ohioana Book Festival 2014

Lindsay Ward, Ohioana Book Festival Featured Author

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-Kayla

If you’ve ever seen the design of a Lindsay Ward book, you realize reality is overrated. Ward is an accomplished children’s book illustrator and author who published Please Bring Balloons, When Blue Met Egg, and Pelly and Mr. Harrison Visit the Moon. She illustrated A Garden for Pig, The Yellow Butterfly,  and Star Academy.

During her interview at 2014 Ohioana Book Festival  with Craft summer intern, Kayla, Ward gives us a mental glimpse into her art studio, which is probably unlike most artists’.

Ward knew in her teens that she wanted to become an illustrator. She started illustrating in water color and pastel, but once she graduated from Syracuse University, Ward found a unique voice in cut paper.

Her hobby became collecting vintage paper, and Ward even saved a piece or two from a trip to the dumpster. After some time, this illustrator decided that she had her own stories to tell, and although she never aimed to be an author, writing is now a media she couldn’t live without.

Ward’s book, Please Bring Balloons, is a great example of her talents and has been honorably mentioned in The Huffington Post. Her works have had popular reviews in The New York Times and Publisher’s Weekly among other publications and reviewers.

If you happen to like visiting the world’s most charming websites, you can get your fill of Ward’s coloring pages, upcoming book events, and sketches on lindsaymward.com. Her website is very kid-friendly and is a good way to preview her brilliant artwork. Listen to the full interview with the sweet and delightful Lindsay Ward

Craft’s Nightmare Affair

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-Kayla

mindeearnett_author_photoblwtIn the dark hallways of an eerie school of mermaids, trash trolls, and magic, there is also attempted murder.

Leave it to Kayla, the summer Craft intern, to conjure up  an interview with the mind behind The Arkwell Academy series, Mindee Arnett.  Her contemporary fantasy collections for young adults delves into the life of Dusty who is literally a nightmare. Not because she is a headstrong teenager, but she actually has the responsibility of invading people’s dreams. That is where Dusty stumbles onto a few clues that land her right in the middle of some unsolved crimes. The first novel, The Nightmare Affair, was nominated for best fiction for Y.A. by Young Adult Library Services Association, and its successor, The Nightmare Dilemma, has already received tremendous praise from its readers. As Arnett said during her interview at the 2014 Ohioana Book Festival, “I really wanted it to be a fun environment. Basically, the kind of school I would want to go to if I could.”

Mindee Arnett has a bachelor’s and master’s degree in English literature from Wright State University. She currently lives with her husband and two children on a farm in Ohio where she is free to ride horses and collect as many cats as she wants. This author’s creative abilities led her to publish the sci-fi adventure, Avalon, featuring a rebellious hero, and other short stories for magazine publication. If you ever have the pleasure of meeting Arnett, be sure to ask about all of her wide varieties of hobbies (both old and new) such as amateur boxing and Civil War reenacting.

If you don’t quite have the right spell to get a visit with Arnett, you can listen to her broadcast 90.5 WCBE on July 16, 2014 at 8:00 PM or listen to the full interview.  Arnett appreciates her online followers, so feel free to like this charming author on Facebook and follow her on Twitter.