photo credit: Phyllis Meredith Photography
Author/Illustrator J. C. Phillipps grew up in Perrysburg, Ohio where she spent most Saturdays taking classes at the Toledo Museum of Art.
After graduating as Valedictorian of Mason Senior High School, she went to study art and theater at Hope College in Holland, MI. It was during her time at Hope that Julie (that’s what the J stands for) first studied playwriting, which taught her about characters and plot development, and is why she writes dialog better than narrative.
Julie lived in New York and Chicago for brief amounts of time before settling down in Boston, where she earned her MA at Emerson College and got married. For two and a half years, she taught the Kindergarten – 1st Grade group at an after-school program which exposed her to a great amount of children’s books. That’s when she first started getting serious about a career in writing and illustrating.
Julie moved to Connecticut, had a son, acquired two cats (Boris and Natasha), and joined the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI.) She attended a SCBWI Illustration Day in New York, where she acquired an agent and, soon after, sold her first book, Wink: The Ninja Who Wanted to Be Noticed.
J. C. Phillipps works out of a room in her home which is filled with bookshelves, colorful paper, Post-It notes, and coffee mugs. When not working, she loves to read, watch TV, and play with her cats.
She is also a collage and watercolor artist who shows her work in the Greater Hartford area. She is a founding member of the WeHa Artists Emporium.
She is currently working on Book 4 of her new graphic novel series, PACEY PACKER: UNICORN TRACKER. The two books in the series have been released by Random House Graphics and Book 3, MERMAIDS VS. UNICORNS comes out March 2022.
Working while holding Boris.
CONTACT
To see what J. C. Phillipps is working on (or see many photos of her cats) follow her on Instagram @jcphillipps. Or check out her author page on Facebook.
If you are a publisher, editor, or art director and would like to connect for a professional project, please contact her agent Michael Bourret of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret at mbourret@dystel.com
To contact her for information regarding author visits or other matters, please email her at julie_c@rocketmail.com