In Production

• A collaboration with legendary author, illustrator and friend Dan Yaccarino on three (3) 120 page, two-color chapter books for Siobhan Ciminera at Simon Spotlight. The stories star two anthropomorphic dog siblings who meet up in vacation spots all around the world. They are fictional stories with a huge amount of non-fictional elements and hijinx. Dan is writing the stories and I’m doing the art! Woo-Hoooo!

• Illustrations-only for two (2) more Junior Monster Scouts chapter books, both with a full-color cover and 20 grayscale interior illustrations, and three (3) more 32-page full color Early Readers. The books in this series are written brilliantly by Joe McGee and published by Simon and Schuster. Working with Claire Torres and Alicia Mikles has been a dream.

• A collaboration with my life-long friend (44 years!) and fellow creative, Tim Steinouer, on two 64-page full-color picture books for Christy Ottaviano at Hachette/Little Brown. The stories star two anthropomorphic animal friends taking road trips around the United States. They are fictional stories with a huge amount of non-fictional elements. Tim is doing the writing and I am doing the designing and illustrating. Fun stuff!

• An Early Reader Series for Holiday House, centered around a group of 5 dogs and their antics that emphasize phonics. We are starting with two books and seeing how they go before signing up others. Thank you to Mary Cash for championing this series as well as many others in my backlist.

• An Early Reader for Simon and Schuster/Simon Spotlight’s Ready-To-Read line, about friendly aliens that land on earth and have the intentions misinterpreted. I love Siobhan Ciminera and am so happy to be working with her on this. I’ve also loved collaborating with my old friend, the creative and skilled illustrator, Victor Davila. Can’t wait to see his finished art!

Under Development

• The dream is to see this in lights: Chamelia: The Animated Series! My partner, Steven Wendland (formerly of Technicolor) has been diligent in his pursuit of a producer, and I still hold belief that it will find a home somewhere. He has some serious leads and I look forward to hearing an update from him soon. Go, Steven and Chamelia!

• Marisa Wolsky, my producer at GBHKids, has also been searching for funding for a 3rd season of Scribbles and Ink: the online interactive series with PBSKids. She’s been so committed to this series over the years that I believe she will figure out a plan. She says she has some ideas. Thank you for you hard work and determination, Marisa!

• The plan is to keep creating Scribbles and Ink digital books. In addition to the 4 original titles, Harriet Ziefert (as editor and marketer) and I have completed five new digital titles and talked early on about creating ten total. All of the titles are available on Epic (digital) and also Amazon (print). We’re also looking for additional revenue streams for these books and characters.

• We also have an offer to develop Scribbles and Ink into a TV series! There are still so many details to hash out, but our attorneys are working on it!

• Christy Ottaviano at Hachette/Little Brown wants me to work on another project with her. Will it be a another Middle Grade novel? My first author/illustrated Chapter Book? Right now we’re thinking it could be a picture book. Decisions…decisions…

Out On Submission

• A graphic novel/illustrated chapter book with my old friend and super-writer, Jason Eaton. Jason has written many award-winning books, and also wrote the script for the movie Ice Age 3. He wrote a super funny manuscript (and ideas for two sequels) for this silly concept of mine, which I will be illustrating once it sells. It’s currently out on submission to about 20 editors. We have a tiny little eensy-weensy nibble, but no commitment yet. The suspense is killing us!

• A picture book with me as the writer and a super-talented colleague/friend as the illustrator. I am excited about this because it’s a little bit of a different direction for me. More to come on this as my agent prepares the submission.

Also: Seeking Partnerships

Here are some super fun book properties available for option as animated series.

Contact the studio for more details.