Strawberrie has worked in children’s publishing for over twenty-five years and is an enthusiastic and energetic champion of the art of storytelling.
Graduating from Brighton University with an MA in Narrative Illustration, Strawberrie went on to work as a designer and art director at Macmillan Children’s Books, Little Tiger Press and Scholastic Children’s Books, working with illustrators Catherine Rayner, Sarah McIntyre, Tony Ross and Steve Antony.
She is currently the Art Director for Picture Books and Pre-School publishing at Bloomsbury Children’s Books, where she and her team design a wide range of picture, gift and novelty books for readers aged 0-6.
Her approach to commissioning illustration for a young readership is simple; allow your work tell the story.
This means working hard to create appealing and believable characters, building an authentic world for the characters to move, breathe and live, and allowing the voice of the text to work in creative harmony with the illustration. The best stories leave a little bit of themselves behind when you put the book down, and superbly-crafted illustration is the very heart of that magic.
Strawberrie will be judging the Children’s Publishing Category – and looking forward to seeing compelling, creative and highly-original child-centred illustration.
Strawberrie DonnellyStrawberrie Donnelly