@eloisenarrigan.com
Children's author, illustrator, + product designer in Providence, RI she/her Repped by Alexandra Levick at Writers House 🪶 NO ROOM FOR BIRDS will be out Summer 2027 with Greenwillow Books! www.eloisenarrigan.com/helpful
Don’t miss your LAST chance to apply to PBRS! If you’re not sure if you should apply, feel free to reach out to me so I can shake you aggressively and say YES YOU SHOULD APPLY, YOU SILLY GOOSE.
#kidlit #kidlitart @pbrisingstars.bsky.social
HA I’m actually in Providence but it’s still interesting to peek in on semi-local politics. This is also making me appreciate the tone of my library board meetings!
Okay this whole thread was a RIDE. Thank you for writing it up and underlining how gross some of those opinions are. Why are you on a school board if you don’t like kids INDEED.
Oh heck yeah! Adding this to my list absolutely instantly!
My work table, with brushes, water, a cup of colored pencils, plants, and a drawing board. On the board is a painting in progress of 10 anthropomorphic nocturnal animals enjoying their local library, plush a piece of scrap paper with test brush strokes.
We’re on to painting! I got into a nice little flow state with this guy and making progress on it is INTOXICATING.
Ultimately this will be a RISO print so the colors will change, but I really like how it’s coming along.
Oh BOY this is a good guiding principle and I’m going to try to adopt it. (It’s always the same argument and the same phrases, even! I don’t actually need to witness it again.)
@pbrisingstars.bsky.social applications are open! If you're thinking about it, apply! This program is wonderful, free, and even the application will help you think more deeply about your craft.
Also: if you can, don't be like me and start your application four days before the deadline.
Amplifying this for anyone who's rep is on the committee, but also hey why not call your rep anyway and ask them to speak out against this bill right now?
Book Bans are wildly, cartoonishly unpopular and multiple states have passed Freedom to Read Acts. Lean on your rep to condemn these weirdos.
A simple house shape is filled to the brim with flowers and plants. Inside a girl with dark pigtails and a brown hound dog are playing around among them. The puppy lies on the stem of a bellflower so his best friend can wear hold it above her head like a cool hat. The text above in a blue purple ink reads "Keep Minnesota Housed!" Below the house in gold ink reads "adopt a rent or donate". Below that "KeepMNhoused.com".
Little painting to say that if you're able please consider donating to keepMNhoused.com! Rent is due soon for lots of families who can't safely leave their homes right now.
#keepMNhoused
If this is a stealthy brag about your photoshop layer management it’s very effective.
(I am pumped for this book by the way.)
If you have the means, please donate to the Trans Continental Pipeline right now. They are a Colorado based org that helps trans people relocate and they are overwhelmed with requests. Colorado borders Kansas, and TCP has the infrastructure to help get people out.
tcpipeline.org
Pencil sketch of a library interior filled with nocturnal animal patrons and librarians. A bat holds a bin of musical instruments, a fox discusses books with a badger and aardvark, a frog and two cats read, a raccoon and opossum discuss a Makerspace project, and a mouse and skunk play checkers.
And now we have a sketch! It isn’t perfect but I’m amped to keep working on it.
One of the things I’ve learned (repeatedly) from writing more is that revision can crack a project open and make it exciting again, or fix problems that weren’t entirely visible.
Next, eventually: color studies.
3d rendering from Tinkercad, showing a library interior made of geometric shapes. The space is populated by 11 blue cylinders. Around the rendering is a geometric border.
Now we’ve hit the ground running!
Thanks to www.tinkercad.com for solving my perspective problems. (I also used it to visualize the interior spaces for NO ROOM FOR BIRDS and highly highly recommend it.)
All the blue cylinders are characters; we’ll see if I come to regret this.
Pencil sketch listing the things I love about about libraries and what you can find in them (community, belonging, learning, safety, Makerspace, computers, puzzles, games, books, music, seed library, language, storytime, art shows, and more) and a very rough scene inside a bustling little library.
I haven’t wanted to work on this piece, despite being excited about the meaning behind it and the possible finished product.
So I let the whole idea simmer and then revised it into something that I was excited to work on: a more communal, less fragmented scene.
Oooh that last one hit me right in the heart.
Keep Minnesota Housed! Much of the medía has left, but ICE is still in Minnesota and hundreds of families need help with rent in order to avoid eviction. Visit keepMNhoused.com to adopt a rent or donate to rent funds! #keepMNhoused
Today we are launching a new intitative of Stand With Minnesota—KeepMNHoused.com, a rent-relief campaign backed with a $1.5 matching fund from the Wilson Foundation.
Thousands of MN families are at risk of eviction because of the ICE occupation’s lasting impacts. We can keep them housed.
This is the hardest sell you could possibly give me (complimentary). Downloaded!
It only took me a month, but I finally made a volunteer page on Stand With Minnesota. Because we are about to need a lot of freaking volunteers. Help us keep Minnesota housed!
I can immediately think of at least four kids in my life who will adore this book, not to mention my own younger self and me right now. Out in October!
And just in case you missed it: PB Rising Stars is an all-volunteer mentorship for emerging picture book creators. I say that it changed my life, which might sound corny if it wasn’t true.
2026 is the last year, so if you’ve been thinking about applying, truly, go for it!
www.pbrisingstars.com
For the Prep Party, I talked about how to find and write about your strengths and weaknesses in the PB Rising Stars application.
I also shared my own answers from 2024. (Turns out they’re still pretty relevant!)
Banner for PB Rising Stars Application Prep Party, showing an astronaut at a laptop filling out their PB Rising Stars application.
I got to be part of the @pbrisingstars.bsky.social Application Prep Party last night, and the replay is already up.
Questions answered, examples shared, and it’s inspiring, too!
www.pbrisingstars.com/replays/v/20...
I WAS GONNA SAY!
I feel dizzy.
But also I want to know what you were searching
Hell yeah! This rocks and I am so glad these stupid things are getting the pushback they deserve.
When our place got broken into a few years ago all the cops we talked to said we needed a ring camera, when what we actually needed to do was pause our mail if we were going to be gone for a few days.
Pencil sketches of nine Pallas’s cats or manuls, a wild cat found in Central Asia. They are fluffy, round, and a little grumpy looking.
After three years (!) I’m working on a few new washi tape designs. First up: manuls/Pallas’s cats.
Please don’t forget about us and our neighbors!
standwithminnesota.com
When I called my reps about this list I asked (among other things) that the language cover everyone, all immigrants, not just US citizens.
It did not seem like they were hearing that much! So if you need a prompt for your rep calls, maybe that?
(FTR I want ICE gone forever. This is a bare start.)
