More About Julia Mills (She/Her)

Julia Mills is the award-winning author/illustrator of I AM STUCK and the forthcoming ROBINSON’S NEW THING (Harper Kids/Clarion). She is also a public school art teacher which means she has paint on her hands 99% of the time.

Julia likes to write stories that deal with big emotions while still having plenty of room for humor. She creates her art with watercolor, colored pencil, pastel, crayon, paint sticks and digital collage. Julia lives in New Jersey with her husband, two kids, and two black cats named Cosmo and Klaus.

You can find her online at:

https://jamills.com/

Instagram

Julia’s strengths are…

Writing about emotions, creating memorable characters, using both traditional and digital tools, giving helpful and uplifting critique, page composition/lighting and color sense.

What Julia is looking for…

Julia is looking for an illustrator or author-illustrator. This year I am requiring my mentee to submit a dummy with their application (it does not have to be polished!) because I am looking for someone who is working on storytelling. If you are not a writer please use a fairytale or something in the public domain to make a sketch dummy so I can see how you visually tell a story. I'm looking for someone who wants to dig deep into their work and make it shine. Ideally we will polish up a dummy or two and work on some finished art. I am very open to a mentee who wants to experiment with style and materials.

A Note From Julia:

“My #1 goal in this mentorship is to find a mentee that I feel I can really help improve. So I'm not necessarily looking for the most polished or perfect application. I'm looking for someone who is passionate about storytelling and has a bunch of ideas they are eager to make real. I really want to see how your ideas/images move on the page and interact with words.”

Julia’s Picture Books

Julia’s Upcoming Picture Books

If Julia created a Visual Wish List, it would be made up of…

*Unless otherwise stated, the below serves as a wish list only. Each mentor is excited about the opportunity to find a manuscript they can’t stop thinking about. Please apply if you think you’d be a good fit.

Julia is a good fit for…

• Digital illustrators who want to incorporate traditional materials

• Traditional illustrators who want to use more digital elements

• Humor with heart

• Illustrators looking to be writer/illustrators

• Any medium

Julia is not a good fit for…

• Nonfiction (unless it has a humorous spin)

*Please submit a dummy with your application -it does NOT need to be polished.

Who can apply to Julia? Unagented illustrators and author-illustrators only.

*You will need a gmail account to access the google form. After clicking the button above, you will be able to sign in or create a new account.