottage business and self-published the ABC wall friezes and books.  All of my printing was eventually done in Hong Kong at a major children’s book printer. I had the good fortune to travel to China as a designer with a client who was in the toy industry and introduced to their printer, forging an instant business relationship, though the thought of reprinting the books again in China would involve much more energy and time than I have now. Both books and wall friezes were a hit and as a literacy advocate I’ve volunteered at schools

promoting reading, writing and illustrating children’s books. I have a plastic tub filled with the most precious letters written by school children all over the country who have been inspired to create their own alphabets after learning how I made my ABC books. Over the years both have been reprinted a couple of times and as the kids grew and I moved on to other artful ventures and publishing and the books were set aside. Occasionally, I’m asked to illustrate kid’s names in the letters (thankfully I now have them all digital) for birthday or baby shower gifts. In high school an all zoo alphabet I created called AlphaZoo’s provided my gas money as I illustrated family and friends names. It was quite serendipitous that a friend asked me to illustrate (digitally now) a couple of names for them this week, as new baby and sibling gifts and The Alaska Alphabet has been put on the front burner again as part of a 1% For Art Proposal I’m currently bidding on…. I forgot how much I enjoy seeing the names come to life with each animal! When I read fiber artist extraordinaire, Judy Coates Perez of Painted Threads had just published her first book on the e-publishing site of Blurb I’ve been all fired up about the books again! We went to the library today and I was surprised to see my original Alphabet books on the shelf in the children’s section! With the new digital and electronic technology Blurb and other similar sites offer, just about

anything can be self-published at a fraction of the cost and hassle. Check out some of the Blurb staff picks as well as most recently published Blurb titles, those alone are inspiring!

Kristen is home from UAF for a few days and just in time to celebrate Daddy-O and my anniversary! With all the kids in one city at one time we treated everyone to dinner

 at Bear Tooth Grill for our Anniversary on 11/12 (we married on 11/12 so we could remember the date better -though Mom still needs to call us and remind us!). Our hostess took a group shot as we squeezed together in the booth. Will, Will’s cute girlfriend Nikki, Gus, Kristen, Me & Derek are in the group shot. Gus gets a big ‘sis squeeze and Derek 

and I toast the night with a yummy, Spenard Brown Ale! -I know, I know, the last two pictures of me in my Blog I’ve been holding alcohol… tis' the Season!