Hello, 2025

You were lowkey weird, 2024

Hello, and Happy New Year! Also, welcome new subscribers, happy to have you here.

2024 was a weird year. Maybe I spent too much time worrying about the impending AI Apocalypse.

☝️ What it feels like watching a predatory, morally and creatively bankrupt software take over the industry I care for deeply.

Illustrators everywhere had a tough 2024. Prices got lower, contracts got weirder. It was rough across the board. But I still had work to do. I got myself into gear with teaching more, first as an instructor at the Cary Arts Center.

A surprise hit of teaching this year was the Travel Sketchbook Class I taught. Because of parenting and my MFA program, I haven’t gotten to travel for fun the way I used to, but teaching the class let me channel that life drawing energy into making some new pieces as demos.

I also got to join the crew at Sketchbook Squad more in 2024, hosting sketch nights and demo nights for the one and only Sarah Watts. That group is an absolute blast.

It’s weird watching your own hand draw!

Continued my MFA adventure, traveling to Atlanta in March, then Hartford again over the summer, and then Columbus, Ohio in the fall. I have just a few months left in the MFA program, before I get to wear my mortarboard at all times so folks can bow when I enter a room. That’s how an MFA works, right?

I also spent a lot of time teaching and lecturing in person this year too. I gave two talks at Ringling College of Art and Design, and then I served as faculty for SCBWI Carolinas this past fall. I love the energy of speaking in person, and getting to meet so many young artists.

And I had a book come out!

My seventh picture book, Rollin’ on Down the Line, came out over the summer, and already racked up a JLG medal, plus a Silver Award from the California Reading Association. I continued doing book cover work, and had my one hundredth book cover this year. I’ll post more about that soon. Because boy do I have thoughts.

And! I finished my author/illustrator book! The Spy in the Museum finally had all its T’s crossed and I’s dotted, and will be released in fall 2025. If you subscribe here, you’ll be hearing plenty about it this year.

I received my proofs, and definitely cried.

I don’t have any grand observations from 2024. There were some hard times in my family this year — unexpected losses, unexpected challenges— but also some small wins, some steps towards a better balance. Our industries felt rocky and uncertain this year, like the ground was crumbling beneath us. It was a year where I tried to just put my head down and get my work done.

But New Year’s Day is a day to look forward. I look forward to the long quiet calm of January. To getting back in my studio and doing the slow, lovely, maddening work of writing and illustrating stories. I look forward to teaching more, to speaking more, and to watching all of you do the same.

Hope you all had lovely New Years, and see you soon. Take care.

-Erin