Illustoria Call for Mail Submissions 2025

Hello from Illustoria! We are a tri-annual art and storytelling print magazine for creative kids and their grown-ups. Packed with stories, comics, DIY projects, and interviews orbiting a central theme—our magazine aims to ignite curiosity and a creative response. 

We are looking for new artists for our upcoming Issue 30: MAIL. This issue will celebrate all things analogue correspondence:  letters, post offices, stamps, history of the postal service, famous letter-writing friendships—from the unusual to the heartfelt, and everything in between.

Deadline: Monday, October 6, 2025 at midnight  

APPLY HERE

Details:

• Please submit pre-existing artwork for this call. You do not need to create new work to submit.

• Attach three JPG files of past work. Make sure at least one of your submissions is a comic (i.e., panel-format storytelling) so we can get a sense of your style.

• In 1-2 sentences, describe your idea for a comic inspired by the theme of “MAIL”.

• This call for submissions is open to artists 18 years and older, based worldwide. All artwork mediums (ink, watercolor, colored pencil, digital, etc) are welcome for this call for submissions.

Guidelines: 

• Selected artist(s) will be compensated. Compensation is determined based on scope, length, and complexity. It is important to us that all artists are paid equitably and reasonably, according to our resources. All fees will be discussed and approved by the artist before work begins.
  

• Please familiarize yourself with Illustoria’s style to see whether your work is an editorial fit before submitting. We are a print magazine for readers who are primarily 8 - 12 years old. This call for art is ONLY for artists ages 18 and older. We frequently hold calls for submission for younger artists, so please stay tuned for that.
  

• We will hold more calls for submissions in the future, so if your artwork does not meet these criteria, please stay tuned. Unfortunately, we will not have time to review artwork that does not meet the requirements below.
  

• For questions, please email “illustoria@mcsweeneys.net” with the subject line “Question”. Please do not send questions via Instagram comment or DM, as we do not check these inboxes as frequently. Please do not email asking when you will hear back from us, we promise to write as soon as we can!

FAQ

1. I submitted to this call for submissions. When will I hear back?
   Thank you so much for taking the time to show us your work! Illustoria is made up of a tiny team, and our inboxes are always overflowing. We are taking our time to diligently review all submissions and write back to everyone. If you haven’t heard from us yet, please do not email us. While we can’t promise a timeline, we promise to get back to you as soon as we can!
   

2. What do you mean by “comics”?
   By “comics,” we mean narrative and paneled artwork.
   

3. How old do you need to be to submit?
   This is a call for artists ages 18 and up. However, we often post calls for young artists, so please stay tuned for future opportunities.
   

4. Do I need to create new work for this call for submissions?
   Not at all. We are receiving past examples of work. Once artists are chosen for publication, we will work with them to commission or reprint artwork.
   

5. I am not a comics artist, can I still submit?
   While you do not need to be a comics artist specifically, we ask that artists submit at least one example of past comics art to determine whether they might be a good fit for this opportunity.
   

6. Is there a language requirement for the submissions?
   For this call, we are asking for comics submissions in English; thank you.
   

7. What is Illustoria?
   Illustoria is a triannual art and storytelling print magazine for creative kids and their grown-ups. Our audience includes readers six to twelve years old and up. Packed with stories, comics, DIY projects, and interviews orbiting a central theme—this magazine aims to ignite curiosity and a creative response. Feel free to follow us on Instagram. Subscriptions and issues 9–22 can be found here. Issues 6–9 can be found here. 
   

8. How much will an artist get paid for their work to be published?
   We offer compensation according to scope, length, and complexity. All fees will be discussed and approved by the artist before work begins.

CALL FOR YOUTH SUBMISSIONS

We currently have a Call for Kid Art! This is an opportunity for a talented young artist you know to have their work published in the next print issue of the magazine.⁠

Prompt: ⁠Submit a drawing of an ALIEN! Questions to ponder: What does your alien look like? Does it have purple skin and scales, or perhaps it’s made of metal? Does it survive on birthday cake alone? Does it have a rad space suit? Is your alien charismatic, or does it hope to take over planet Earth?

Chosen artwork will be published in Illustoria 25: COMICS, which will come out November 2025. Submit work to⁠ "youthsubmissions@mcsweeneys.net" with the subject line “Alien” for a chance to have it featured. Deadline: Monday, July 1, 2024. ⁠

Include the artist’s name, age, city, and state. This call is open to artists up to 14 years old anywhere in the world. ⁠⁠Art by Elizabeth Haidle.

Illustoria Call for Comics Submissions 2024

Illustoria Call for Comics Submissions 2024 
Deadline to submit: Wednesday, May 1, 2024 at 11:59 pm PST.

Hello from Illustoria! We are a triannual art and storytelling print magazine for creative kids and their grown-ups. Packed with stories, comics, DIY projects, and interviews orbiting a central theme—our magazine aims to ignite curiosity and a creative response. 

We are excited to open this call for submissions to meet more artists who make comics and widen the pool of creatives we work with. Out of this call, we will also commission artists to create short memoir comics for our upcoming Issue 25: Comics, where paneled narrative storytelling will take over nearly every page of the magazine.

By “comics,” we mean narrative and paneled artwork. Comics in all mediums will be considered: digital, analog, even sculptural and photographic. The more unusual and unique, the better! Please familiarize yourself with Illustoria’s style to see whether your work is an editorial fit before submitting. We are a print magazine for readers who are primarily six to twelve years old. This is a call for artists ages 18 and up. However, we often post calls for kid art, so please stay tuned in the future for that.

Selected artists will either: 

1. Be commissioned to create a short memoir comic strip for Illustoria’s Issue 25. 

2. Be kept on file for inclusion in a future issue. 

We will hold more calls for submissions in the future, so if your artwork does not meet these criteria, please stay tuned. Unfortunately, we will not have time to review artwork that does not meet the requirements below. 

Details:

1. Pre-existing comics drawn in all mediums are welcome for this call for submissions. You do not need to create new work to submit. 

2. All artists published in Illustoria are compensated. Compensation is decided according to scope, length, and complexity. It is important to us that all artists are paid equitably and reasonably, according to our resources. All fees will be discussed and approved by the artist before work begins.

To submit to this call for submissions please: 

1. Attach three JPG/JPEG files of past work. Make sure at least one of your submissions is a comic (that is, panel-format storytelling) so we can get a sense of your style. 

2. Include your website. 

3. Include your Instagram handle (if you have one).  

4. Include “Call for Comics” in the subject line of the email, sent to illustoria@mcsweeneys.net.  

Guidelines:

1. Please attach your work as JPG or JPEG. Do not include PDFs, PNGs, TIFFs, or other file attachments.

2. Please include your examples as attachments. Do not include your files as inline images.

3. Please make sure at least one of your examples is a comic (that is, artwork with panel-format storytelling) so we can get a sense of your style. 

4. Please attach exactly three examples of your work. We are small staff and unfortunately will not have the time to review more than this. 

5. Please do not email inquiring about the status of your entry. We are a small staff and will respond to all entries by Tuesday, May 21, 2024. 

6. Please do not send questions via Instagram comment or DM, as we do not check these inboxes as frequently. Send questions with the subject line “Question” to illustoria@mcsweeneys.net, and we will respond as soon as we can.

FAQ:

1. What do you mean by “comics”?
   By “comics,” we mean narrative and paneled artwork. As mentioned earlier, comics in all mediums will be considered. The more unusual and unique, the better!

2. How old do you need to be to submit?
   This is a call for artists ages 18 and up. However, we often post calls for kid art, so please stay tuned in the future for that.

3. Do I need to create new work for this call for submissions?
   Not at all. We are receiving past examples of work. Once artists are chosen for publication, we will work with them to commission or reprint artwork.

4. I am not a comics artist, can I still submit?
   While you do not need to be a comics artist specifically, we ask that artists submit at least one example of past comics art to determine whether they might be a good fit for this opportunity.
   
   We will hold more calls for submissions in the future, so if your artwork does not meet these criteria, please stay tuned. Unfortunately, we will not have time to review artwork that does not meet this criteria. 

5. What will happen with artists whose work is not chosen?
   If your work is not chosen for this feature, we will keep it on file for future opportunities.

6. Is there a language requirement for the submissions?
   For this call, we are asking for submissions in English; thank you.

7. What is Illustoria?
   Illustoria is a triannual art and storytelling print magazine for creative kids and their grown-ups. Our audience includes readers six to twelve years old and up. Packed with stories, comics, DIY projects, and interviews orbiting a central theme—this magazine aims to ignite curiosity and a creative response. Feel free to follow us on Instagram. Subscriptions and issues 9–22 can be found here. Issues 6–9 can be found here. 

8. How much will an artist get paid for their work to be published?
   We offer compensation according to scope, length, and complexity. All fees will be discussed and approved by the artist before work begins.

CALL FOR YOUTH SUBMISSIONS

We have TWO exciting calls for submissions for young artists. These calls are open to artists 14 years old and younger worldwide. The chosen artwork will be published in Illustoria #24: Love, which will come out July 25, 2024. Please note there are two different deadlines:
Book Review Contest - Submissions due February 27, 2024 (recently extended)
Drawn by You Contest - Submission due February 21, 2024

1) Book Review Contest
The deadline for this prompt has been extended to Tuesday, February 27, 2024!

Prompt: Tell us about a favorite book that centers around a friendship between two characters. This book can be any genre (graphic novel, nonfiction, fiction, zine, etc.) as long as it is appropriate for readers ages 6–12.

-Tell us the name and author⁠⁠
-Write a 3–5 sentence review
-Include a drawing of the book’s cover

Submit work to⁠ youthsubmissions@mcsweeneys.net with the subject line “Friends” for a chance to have it featured. Include the artist’s name, age, city, and state. Deadline: Tuesday, February 27, 2024.

2) Drawn by You Contest
Prompt: Draw your heart as a cartoon character. How would you convey its unique personality? What colors would it be? Would it wear shoes or a hat or sunglasses? What might it say?

Submit work to⁠ youthsubmissions@mcsweeneys.net with the subject line “Cartoon Heart” for a chance to have it featured. ⁠Include the artist’s name, age, city, and state. Deadline: Wednesday, February 21, 2024.

We can’t wait to see your submissions!

Playlist: Issue 21 Humor

Our playlist for the Humor issue is all about laughs, silliness, and songs that don’t take themselves too seriously. From goofy beats to playful lyrics, this mix is made to make you smile, snort, or break into a full-on belly laugh. Press play and let the laughter soundtrack your day!

Playlist: Issue 20 Mystery

Fly into the mystery (as Jonathan Richman would say), with a playlist dedicated to unanswered questions. Who Wrote the Book of Love? Where Is My Mind? How does everybody know… and so many more curiosities to ponder in this upbeat mix.

Grab your copy of Issue #19: Cats & Dogs here, to enjoy while you listen!

Playlist: Issue 19 Cats & Dogs

Get down with funky rhythms dedicated to four legged friends! This Cat & Dog themed playlist includes classics like “Hound Dog” by Elvis Presley, alongside more indie cuts, like “The Ballad of a Strange Cat” by Paul Messis.

Grab your copy of Issue #19: Cats & Dogs here, to enjoy while you listen!

Playlist: Issue 18 Rainforest

Experience the lush landscape of the rainforest with this mellow mix. Many of the songs on this playlist sample the exotic, tranquil noises from planet’s most unique and treasured resource, such as Les Baxter’s “Bird of Paradise”. Other songs, like “Rio Amazonas” by artist Dori Caymmi present an ode to the beauty and biodiversity of the Brazilian rainforest.

Grab your copy of Issue #18: Music here, to enjoy while you listen!

Playlist: Issue 17 Senses

Connect to the world around you with our eclectic Issue 17: Senses playlist. Let music dedicated to sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch wash over you. Get pumped up with Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” then go through a meditative walk in the sunshine with Dolly Parton’s “Early Morning Breeze”. This playlist has a little bit of everything!

Grab your copy of Issue #17: Senses here, to enjoy while you listen!

Playlist: Issue 16 Music

Our Issue 16 Music playlist is dedicated songs about music. B.B. King’s guitar Lucille makes an appearance, along with Amy Winehouses’ best-friend-and-instrument named Cherry. Listen to the Kinks chide the record industry, Rosanne Cash sing about the infamous Tennessee Flat Top Box, and more. We hope you enjoy this appreciation to music in all of it’s glory!

Grab your copy of Issue #16: Music here, to enjoy while you listen!

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Playlist: Issue 15 Big & Small

For Illustoria’s Issue 15: Big & Small playlist, our editorial team decided to do something different! Together we gathered our favorite short and long songs. Thrash about to minute long punk songs, and then mellow out to twenty minute shoe gaze grooves. This mix is perfect if you’re feeling particularly exploratory and experimental!

Grab your copy of Issue #15: Big & Small here, to enjoy while you listen!

Playlist: Issue 14 Myth

Enter the mystical, epic world of story-telling in this playlist dedicated to myths. Brave Donovan’s Atlantis, and go on a spiritual jazz journey with Kamasi Washington. We hope that this magical mix allows your imagination to roam free.

Grab your copy of Illustoria #14: Myth here, to enjoy while you listen!

Illustoria + DrawTogether Collab & Giveaway!

Have you heard of DrawTogether? Well, it’s only the coolest drawing show and club for kiddos and creative folks, led by the acclaimed and utterly brilliant illustrator (and Illustoria contributor) Wendy MacNaughton. Wendy cooked up DrawTogether in the early days of quarantine as a way to engage families in fun and accessible art projects. These virtual classes (which involve dance breaks, pencil twirling, and imaginative art prompts) quickly went viral, and for obvious reasons—Wendy’s jubilance is contagious.

Images courtesy of DrawTogether.

DrawTogether has since evolved into an incredible weekly newsletter starring Wendy alongside fabulous guest stars (such as her adorable doggie Suso). Wendy fills these newsletters with art projects, interviews, videos and all sorts of hilarious antics that will make you hurry to find your closest pad of paper and pencil. We simply adore DrawTogether and implore every human being to sign up and watch. 

Thus—you might imagine our excitement when the DrawTogether team asked if Illustoria would like to be featured in their upcoming newsletters! This week, check out an interview with our Art & Editorial Director Elizabeth Haidle. Topics discussed include: advice for young artists, favorite picture books, and favorite things to draw. Next week, learn about artist Yoko Ono and her book Grapefruit, plus enjoy Illustoria’s art prompts inspired by Ono’s work.

And to make this feature even more exciting, we’re partnering with DrawTogether on a social media giveaway! Two winners will receive a free DrawTogether membership and rad beanie PLUS a year long Illustoria subscription. This giveaway is limited to the U.S. Check out our posts for more information on how to enter! If that wasn’t enough, DrawTogether is also offering a special Illustoria subscription discount to their readers! Be sure to sign up for their newsletter to enjoy all this wonderful content coming your way soon. 

Many thanks to the entire DrawTogether team for including us in these upcoming newsletters, it is a true honor. We hope you enjoy these projects! If you participate and would like to share your work, we would LOVE to share it with our online audience. Email us at youthsubmissions@mcsweeneys.net for a chance to have your creations featured on social media.

Playlist: Issue 13 Maps

Vast are the worlds we can explore with our minds, so don your adventuring caps and pour over the colorful world of cartography in Issue #13: MAPS all while listening to these anthems of the wanderlost. Featuring sonic postcards from distant lands and songs to whistle from the road, this playlist is sure to keep you warm in your daydreams of new horizons.

Grab your copy of Issue #13: MAPS here, to enjoy while you listen!

Valentine's Day Print Out: Neon Love Mobile

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, our favorite greeting card holiday, we are sharing a special project by artist and musician Larry Yes featured in Issue 10: Color! Make your very own neon love mobile, to display in your home or gift to your valentine.

Click on the link below to download the full color print-out:
Larry Yes Neon Love Mobile

Click on this link below for a black and white, fill-in-you-own print-out version:
Larry Yes B&W Mobile

And while we’re spreading the love, all Illustoria issues 9 - 12, Illustoria and McSweeney’s subscriptions, art books and poetry are 20% on the McSweeney’s website. Discount automatically applied at checked now through February 15, 2021!

Steps:
1. Download & print out the love mobile page.
2. Cut down the middle, vertically (so you have two arrows on each side). Then fold each cut out in half, hot dog style.
3. Glue the middle parts (with white on them) together, so now you have 2 flat strips.
4. Cut halfways through one strip so you can slip it onto the other.
5. Hang it with a string OR sandwich 2 pieces of clear tape & poke a paperclip in the top.
6. Share your love mobile with us on Instagram with the hashtag #illustoriaartclub, and tag us (@illustoria_mag) plus Larry Yes (@larry.yess) so we can check out your rad work!

826 Valencia: Poems & Stories about Trash

In celebration of our Issue 12: Upcycle, we invited 826 Valencia, a youth writing center located in San Francisco, to submit writing and poetry about trash in all its forms.

In turn, the young writers of 826 Valencia decided to write about the Pacific Garbage Patch, “trash” versus “treasure”, the life of a plastic water bottle, and more. We hope you enjoy their writing, and that it expands the way you think about trash in your everyday life. If you’d like, try writing your own responses to their prompts!

Illustoria Magazine is the official publication of the International Alliance of Youth Writing Centers, an informal network of organizations around the world who share the belief that young people need places where they can write and be heard and have their voices polished, published, and amplified. In every issue of Illustoria, students from these centers contribute their own writing and art and conduct interviews with the artists and others profiled in these pages. The Alliance’s goal is to get more young people published and to let readers of all ages see just how much young people have to say.

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Prompt #1: The Pacific Garbage Patch is an area in the ocean covered by garbage that’s as wide as 7.7 million square miles in the Pacific Ocean. What are ways you would try to clean up the mess?

Brandon Jimenez, Age 11
A way I could clean the mess is by taking a submarine with two large vacuums. They would be really long and waterproof. It would weigh 90 pounds and it would hold a million pieces of garbage on the back. The garbage will go to the dumpster which would be really big and would hold more than a trillion pieces of trash. That’s more than a million bags full of trash. In the dumpster there would be a machine you could control the vacuums with a remote.

Yahir Agulano, Age 12
The ocean is huge, so is the whole garbage patch. Whole seas to creeks, garbage is ruining our nature, our coral reefs, our air, and our beautiful beaches. We need to think fast, and we did a bit from huge nets to things vacuuming water for garbage. Here’s what I’ve come up with as one of those thinkers with an imagination. Using the immense amount of garbage, I would recycle them and create artificial islands, 200-800 miles apart from each other. Inside them would be a small base with a net attached to all the islands to catch more garbage. A port would be in them to get garbage and transport them inland for sale to huge industries that are focused on creating recycled products. Once the mission of destroying the evil garbage patch is complete, we could sell these artificial islands to scientist based organizations like the MMC, different governments could create naval bases, telecommunications companies and wealthy people could put their names next to the effort and nature, or should I say in the middle of it. It could even be used as places for future resorts. Profitable, but imaginative. I wish this could work.

Thomas McVey, Age 15
The solution to this problem would really depend on the type of garbage. The most obvious solution, using nets, would not work due to the destruction it would have to the fish population and habitat. As the waste is mostly plastic, the simplest way to do it is to take a large ship and have people grab the plastic out of the water. It would require a lot of volunteers or government paid workers, but to clean 7.7 million square miles it is most likely worth it. If the 88,000 tons of garbage is too much to store, we could jettison loads of plastic to the moon, because burning it would create too much CO₂ emission. According to Space.com, their newest ship can carry 50.5 tons per flight which would take about 1500 flights from here to the moon. This would cost a total of about 176,000,000,000 dollars according to Elon Musk’s mile per pound estimates. The fuel for the flights would be quite expensive as well, but 88,000 tons of plastic polluting the planet has to be moved.  

Hardwin Canul-Camara, Age 13
Something that could help people clean the ocean is by using nets to fish out the trash or a machine that takes in the trash while letting the water go. It would have huge storage and would float on top of the water. Even if there is 7.7 million square miles, it could still help a little bit.

Maya Dominguez, Age 9

“Trash, Don’t Go into the Ocean!”

Once upon a time, I walked near a street and saw trash near the ocean on the beach. I went and picked up the trash and I bought a pizza and made a sign that said “Pick Up the Trash for Pizza.” Many people picked up trash for pizza and they brought three or four pieces of trash which made the beach all clean. After I went to the city and saw lots more trash than on the beach, so I said on another sign “Free Starbucks” and many more people picked up more trash. As people were picking up trash, I asked one of them, “Have you ever tried saving a plant?”

The person said, “I have, but for me it doesn’t work.”

“Oh,” I said.

Alondra Margarito Reyes, Age 9
One way that I could help clean the Pacific Ocean is by making a community. This is a good idea because this work needs many people not just one. I think that it is a good idea because if we don’t help, the animals that live there will die. Another reason is the garbage in the ocean is affecting animals because animals think the garbage is food.

Daniel Margarita Reyes, Age 9
I would tell people not to throw garbage away and clean. Then I would start cleaning and get some people to help me. After I would call the garbage people and I would throw away the trash. Then I would clean up using a net to more trash faster.

Liliana Romero, Age 8
I think that a way to clean the ocean from pollution is by creating teams to collect the trash. I think this because we can’t do this by ourselves because there is too much trash in the ocean for one person all by his/herself. I think this will help because you know what they say, Teamwork makes the Dreamwork!

Karen Santiago, Age 11
One idea I have to fix the garbage is pay people money to go pick up the garbage. Another idea is to make a robot or a machine to pick out all the garbage and then sort it out into different piles of garbage, recycling, and compost. Lastly, I would take out the fish and put them in another area.

D’Angelo Ruiz, Age 11
If I had a choice to get rid of the huge trash cans, I would just throw myself into the Sun. But for real, I would just send the trash to the Sun and I’ll come back to my flat earth. It’s the only way because if we burn it, global warming will get worse. If we blow it up, it will cause a lot of damage. And if we nuke it, we are all going to die. Have a nice life while you can.

Angel Zea, Age 9
I would take a helicopter with those really big bags and I would swoop down to the trash, come back up, and then go to the nearest space station and then put it in a rocket ship. Then I would send it to Mars and redo everything until there’s no more trash. Then when Mars is full of trash I would go to Venus.

Christian Zea, Age 13
Some ways that I would try to clean the ocean would be by gathering a bunch of people together and getting boats and little submarines to collect trash from the deep bottom of the ocean. That one would be one of the ways that I would try. My second option would be getting really big nets/claws and collecting trash like that until we get most of the ocean clean. My third way would be by putting a big filter that would collect all the trash in the ocean and send it to a factory that destroys or burns trash.

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Prompt #2: One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Is there something that others might see as trash, but is something you value?

Zara Rafael-Gonzalez, Age 10
One time I made a binder clip into a slingshot. At first it seemed like an ordinary, old, useless binder clip, but when I tied a rubber band around two paper clips, Bam! I got a slingshot (I don’t value binder clips, I just think it’s cool to change an ordinary thing into a cool thing).

Mario Lopez, Age 10
“The Two Men and the Books”

Once there was a man that had a lot of books. He thought they were all trash because he now liked reading on technology. Another person hated technology but loved to read real books. One day, the man that loved books passed by and saw the trash and shouted, “Yes!”

He was so happy because he found a book that he always wanted. He got the book for zero dollars and it was a hundred percent off. The guy who didn’t like books was happy because now he had more space for more technology and more space in his trash can. Sometimes the things that you think are trash can be valuable to another person.

Daniel Margarito Reyes, Age 9
“The Rich Man and the Poor Man”

Once there was a man who was going to destroy a lot of houses he had because he bought them all, but the man thought they were trash compared to his mansion. Then, there was a poor man that had no money to buy a house who saw the houses that were going to be destroyed. The poor man asked the rich man if he could have a house and the rich man said “Yes,” because he didn’t need them. The poor man was excited because he didn’t have to spend money on a house. The poor man lived happily.

D’Angelo Ruiz, Age 11
I have a broken controller in my room for some reason. I guess people will call it trash, but I could just sell it on ebay and say it works. Big brain. Once my friend asked me about why I have it. Also, one thing that is bad is that I can’t return it. I’m probably going to throw it away and it will just be destroyed.

Viviana Suazo, Age 11
Something that’s trash to my mom is my old plushy of dumbo that I got on a Black Friday when I was very little. My mom has been telling me to put it away and throw it away which I’m offended by. I kept it because it was the very first plushy I ever got.

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Prompt #3: Write about the life of a plastic water bottle that someone just littered on the street. Think about how it might affect sea animals and the planet.

Emily Rodriguez, Age 7
Someone littered with a water bottle. Then the water bottle got up and explored the city. He saw a coffee shop and a bookstore and a Lego shop. Then he got picked up by a person and got thrown away. The End.

Neryssa Zapien, Age 10
(Me) Imagine you throw a plastic water bottle in the sea! Well, then it starts to get filled, and filled, and filled. Then you won’t have an ocean anymore, you will have a plastic water bottle ocean. Think about the animals, they can die because they don’t have water to breathe just like how we can die without oxygen. We will have no water and the animals will eat the plastic and die.

(Animals) So you are throwing trash in the sea. We animals can die. We will have no water to survive. We can even eat the plastic and go bye-bye.

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Category of Her Own: Gabriela Trujillo, Age 13

Untitled 1
Every single day we buy things with the money we have earned from working or we received from our parents. It just might seem easy for us to buy whatever we’d like, yet thousands and thousands of people call the streets their home. They are often alone without a family and some are lost to drugs, but they all need food and water to survive. Food is tasty but when it becomes a daily part of our lives, we take for granted when we throw it away. When you start, you waste food when you don’t finish dinner or waste water taking a bath or brushing your teeth, have you ever thought of how your actions could affect others? How the food you didn’t feel like eating anymore could save thousands of people from dying from hunger everyday? Something you might take for granted like a home, food, water, clothes, and a family is a treasure for someone else in this world. 

Untitled 2
The sweet aroma of those beautiful diverse flowers enlightened my spirit. Each and every one of them a different color. Even though they had their similarities and differences, they still cared for each other. It was the beginning of fall and the leaves were colored in with warm vibrant colors, fluttering in the air like butterflies dancing gracefully in the roaring wind. The wind was strong and fierce, whispering in my ears and screaming in my face for help. It desperately whined for help with a soft, faint, and powerless voice. The very wind itself seemed to gasp for air. It finally came to a stop, leaving behind a plain, empty quietness that took over. There was no sign of life other than these atrocious, heartless humans. The world seemed as if it had lost its soul as the senses and every single aspect of nature had vanished, where only the tenderly feeling of sorrow resided. Global Warming had reached its peak, and the waste humans created everyday polluted the beautiful ocean. It was now not a question that humans destroyed the world with inhumane acts now that the world was on the verge of breaking down. Just how many years, decades, and centuries later people wanted to take action after seeing and realizing that they would have nowhere to go if this would break down. It was too late now and we had created an irreversible...every time at an alarming rate. But it’s not too late for the humans in the 21st century to make a change. Yes, global warming is indeed growing at an alarming rate every time we use vehicles such as cars or buses, and the cows we consume create more and more global warming. Yet all the factories on our planet are creating pollution as well as global warming. We are on the verge of creating irreversible damage and we have a list of endless problems we have created. We don’t have time because we need to make changes and put a stop to this NOW! Our beautiful Earth is marvelous and is our source of life so it’s worth fighting for. It’s the only home we have and there is other that could replace it. At times, we might not notice how important our actions are or realize how badly we are wounding our planet. So we become careless and discard trash wherever we like, but Earth is not a dumping ground. It’s something full of living things, not just us. If you could take a second or a minute of your day to think about how your innovative ideas could make a change, that would be amazing. This is our planet, and it’s definitely worth fighting for.

Flying Paintings: An Interview with Creators Amy Alznauer & The Zhou Brothers

The story of two world-renowned artists begins in the back of a bookshop on a hill in Wuming, China. This is where brothers ShanZuo and DaHuang Zhou were born into a family of artists. But to be an artist and a bookseller at the time of the Zhou brothers’ childhood, in the new People’s Republic of China, was a dangerous thing. “Twice,” their grandmother tells them, “bandits and then soldiers destroyed this store. Twice I built it up again.” As they grow, the brothers observe the beauty of the world in balance with the hardships they face, and this balance of beauty and hardship becomes a guiding philosophy in their art. 

Spread from Flying Paintings by Amy Alznauer, illustrated by ShanZuo and DaHuang Zhou.

The Zhou brothers illustrate their own story, as told by Amy Alznauer, in Flying Paintings: The Zhou Brothers: A Story of Revolution and Art. In bold color and inky strokes, they paint portraits and scenes from their youth that capture the wonder of childhood, the bleakness of grief, and the trepidation of new beginnings as they move away from home. When the brothers lose their beloved grandmother, they return to the abandoned bookshop where they grew up and paint the neglected walls anew. Working in secret and remembering the guidance of their grandmother, they begin their first collaboration on a painting called The Wave. The tension of sharing a canvas yields an awe-inspiring result: “It’s like the world and our lives…” they say, “Terrible and beautiful.” 

ShanZuo and DaHuang Zhou, The Wave, 1976.

From that point on, the illustrations that depict the Zhou brothers growing as artists abound with energy and movement. The striking red figures that decorate each page, inspired by cliff paintings near their hometown, seem to fly off the page as in the paintings of their grandmother’s tales. As China slowly begins to change, and as they finally shed light on their art and present it to the world, the pages alight with joy. Of course, the joy is tempered by the weight of their past, and their hopes are balanced by their fears — a balance that is reflected in their art to this day.

ShanZuo and DaHuang Zhou, The Water Lily Pond of Life series.

We are thrilled to feature Flying Paintings in Illustoria’s On Our Bookshelf feature in our latest Issue 13: MAPS, and honored for the opportunity to interview the artists ShanZuo and DaHuang Zhou, as well as author Amy Alznauer about the process of creating their book. We hope you enjoy the interview with the creators below! You can find out more about the Zhou brothers on zhoubrothers.com and about Amy Alznauer on amyalz.com.

DaHuang and ShanZuo Zhou, image courtesy of Candlewick.

How did it feel to illustrate the story of your own lives?
Zhou Brothers: We are grateful to have the opportunity to illustrate our own story and once again memorialize our journey of art.

How did growing up in a family of booksellers shape your path?
Zhou Brothers: Growing up in a family of scholars and educators allowed us to build a strong early foundation. Our childhood education and the influence from our grandmother fueled our drive in our career.

What do you hope young artists and activists will take away from your story?
Zhou Brothers: This story is about two young boys and their beautiful dream of life. We hope that people will walk away with the message that they cannot accept defeat. No matter your situation, you need to fight and work hard to pursue your dream and it can be realized.

Amy Alznauer, image courtesy of the author.

How did you first learn about the Zhou brothers? What inspired you to write about them?
Amy Alznauer: About five years ago, I was attending an open house at the Zhou B Center, a huge warehouse converted into flour floors of art studios and gallery space in Bridgeport, Chicago. At one point, thumbing through the Zhou catalogues, I came across a statement that stunned me. “When you paint by yourself, you won’t have the courage to destroy your own painting. You think you are always right,” said the younger brother. “But two people together, they don’t care. With this kind of fighting something comes out that’s never happened before. It creates a new magic.” I suddenly saw that this was about not just painting together on the same canvas, but also about their relationship as brothers and about their love for China, even though the Cultural Revolution, which oppressed their family. Collaboration isn’t fundamentally about harmony, they think, but about finding a way to go on together. This seemed like a revolutionary idea to me and one that that the world desperately needs.

 Flying Paintings is a true story. How did you figure out how to balance biography and storytelling?  
Amy Alznauer: I say in the author’s note that I wrote the legendary bones of their story. I wanted the book to feel like legend for two reasons. First, their amazing life story has a legendary quality. But even more the legends of ancient China deeply influenced their art. So to develop the plotline, I worked to trim away many of the details and complications of their life, until all that remained was this simple arc of two brothers apart (because the second one hadn’t been born yet), together, apart, and finally together again. So to answer your question, the story is a biography, but simplified, trimmed, carved into something more like a poem or a legend that tells of how two brothers, through creativity and love, found a way to hold on to both the terrible and beautiful parts of their lives and made some beautiful out of all of it. 

What idea or feeling do you hope readers will take away from the Zhou Brothers’ story? 
Amy Alznauer: I hope readers will first of all love the story for itself and the art for its beauty. But I hope they will also see that relationships with other people, with our work, with the larger structures that contain us (towns, cities, countries) are sometimes difficult. So the task before us is never to erase conflict – for that’s impossible – but to believe that finding a way forward is of the utmost importance, and that if we dedicate our minds and hearts and hands to this task we might succeed, like the Zhou brothers did, in bringing forth a new magic.

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We are thrilled to feature Flying Paintings: The Zhou Brothers: A Story of Revolution and Art in Issue 13: MAPS of Illustoria Magazine. Many thanks to Candlewick Books for sponsoring Issue 13 and making this interview possible. You can purchase Issue 13: MAPS here.

Interview with Susan Tan, Author of "Piece by Piece"

Illustoria’s Issue 11: Creatures features the beautiful new picture book Piece by Piece, the first children’s book published by the Peabody Essex Museum, written by Susan Tan and illustrated by Justine Wong. The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) is located in Salem, Massachusetts and is one of the nation's major museums for Asian art, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Indian art, along with the finest collection of Asian Export art extant and 19th-century Asian photography. Susan Tan is an award-winning author of the popular Cilla Lee-Jenkins children’s book series.

Piece by Piece is set in the most magical space at PEM, the Yin Yu Tang Chinese house. In the story, Emmy is a young girl on her first visit to PEM, accompanied by her father. Exploring Yin Yu Tang, in search of her beloved blanket, she finds a place reminiscent of her grandmother and their special bond. In their uplifting journey, Emmy and her dad grow closer together in realizing the love they share for art and family.

We are thrilled to share this wonderful interview with the Peabody Essex Museum and Susan Tan, and learn more about the author’s process and inspiration behind the book. You can find a copy of Piece by Piece here. And exciting news, the Peabody Essex Museums reopens on July 18! Find out more about their reopening here.

Susan Tan in Yin Yu Tang. Photo by Bob Packert/PEM.

PEM: When we decided to make our first children's book, we were delighted to learn about your writing and all the more excited when you told us you visited Yin Yu Tang as a girl.

Susan Tan: I have such vivid memories of visiting the house for the first time and seeing history in a new way through it. If only I’d known then that years later, I’d get to write for and in Yin Yu Tang. When I was writing the book, I got to bring a stool into the house and sit there for as long as I wanted. It really brought back all those feelings from when I first visited and was such a magical experience in itself.

Caption: A spread from the book Piece by Piece with illustrations by Justine Wong.

PEM: Writers, like curators, do a lot of looking. What was it like for you to tell the story of Emmy’s grandmother, her Nainai, in their “special place” at the museum?

S: The idea of looking was an important one for my grandmother and me. She used to take me to museums and simply ask, “What do you see?” From a very young age, I learned to take my time with art, to trust my eyes and to ask myself how what I saw translated into emotion. Telling the story of Emmy and her Nainai drew right on these memories and was a lovely, emotional revisiting of my early art experiences. As a child, museums were such a haven for me. It was incredibly special to be able to return to these memories and bring them to the story of Piece by Piece.

PEM: What was your collaboration with illustrator Justine Wong like?

S: Collaborating with Justine was wonderful. We had the chance to be together in the house
and create together — just us, within the space. First, we each took some time on our own: I wandered around and wrote little story fragments and she walked around and sketched. We then came back and compared our notes. Looking at the house through Justine’s eyes helped me to be more playful with the space. I imagined Emmy within the house and artwork in a more visual, magical way.

The author read to children in Boston’s at the Pao Arts Center in Chinatown. Photo by Kathy Tarantola/PEM.

PEM: Piece by Piece is also a story of a father-daughter relationship. What does it mean to tell this story of Emmy and her dad connecting over their cultural heritage and his feelings as an immigrant?

S: I know from my own experiences that sometimes stories of immigration can get lost in families. My dad is an immigrant and really wanted to be “American.” He never spoke Chinese to us when we were growing up and rarely spoke about his memories of coming to America. It wasn’t until I was older and I began asking questions that we really spoke about his childhood and what it felt like learning English and adjusting to a new culture and place. I think about this a lot as an adult. In Piece by Piece, I wanted Emmy to connect with her father in this way. It was important to me that art became a way to facilitate this connection: Through looking around the museum, both Emmy and her father reveal important parts of themselves and learn new things about each other. This moment of connection shows them how similar they are and how much they share.

PEM: Having written several books, what have you come to understand about children and their capacity for growth?

S: I think children possess the same incredibly nuanced capacity for growth as adults. And of course, sometimes, children can far surpass adults in their abilities to learn, change, grow and be flexible. One idea I’m committed to in my writing is that children do see the adult world, picking up on the larger social complexities, as well as the complexities and nuances that arise in personal relationships. I believe that rather than shielding kids from hard feelings or ideas, we should give them spaces to feel and explore their emotions. In Piece by Piece, I loved the idea that a museum could provide this kind of safe, transformational space.

The author with a child at the Pao Arts Center in Chinatown. Photo by Kathy Tarantola/PEM.

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Many thanks to the Peabody Essex Museum for coordinating this interview and for helping sponsor Issue 11: Creatures. To order Piece by Piece please click here.

And to read Illustoria’s Issue 11 review of this book along with several other recommendations for school-aged children, order or subscribe here!

Playlist: Issue #11 Creatures

“Creature” is a wide window of classification. There are three definitions in my dictionary, and those are:
1. An animal, as distinct from a human being.
2. An animal or person (get your facts straight mr. dictionary!) 
3. A fictional or imaginary being. So basically, as long as it's alive (or imagined to be) it’s a creature!

That means you, me, amoebas, apemen, zombies, human flies, and glow worms all have something in common, and that’s our divine creaturehood! What’s even cooler is all the ways in which we are different, after all, what would the world be without a rainbow of colors, textures, scents, fangs, wings, scales, and wails. To me, that seems like a pretty good reason to protect and defend our fellow creatures. Hoot, holler, and wiggle to these jungle boogie jams, and watch where you stomp your feet because creatures come in all shapes and sizes. 

Don’t forget to pick up your copy of Illustoria #11: Creatures here!

Artwork by © Laura Carlin for ILLUSTORIA #11: The Creatures Issue

Look Inside Issue #11: Creatures!

Leaping lizards, Issue #11 Creatures is here! In this issue, find a parade of real, imaginary, and ugly animals, including zooplankton—the tiniest creatures. You’ll meet wildlife specialists and medieval-era pets. Trace your pencil along the 3-D Monstermaze and create textured creature rubbings with us.

Bird Snack Stop by Tom Bingham, DIY Creature Rubbings by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw.

Zooplankton by Jamyelese Ryer art by Lan Truong, Galactic Alienology by Carson Ellis & Hank Meloy.

Miscellaneous Revelry by Jason Sturgill, 3D Monster Maze by Jesse Jacobs, Lexigraphique by Michael Buchino.

Meet Dog-Chef, who will help you whip up a snack station for your bird pals. Plus, find short stories and poetry by young writers (as part of Illustoria’s partnership with the International Alliance of Youth Writing Centers) throughout this issue.

L to R: An Ode to Ugly Animals by Amanda Willemse, Miscellaneous Revelry by Jason Sturgill, Studio Visit with Paolo Puck, Medieval Era by Vaughn Parish.

Meet artists who make gargantuan sculptures of majestic creatures from felt and metal. Exercise your imagination with story building writing and drawing prompts. Plus, check out laugh-out-loud animal jokes, motivational interviews with youth activists, and sketchbook how-to’s that will keep you engaged for eons. Enjoy these beastly and beautiful creatures and then try drawing or writing about your own creatures! Order your copy, or subscribe today.