Florence and Wendell Minor 2017

Wendell Minor is nationally known for the artwork he has created for over fifty award-winning children’s books. His many collaborators include Jean Craighead George, Robert Burleigh, Buzz Aldrin, Tony Johnston, Mary Higgins Clark, and last but not least, his wife Florence. In 2009 Wendell and Florence’s If You Were a Penguin, was chosen by Pennsylvania for their “One Book, Every Young Child” 2009 early literacy program, and they enjoyed the month they spent speaking to children in Pennsylvania’s libraries, schools, Head Start facilities, and Museums.

Wendell is also the cover artist and designer of over two thousand books for authors Pat Conroy, David McCullough, Fannie Flagg, and Nathaniel Philbrick among many others.  His portrait of “Truman” for the cover of David McCullough’s book is in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC.

Following a productive and fulfilling career as a documentary film editor for ABC News in New York, Florence Minor was happy to find a second, and equally fulfilling career in publishing after she and Wendell moved to Connecticut.  Her first project was co-editing a twenty-five year retrospective of Wendell’s book cover art, Wendell Minor: Art for the Written Word while also handling the business aspects of the minorart studio. In keeping with her lifelong love of reading and writing, and her interest in editing, the timing was perfect to begin collaborating with Wendell, to creating books that entertain, teach, and inspire children.

Learn more about Wendell and Florence on their website. 

Alex Willan

Alex Willan earned his BFA in Illustration from Savannah College of Art and Design. He also attended Illustration Academy, where he studied with award-winning illustrators, including C.F. Payne, Gary Kelley and Anita Kunz. His work has been exhibited in art galleries, and he has painted murals, theater sets, and squirmy children’s faces, but his true love has always been picture books. He is an active member of SCBWI, through which he was awarded a mentorship with author/illustrator Matt Faulkner. To see more of Alex's work, you can visit his website: www.alexwillan.com, follow him on Instagram: www.instagram.com/alexwillan, and find him on Facebook: www.facebook.com/AlexWillan.

Learn more about Alex on his website.

Jess Keating

Jess Keating is a fiction and nonfiction writer who loves telling fun stories in any way she can. She also has a Masters of Science in Zoology, so she throws around goofy animal facts a lot.

She has always loved writing and making up stories. She even started a library in her room when she was a kid, so she could charge her brother late fees. She is a self-proclaimed "giant science nerd," and loves to incorporate weird science into her books.

You can learn more about Jess on her website. 

You can download a printable version of this dot here. 

Kat Yeh

Kat Yeh grew up reading, doodling, and scribbling in Westtown, Pennsylvania. She worked for many years in advertising and sports marketing, while writing children's books in the wee hours of the night. She currently lives on Long Island where she can see water every day and explore all the bay and harbor beaches with her family. Kat's dot is a poem from The Way to Bea.

Learn more about Kat on her website.

Martha Brockenbrough

Martha Brockenbrough (rhymes with broken toe) is the author of two books for adults and five books for young readers (with three more on the way in 2017).

A faculty member at Vermont College of Fine Arts and blogger for the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators,* she's also the founder of National Grammar Day (every March 4), and she's written game questions for Cranium and Trivial Pursuit.

The former editor of MSN.com, Martha has interviewed lots of celebrities, including the Jonas Brothers and Slash (his favorite dinosaur is the diplodocus). Her work has been published in a variety of places, including The New York Times. She also wrote an educational humor column for the online encyclopedia Encarta for nine years.

She lives in Seattle with her family. Her favorite kind of food is Indian, although Thai runs a close second. Besides writing, she likes board games, playing music with the family band, travel to places far and near, drinking lots of coffee, and working out really hard at the gym.

You can learn more about Martha on her website.

Check out her daughter, Lucy's, dot

Sean Qualls

Sean Qualls finds inspiration everywhere. Growing up in the 70's in central New Jersey, his family didn't have much money for art supplies but he made the best of what was available; discarded paper, blank end pages from old books and sometimes walls much to his mother's chagrin. Some of his earliest inspirations were the crayons and coloring books his mom would buy for him and his older sister, drawing and handwriting competitions with classmates and an illustrated bible he received for Christmas in the 2nd grade.

He moved to Brooklyn to attend art school at Pratt Institute. After only a year and a half he dropped out but continued to educate himself while working full-time at the Brooklyn Museum.

Sean's books and illustrations often explore history and non-fiction subjects. His fine art focuses on race & identity and the intersection of history & mythology, ultimately examining how we create our own identities or allow them to be scripted to for us. Together his paintings and illustrations reveal simultaneously unique and universal moments that reveal the human spirit.

Sean's most recent books include Why Am I Me?, The Case for Loving and Two Friends all of which he illustrated with his wife, illustrator/author Selina Alko. He has also illustrated Emmanuel's Dream (Schneider Award recipient) written by Laurie Ann Thompson, Giant Steps to Change the World written by Spike Lee and Tonya Lewis Lee and Before John Was a Jazz Giant (Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor) written by Carole Boston Weatherford. He lives in lives in Brooklyn (where you can find him DJing on occasion) with his wife and their two children.





Learn more about Sean on his website.

Sharon Creech 2017

Sharon Creech is the inspiration for the Celebridot gallery. She has made a dot every year since 2011. Sharon was a teacher (high school English and writing) in England and in Switzerland. While teaching great literature, she learned so much about writing: about what makes a story interesting and about techniques of plot and characterization and point of view. She started out writing novels for adults: The Recital and Nickel Malley were both written and published while she was living in England (these books were published in England only and are now out of print). But the next book was Absolutely Normal Chaos, and ever since that book she has written mainly about young people. Walk Two Moons was the first of her books to be published in America. When it received the Newbery Medal, Sharon said, "no one was more surprised than I was. I’m still a little bit in shock."

In addition to Walk Two Moons, she wrote Absolutely Normal Chaos, Pleasing the Ghost, Chasing Redbird, Bloomability, The Wanderer, Love That Dog, Granny Torrelli Makes Soup, A Fine, Fine School, Fishing in the Air, Heartbeat, Who’s That Baby?, Replay, The Castle Corona, Hate That Cat, The Unfinished Angel, The Great Unexpected, The Boy on the Porch and Moo She hopes to be writing stories for a long, long time.

Sharon is married to Lyle Rigg, and they live in Maine. They have two grown children, Rob and Karin, and being with her family is what she enjoys most. The next-best thing is writing stories.

Learn more about Sharon on her website.

David Kalvitis

This is David Kalvitis' sixth year creating a "DOT" for International Dot Day! David Kalvitis, a lifelong puzzle and game fan, has a Fine Arts degree from Syracuse University and operated a graphic design business in Western NY. In 2000, he opened Monkeying Around Publishing, with a goal to provide fun and challenging dot-to-dot puzzles, that entertain both young and old alike. He has taken a singularly creative approach and opened up the world of dot-to-dot puzzles to a new generation of puzzle fans. So far, he has self-published nineteen books and has sold over a million books worldwide. Recently, he was honored to be asked to create and publish a new book specifically for September 2017 Philadelphia Parkway 100 Centennial Celebration. The "We Are Connected Dot-to-Dot Philadelphia" book commemorates the Benjamin Franklin Parkway area of Philadelphia, PA. Images for the dot-to-dot puzzles were taken directly from the streets of Philadelphia and include historical landmarks on the Parkway.

Our facebook page has all the Philadelphia videos. He is there now for this huge celebration J https://www.facebook.com/GreatDot2Dots

Sarvinder Naberhaus

Sarvinder Naberhaus wrote Blue Sky White Stars, which received national media attention and four reviews, all starred. Her current book LiNES, also starred, is the most favorite story she's ever written. She celebrates Dot Day every year by going on a Dot hunt with her college students. Today, she is on a Dot hunt and LiNES hunt (see below) . . .

Sarvinder writes, "My book fell into my camera and I couldn't get it out. Now every time I try to take a picture, all I can see are pages of my book. If you'd like to see inside my camera, and see what I see, check out LiNES (which is my favorite book, so I don't really mind that my camera is now broken).

After my book fell in, I noticed the end of my camera is a dot. So I took a picture of my camera with a camera, because nobody believed me that my book fell in. Now I hope at least you will believe me. If you'd like to check out my other books, or email that you believe me, go to www.sarvinder.com.

p.s. now my cat fell in"

Gina Perry

Gina Perry graduated from Syracuse University, worked as a compositor in animation, and as an art director creating products for the scrapbooking market. Her children inspire her every single day to be creative and do her best. Her dot is inspired by her book, Small.

Once upon a time, Gina played with little metal cars in her rock-filled driveway. She listened to old-time mystery radio theater in her room and built yarn canopies between trees. She could never serve the volleyball in gym class but she could draw dragons that leapt off the page.

Gina writes and illustrates books from her New Hampshire home, where trees are the tallest obstacles to the sea. She still likes yarn, and table tennis is her (only) game.

Learn more about Gina on her website.