About

Helen Keller wrote, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” For me, the act of creating a picture book, which has the capacity to teach, inspire, and delight children of all ages, is that daring adventure.

The early process of creating a book is often very fragile. Much of this process is driven by faith and belief in the unknown. E.L. Doctorow once said, “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

Illustrating is much the same. It is a journey that takes you to many places and sometimes creates some adventures along the way. Often it leads to surprising, unexpected results. The main thing is to continue to dream and to explore artistic visions and to work hard.

My books include The Bremen Town Musicians, which received the Caldecott Honor, and The Year Comes Round: Haiku through the Seasons. I was the recipient of the 1985 Ezra Jack Keats Fellowship and have shown my work in exhibitions at the Concord Free Public Library and the DeCordova Museum in Massachusetts, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

I have an M.F.A. and B.F.A. from Drake University and studied printmaking at the Santa Reparata Studio in Florence, Italy. I’ve taught at institutions including the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and Harvard/Radcliffe Seminars as well as the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Tufts and the School for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. I’m currently working on my next book project.

You can contact me at plumedesign@hotmail.com.

No images may be copied without the express written permission of the me and my publishers.