Marilyn Nelson is the author of many acclaimed books for young people and adults, including Carver: A Life in Poems, a Newbery Honor book and Coretta Scott King Honor Book, and A Wreath for Emmett Till, a Printz Honor Book and Coretta Scott King Honor Book. She also translated The Ladder, a picture book by Halfdan Rasmussen. She lives in East Haddam, Connecticut.
Timothy Basil Ering is the illustrator of the Newbery Medal-winning The Tale of Desperaux by Kate DiCamillo and Finn Throws a Fit! by David Elliott. He is also the author-illustrator of The Story of Frog Belly Rat Bone and Necks Out for Adventure! He lives in Massachusetts.
Poet Marilyn Nelson is the author or translator of twelve books and three chapbooks. Her book The Homeplace won the 1992 Annisfield-Wolf Award and was a finalist for the 1991 National Book Award. The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems won the 1998 Poets’ Prize and was a finalist for the 1997 National Book Award, the PEN Winship Award, and the Lenore Marshall Prize. Carver: A Life in Poems won the 2001 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award and the Flora Stieglitz Straus Award, was a finalist for the 2001 National Book Award, a Newbery Honor Book, and a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. Fortune’s Bones was a Coretta Scott King Honor Book and won the Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry. A Wreath for Emmett Till won the 2005 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award and was a 2006 Coretta Scott King Honor Book, a 2006 Michael L. Printz Honor Book, and a 2006 Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Honor Book. The Cachoiera Tales and Other Poems won the L.E. Phillabaum Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award. She is also the author of Sweethearts of Rhythm, which was illustrated by Jerry Pinkney.
Her honors include two National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowships, the 1990 Connecticut Arts Award, an American Council of Learned Societies Contemplative Practices Fellowship, a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship, and a fellowship from the J. S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Nelson is a professor emeritus of English at the University of Connecticut; founder and director of Soul Mountain Retreat, a small writers’ colony; and was Poet Laureate of the state of Connecticut from 2001—2006.
“I always think of illustration as a form of acting,” says Timothy Basil Ering. “Each time I approach a project I need to become the character I’m depicting. And then I have to choose the appropriate medium that will allow me to speak in that voice.”
Anyone who knows Tim Ering would agree that he himself is a character, as inimitable as any he might portray. Before landing at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena California, the author-illustrator-to-be indulged his longtime love of the sea as a boatswainsmate aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, sailing to points as far afield as Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, Australia, Sri Lanka, and Africa. And since finishing art school—where he discovered influences as far removed as Michelangelo and Dr. Seuss—the artist has approached his work with a spirit of adventure and originality that reflect his singular approach to life.
Tim Ering’s first picture book with Candlewick had its beginnings in a silly string of words he thought up to amuse himself as he meandered to favorite fishing spots on Cape Cod. Years later, at an urban garden created by schoolchildren in Pasadena, he began sketching a scarecrow. “I knew at that moment,” he says, “that Frog Belly Rat Bone had found a home.” And so sprung up the tale of a boy who finds strange, specklike treasures, and the unforgettable creature who watches over them while they grow. With its surreal artwork full of subtle tones, bursts of color, fantastical figures, and a quirky, hand-lettered text, Tim Ering’s picture book debut exudes all the whimsy of an inspired imagination.
That imagination was put to a very different challenge with 33 Snowfish, a novel by Adam Rapp for which Tim Ering created not only the haunting cover image, but also interior drawings that represent notebook sketches of a troubled teenage character. “Whenever you receive a manuscript, you have to get into character,” he says. “In this case, I also had to imagine how this character would draw, and how his drawing might change or shrink on the page according to his changing state of mind.” Tim Ering steers his range in yet another direction to explore a more classical style—with a contemporary flair—in The Tale of Despereaux,Kate DiCamillo’s first Newbery Award–winning novel. Says the illustrator, “My mother may have been a mouse in her past life, as I watched her save and help so many mice in our house while I was growing up. The illustrations I’ve done of Despereaux Tilling are, in a way, my tribute to her.”
Tim Ering’s artwork has appeared in books, magazines, theater sets, private murals, and fine art galleries. The invariably paint-splattered artist lives and works in Somerville, Massachusetts.
