"Behind the book"
A behind-the-scenes video detailing the process of writing and illustrating Home in the Woods.
Eliza Wheeler is an illustrator and author of books for kids, teens, and the young at heart. Her book Miss Maple’s Seeds was a NYT bestseller, and her book Home in the Woods was dubbed “Gorgeous” by the New York Times book review. Eliza is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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Right now I’m knee deep in sketching for the picture book THE GRUDGE KEEPER, by author Mara Rockliff. It’s a folk-tale inspired story of the one man in town who collects everyone’s insults, umbrage, and petty complaints, filing them all away in his cottage. Mara’s manuscript is brilliant! It’s been exciting to be able to visualize this quirky world and characters that Mara has created. Here’s a little peek at my workspace while I’m sketching: Sketching is, for me, by far the most grueling stage in the illustration process. I will admit that I look forward to nailing down these…
One of the many things that I love about being a part of The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), is that with each conference and event I meet new wonderful writer/illustrator friends. This has become more significant since I’ve been a part of the Summer Conference Mentorship Award, in 2010. I’ve made some of my closest illustrator friends, Debbie Ohi, Kimberly Gee, and Andrea Offermann during my year being mentored, and we created the Kidlit Artists group blog. Each year new mentees receive the award, and our circle of friends gets bigger. To help us all connect,…
I wanted to share with you my latest personal work, which I finished in December as a gift to my grandmother, Marvel Swanson. I credit Grandma Swanson for instilling in me an early love of children’s books. She has adored children’s stories since she was little, and when she read to me as a child I could tell she genuinely enjoyed every word and picture she shared with me. I found out that her favorite books growing up were the stories of Thornton W. Burgess, particularly the story of Mother West Wind and the Merry Little Breezes. She once said she…
The F&G’s for Miss Maple’s Seeds are in! This is exciting for two reasons: 1) I get to walk around saying “F&G!” and nobody can scold me. 2) I get to see a beautiful printed proof of my book, all laid out and paginated. As you’ve likely deduced by now, F&G is not a literary swear word – it stands for “folded and gathered”. F&G: “folded and gathered”. A complete printed proof of a book (stack of signatures) that hasn’t been trimmed or bound, and excludes the hard-cover. F&G’s are the final chance to make sure there aren’t any errors and…