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]]>Allied Arts Holiday Show in Bellingham through Dec 24, 2025eventsReadingKjersten HayesThu, 05 Dec 2024 20:14:51 +0000http://www.kjersten.com/blog/2024/12/5/join-me-for-world-read-aloud-day-feb-5-202556e0b7dd01dbae33017f0fc3:57e06611e39aa4486f2e9d88:675208981941694e25f8d04fJoin me for a free 20-minute virtual classroom read-aloud followed by kids questions on Feb 5 for World Read Aloud Day! My sign up can be found here. More info on World Read Aloud Day Can be found here. Happy Reading!

Hey look—that’s my art for sale! Anyone in Bellingham, WA (where I live) between Friday 11/22 and 12/24, make your way to the Allied Arts Holiday Festival of The Arts downtown at 1331 Commercial Street (kinda near the Pickford) to check it out. Open daily from 10-6, except closed on Thanksgiving and closes at 3 on Christmas Eve.

Here’s a preview of some of the journals I have at the show but I also have prints, cards, and zines. Let me know if you stop by!

Been making some new art for shows this fall. Thought I’d post some of it here!

Also it’s dahlia season, so I guess the flowers have been inspiring me.

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]]>Been making some new art for shows!eventsHandmade booksMy BooksKjersten HayesWed, 12 Jun 2024 19:28:37 +0000http://www.kjersten.com/blog/2024/6/12/i-love-school-visits56e0b7dd01dbae33017f0fc3:57e06611e39aa4486f2e9d88:6669f2ce8f0feb1953b12a79

Yay for author school visits! I recently got to share my love of writing and creativity with the second graders at Geneva Elementary here in Bellingham, AND I guided them in making their very own journals. We had SO MUCH FUN!

Some of my favorite comments from kids from the day:

“I think your name (kj) could stand for Kitty of Justice. That could be your superhero!”

“This journal I made is potentially very dangerous. I mean, think of all the paper cuts that it could give someone.”

When invited to share what a journal is or could be, one kid said: “My happy place.”

Other delights: I hung out eith lots of gnomes between sessions (the Geneva mascot) and I did a silly walk next to the silly walk sign. A happy happy day! Thank you to my friend Mrs. Ritchie for inviting me!

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]]>I love school visits!IllustrationPlay!Kjersten HayesSat, 18 May 2024 00:46:40 +0000http://www.kjersten.com/blog/2024/5/17/a-night-of-collective-effervescensce-and-the-northern-lights-in-a-zine56e0b7dd01dbae33017f0fc3:57e06611e39aa4486f2e9d88:6647f7a199692800463f5c35I made a zine about watching the Northern Lights on Mother’s Day Weekend:

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]]>A Night Of Collective Effervescensce and The Northern Lights, in a zineMy BooksReadingKjersten HayesTue, 16 Apr 2024 18:31:40 +0000http://www.kjersten.com/blog/2024/4/16/happy-4th-book-birthday-to-the-elephants-guide-to-hide-and-seek56e0b7dd01dbae33017f0fc3:57e06611e39aa4486f2e9d88:661ec2c6a6cd3e62c53aaaa3

It’s been 4 years (and a week or so) since The Elephants’ Guide to Hide-And-Seek became a book! Happy (belated) Book Birthday to to this cheerful book that’s been a joy to share with so many kids over the last few years. And Happy Spring too!

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]]>Happy 4th Book Birthday to The Elephants' Guide To Hide-And-Seek!IllustrationeventsKjersten HayesTue, 27 Feb 2024 02:47:13 +0000http://www.kjersten.com/blog/2024/2/26/wwa-scbwi-art-show56e0b7dd01dbae33017f0fc3:57e06611e39aa4486f2e9d88:65dd4c681e96690bfb3dd83d

For those in the Seattle area, I have three pieces included at the Western Washington SCBWI art show at the Seattle Convention Center through mid-July. Check it out!

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]]>WWA SCBWI art show!IllustrationKjersten HayesWed, 07 Feb 2024 04:59:35 +0000http://www.kjersten.com/blog/2024/2/6/gratitude-for-fellow-kid-lit-creators56e0b7dd01dbae33017f0fc3:57e06611e39aa4486f2e9d88:65c30c3b64bb1275674573f6

Sometimes I participate in Kidlit postcard day on Instagram. This past month I shared this piece I made inspired by happy memories on the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec with my husband’s family. I also wrote the following message and I thought it might be a nice thing to cross-post here in case any fellow kid lit creators stumble across my corner of the internet and could use a lift:

Books have offered me refuge so many times in life, but especially as a kid. I think this is a big reason why I keep writing and making art for kids—making stories that offer a different way, a different space, new perspective—it’s work I want to be a part of and support.

And to that purpose today I’m also sending good wishes to all my fellow kidlit artists out there. I hope you are doing whatever you need to do to sustain your work. The refuge and perspective your work offers kids is so important. I’m grateful you keep at it. Especially when the world feels the most rocky or uncertain, please keep keeping at it. The world needs what you do.

Cheers all! Happy creating.

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]]>Gratitude for fellow kid lit creatorsPlay!Handmade booksKjersten HayesFri, 01 Dec 2023 00:45:23 +0000http://www.kjersten.com/blog/2023/11/29/creative-practices-that-keep-on-giving56e0b7dd01dbae33017f0fc3:57e06611e39aa4486f2e9d88:6567db7322963d0bf717ef3d

At the beginning of November I drove to California for a beloved cousin’s wedding—he got married surrounded by friends, family, and beautiful big redwood trees—and I took the wedding as an excuse to fill up with awe in the wilds of Northern CA and Southern OR.

Besides seeing redwood trees and the ocean, I stayed in a Hobbit House Air B&B, A treehouse, A caboose, a log cabin, and an airstream trailer. What a fun adventure!

My younger son (who was with me for the whole trip) and I made a journal as we went, we painted and drew everyday, and we even printed out pics for our book using a Selphy portable printer every night.

Journaling is my longest standing and most consistently active creative practice—I love how playful I can be in my journals, how they help me remember things, how the very act of journaling makes me somehow seek out doing things that are interesting and worth writing down, and how they often make me feel like I experience the joy of adventure twice (once while living it, and once while recording it). I realized lately the obvious—that journals are kind of the glue that holds all my other creative work together. And my travel journals are about my favorite.

While we made the pages as we went, I finished the cover of this book over Thanksgiving weekend. In my family, we call the day after Thanksgiving Craft Friday—we spend the day (and then the entire weekend) making crafts and laughing and eating lots of good food.

So this past weekend I not only finished the travel journal I’d started earlier in the month, I actually made several handmade books including a happy fat new regular journal with colorful pages.

And so here I am. With one journal just finished (actually several because this was just a travel journal, my regular journal is just about finished too), and a new one sitting, with lots of big empty pages waiting to be filled.

And I suppose here is where I hopefully can be helpful to anyone else who journals who stumbles across this. When I’ve talked journaling with people, I notice a lot of people are intimidated—what if they mess up a nice journal, what if they don’t have anything interesting to say, what if they draw something and it’s ugly.

And I guess my response is who cares? I mean, yes, what if? What if I do any or all of those things? Who cares? What if I do any or all of those things but in the meanwhile I have jumped in and started playing with my creativity. What a delight!

A journal is one of the easiest places to lower the stakes with my creative work. Because it’s just for me. A journal is a place where I can set aside any worries that anything is perfect and instead just play. Like a kid just having fun and not worrying about the outcome. It’s a yes space. Where anything goes. And because anything goes, in my journal I learn to open up and unlock blank pages. Through practice. Because when you practice something you get better at it. So by practicing my creative work with low stakes, I get better at my creative work. And Ironically then it becomes more interesting to actually share.

Anyway, those are my random thoughts that I thought I’d share in my public journal as I dive into my new private journal. If you stumble upon this and have a journaling practice or regularly keep travel journals, drop me a line or leave a comment. I’d love to hear about your time with journaling too.

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]]>Creative Practices that keep on givingKjersten HayesWed, 11 Oct 2023 20:32:24 +0000http://www.kjersten.com/blog/2023/10/11/noticing-leads-to-more-noticing56e0b7dd01dbae33017f0fc3:57e06611e39aa4486f2e9d88:652705360393b43c7b9fede8

I bet I’m not the only one with a camera roll full of lovely things I’ve noticed and decided to photograph even though I may never look at those photos again. Perhaps all of us with this tendency can make an unofficial society of those who like to notice lovely things and photograph them just because. 

And maybe “just because” is actually a practice in abundance because noticing beauty leads to noticing more beauty. And maybe this makes us better able to show up with some grace for whatever is more difficult or painful in the world or in life too. 

Anyway, cheers to Octobers. Aren’t they pretty? 

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]]>Noticing leads to more noticingIllustrationKjersten HayesWed, 13 Sep 2023 17:18:07 +0000http://www.kjersten.com/blog/2023/9/13/unwelcome-company56e0b7dd01dbae33017f0fc3:57e06611e39aa4486f2e9d88:6501edcd424c3229293f569b

Seagulls live on my roof. I think of them as frenemies.

One minute I am enchanted by their sound and tenacity. The next I am annoyed with their excrement.

Either way I find that I often draw them or put them in my work.

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]]>SeagullsKjersten HayesFri, 07 Apr 2023 14:00:00 +0000http://www.kjersten.com/blog/2023/4/7/happy-spring-and-happy-3rd-book-birthday-to-the-elephants-guide-to-hide-and-seek56e0b7dd01dbae33017f0fc3:57e06611e39aa4486f2e9d88:642463fd72bd597f391902aa

Yay spring!

And happy 3rd book birthday to THE ELEPHANTS’ GUIDE TO HIDE-AND-SEEK!

The last year has been a joyous time of sharing my book (finally) in person with kids, writing new books (fingers crossed that some of them find happy homes!), and making lots of new art.

I realized I hadn’t posted here in awhile so why not do so by celebrating all of these things.

Happy reading!

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]]>Happy spring and happy 3rd book birthday to THE ELEPHANTS' GUIDE TO HIDE-AND-SEEK!My BooksKjersten HayesTue, 19 Apr 2022 20:28:00 +0000http://www.kjersten.com/blog/2022/4/7/happy-2nd-book-birthday-to-the-elephants-guide-to-hide-and-seek56e0b7dd01dbae33017f0fc3:57e06611e39aa4486f2e9d88:625f1b8d6e9687584cba3e02

My first picture book, The Elephants’ Guide To Hide-And-Seek is two years old this month! To celebrate here’s a pic of me when I was 8 years old with another bright yellow book that I made then for my school’s young author contest. I won an award for my grade and decided someday I wanted to be a published author. Yay for dreams that come true!

A few weeks ago a hummingbird visited me in the forest on my walk. That’s also the day I got up the gumption to finally prep and send queries again after a bit of a hiatus from sharing my writing with anyone outside of my critique partners. Why wasn’t I sharing my work? Well, for one, my previous agent left the business last year. But I wish I understood better why I wasn’t just jumping back in. I guess, to put it plainly, sharing my work is something I struggle with. It’s something I’m working at! And it’s one of the reasons I wrote the dedication in my first book the way I did. Writers all have their own hang-ups and this is one I’m working to let go of.

But anyway, back to the hummingbird. I’m not sure how to describe how that hummingbird helped me—I mean, why is it that nature sometimes just nudges people to be their best?

But that’s what felt like happened. That little bird nudged me to a spot of calm where I could share my work kinda like I was doing nothing more than giving away dahlias from my garden in the summer. So I sent it off. And soon after, I found myself having a great conversation with my now agent, Mary Cummings of Great River Literary.

So This week I made this hummingbird collage (with cake!) to celebrate! I’m thrilled to now be collaborating with Mary. And also to have gotten over some of my own blocks so that I can be back in the game of sharing my children’s book work.

Cheers! To getting over blocks. And to exciting new creative chapters of all kinds.

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]]>May you always choose to get in the gamePlay!ReadingWritingKjersten HayesThu, 17 Feb 2022 19:46:45 +0000http://www.kjersten.com/blog/2022/2/17/spine-poems56e0b7dd01dbae33017f0fc3:57e06611e39aa4486f2e9d88:620ea35f4b98fa4e94e850d2A few poems I posted on Twitter lately that I made using the spines of picture books. Enjoy!

Dear diary,

I want to be the night gardener,

outside,

finding wild sidewalk flowers

stuck over and under the snow,

just because.

Wherever you go

Please bring balloons

Just in case you want to fly

Up, down, and around—In the sky

At nighttime

Like a dandelion Under the lemon moon

Imagine if you had a jetpack—

Whoosh!

Higher! Higher!

Faster! Faster!

Yes, let’s run wild reaching for the

moon,

stars,

life on mars—

The most magnificent thing.

Last spring when I was giving away extra dahlia tubers a friend told me I reminded her of Miss Rumphius.

Best compliment ever! And coincidentally, or maybe not, that book is one of my favorite books of all time. “You must do something to make the world more beautiful,” reads a line in the book. And Miss Rumphius does.

I set aside my Very Important Work this past week to play. To work through some anxious feelings of uncertainty. I made this art piece. And it helped. But still, this is just how life is with the pandemic: lots of uncomfortable uncertainty.

Yet, I realized, here’ a certain thing: I am someone who does what I can to make the world more beautiful. I always have been. I’m certain I always will be. Maybe you are too? If so, Hi! During this very uncertain time, I’m leaning on this small certain beautiful practice of mine. And it’s helping. Maybe you can too.

Also, flowers make everything better.

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]]>Like Miss RumphiusMy BooksPlay!Kjersten HayesThu, 12 Aug 2021 16:48:56 +0000http://www.kjersten.com/blog/2021/8/12/happy-world-elephant-day56e0b7dd01dbae33017f0fc3:57e06611e39aa4486f2e9d88:61154e99ea7744675ace9217

Happy World Elephant Day! This is a picture from many years ago of of me and my son Oscar in Sri Lanka at an elephant orphanage. We lived in SE Asia for a few years when he was small, we traveled a lot, and to keep him engaged I sought out lots of experiences that would delight a kid. So we had a lot of elephant adventures. This is mostly how I fell in love with elephants and came to write my book, THE ELEPHANTS’ GUIDE TO HIDE-AND-SEEK. 

During this particular adventure in Sri Lanka, we learned that elephant dung is great for paper-making! Seeing as I’ve made lots of paper in my lifetime and even often use my own handmade paper in my art, this was particularly interesting to me. The reason elephant dung is great for paper making is that it’s full of munched up fibers—kinda like the elephant’s digestive system acts as a pulp beater.  Gross, but cool! 

The photo album in these pictures is one of my handmade travel journals, I used a batik I bought in Sri Lanka for the cover, and a lot of the papers inside are elephant dung papers I bought there. Also that cute little elephant stuffie is one I bought at a fiber store in Columbo. 

I also wrote a blog post about elephant dung paper-making way back when I went to Sri Lanka. Here’s the link.

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]]>Happy World Elephant Day!ReadingeventsMy BooksKjersten HayesWed, 03 Feb 2021 00:38:00 +0000http://www.kjersten.com/blog/2021/2/3/happy-world-read-aloud-day-and-where-to-order-a-signed-copy-of-my-book56e0b7dd01dbae33017f0fc3:57e06611e39aa4486f2e9d88:6019eade2dbaa23b8eec6ee8Happy World Read Aloud Day! Welcome to any students, teachers, or families who are visiting my website after I visit your classrooms! I’m always grateful to chat about writing and to read with kids. If you have follow-up questions, please feel free to email me!

And for any families or teachers who want to order my book, THE ELEPHANTS’ GUIDE TO HIDE-AND-SEEK, I’ve made arrangements with my local bookstore, Village Books, to sign copies for anyone who orders through Feb 12th. You can order at this link—when you check out make a note in the comments about how you would like your book personalized or who you would like it signed to.

Thanks for visiting my website! Make sure you check out my section with fun stuff for kids. Happy reading!