In just one week, three freelance projects I worked on this past spring & early summer manifested themselves in tangible, physical form! Last Friday night I attended the release party for the 826CHI Compendium, and yesterday I received contributor copies of Cricket and Ask magazines.

The radiant Kendra Curry-Khanna (Deputy Director of 826CHI) introduces the event to a packed auditorium

Every other year 826CHI, the Chicago branch of the national writing & tutoring nonprofit, publishes the best of the student's work in a lushly printed book. This year they paired with DePaul University and their Big Shoulders Press to publish the fourth volume; students in one of DePaul's publishing classes helped edit and make publishing decisions on the book for hands-on experience. I was so thrilled to get to illustrate this fourth volume, which was gorgeously designed by Alison Kuczwara of Tiny Bold Creative. The highlight of last Friday's release party was listening to the student authors read their contributions to their work; I was on the edge of my seat re-living the drama of the jellyfish men rising up against the robot pelicans! Thanks so much to 826CHI Deputy Director Kendra Curry-Khanna and Compendium coordinator superstar Tara Jayakar--working on the compendium was such a dream, and I'm so proud to have gotten the opportunity to work on it.

The compendium is arranged like an atlas, with all the stories located in one imaginary landscape

Each of the six sections has a dense, full-bleed illustration with characters or scenes from all of the stories. Vampire bacon! Grandma T-Rex!

Shortly after finishing the art for the 826CHI Compendium last March, I started working on art for the Halloween issue of Cricket and then ASK magazines. I pitched a couple of two-page story ideas for Cricket, and I'm so excited that everyone agreed to my favorite idea: a chart showing hybrid costume ideas! I had so much fun working on this, and I'm considering dressing up as a zombie jellyfish myself for Halloween this year. The art for ASK was also a delight to work on: who could turn down a project about the science of baking cookies? Clearly not me, especially when one clearly has to do lots of hands-on "research" with cookies. Thanks so much to Art Director Karen Kohn for these most excellent projects!

October 2014 issues of Cricket and Ask magazines

Caveman Fairy Princess also speaks to me on a pretty deep level.

Genuinely very informative on how to make cookies exactly how you want them

826 Compendium, Cricket and Ask