My First Picture Book Launch!

Yes!  It's true!  I will be launching my first published picture book!  Can you believe it!  Isn't that awesome?  I am working with a local boutique publisher that specializes in publishing local authors and illustrators.  It's being published under the name CrissCross AppleSauce an children's book imprint of Buffalo Heritage Unlimited.  They are publishing my illustrated work for Robert Louis Stevenson's poem called The Swing.  I have shared this project with you before on the blog and this past summer, on a whim, I decided to send it to Buffalo Heritage to see what they thought of it.  They loved it!  And wanted to publish it!  Now I am planning the launch party and release of the book and wanted to share it with you all so you can share with your friends.

Here is the invite I sent out for the launch party with the details....

Please do stop by if you are in the area!  I will have all the original art there, plus some of my artistic influences.  I will also have lots of the early work I did on the book so you can see the steps of the process if you are interested.  There will be coloring pages and bookmarks for the little ones to make, so please bring the family too!

And because children are near and dear to me I can't have a wonderful opportunity like this and not share it with others.   So as a way of giving back, with the launch of The Swing I will be donating 50% of the proceeds of the sale of my books to Feed My Starving Children.  

Feed My Starving Children is a non-profit Christian organization committed to feeding God's children hungry in body and spirit.  Their approach is simple:  children and adults volunteer and hand pack meals specifically formulated for malnourished children.  FMSC then ships those meals to nearly 70 countries around the world and changes children's lives!  It is a wonderful organization that my family and I have supported for 3 years now.  Every year the college where I work holds a two day event where we volunteer and pack around 100,000 meals.

My family and I are doing the food pack event again this year and you can too!  The event is being held November 7th and 8th at Villa Maria College.  If you are interested drop me a line and I'll sign you up!  The money I will donate from my book will go to purchasing the food items and supplies for sending to the children.  If you have a chance check out the link to their site or watch the video above and see what they are all about.

So either way I guess I'll be seeing you!  Either at the book launch or at Feed My Starving Children food pack!