Would appreciate advice/tips from those in the entertainment industry

Please read this post, thanks.

Gratitude: Ryan Couldrey

Gratitude Post: Thank you to Ryan Couldrey for his 2007 post in blogTO about my Will Write For Chocolate comic. Because of this post, interest in my webcomic soared and I also started getting a lot more Google juice in my online projects. Keep in mind that this was THREE YEARS before any publisher showed interest in my illustrations/comics.

Because of that post, I eventually became a blogTO contributor. You can see some of my posts here. I interviewed Bev Katz Rosenbaum years before I ended up meeting her in person through Torkidlit. And because of blogTO, I had some of my restaurant reviews and photos getting published in National Post!

I've appreciated Ryan's encouragement and support of my work over the years, and will never forget that first interview.

You can find out more about Ryan and his work at RyanCouldrey.com. You can also find him on Vimeo, Behance, Youtube,Twitter, Instagram and his blog.

Especially check out his Snow - The Film, which is based on Snow: A Graphic Novel Set in Toronto.

Here's a fun pic of Ryan shooting a pic of Patricia Storms at a National Cartoonists Party in 2008:

Handwritten Journal entry: Missing SCBWI-LA

You can read a bigger version of the comic on My Life In A Nutshell.

You can find more of my handwritten journal entries on Flickr.

And here's Samantha Berger's original tweet. Thanks to Samantha, Mike Curato, Trish Shaskan and Stephen Shaskan!

Gratitude: Lawrence Schimel

Thank you to my friend Lawrence Schimel​, for his support and advice early on, before I had any children's books out in the wild. I just wish he didn't live so far away!

In addition to being a writer, poet and translator, Lawrence is also publisher at A Midsummer Night's Press​ (he's worked with authors like Jane Yolen, Joe Haldeman and Nancy Willard!). You can find out more about his press at http://amidsummernightspress.com/WP/

p.s. I especially love his Fairy Tales For Writers.

Gratitude: Beckett Gladney

Feeling grateful to so many people these days, especially those who helped and encouraged me long before I had my first children's book published.

Only just starting to catch my breath after my Where Are My Books? book tour and launch, still need to finish unpacking (!) and will also be posting more about the tour. My office floor is covered with stuff left over from various presentations and trips and events, and one of my goals this weekend is to get it sorted out so I can get back into regular creativehermitworkmode next week.

I've already mentioned some of the people to whom I am grateful but today I need to talk about Beckett Gladney. I haven't told her yet, but her name came up several times during my book tour and also at my book launch; parents said they were so enjoying her blog (http://artbeco.blogspot.com) and that it was helping inspire them. They had discovered her through one of my posts.

Beckett, as you probably already know, is the friend who helped me put together my very first portfolio for the SCBWI convention in Los Angeles back in 2010, when so much happened.

She is also an accomplished photographer (especially candid photos of people), illustrator and a wonderful writer. I am so looking forward to seeing her illustrations in a children's book someday.

Beckett tends to shy away from the limelight but does so much to help and support her friends. I wish we lived closer. Here's a sample for an unpublished graphic novel project that I wrote and she illustrated. I should point out that this is only one of Beckett's illustration styles:

To find out more about Beckett and her work (see navigation links along righthand column): http://artbeco.blogspot.com