Do you want to find an illustrator, editor, publisher, or agent? Attend  the meetings of professional associations and clubs, salons, open mics, workshops and conferences. That’s how I found the illustrator for my second kid gardening book, Zack’s Zany Zucchiniland: Amanda Baker. I first met her at a local SCBWI meeting and then later found her website. We chatted, I told her about my Zack manuscript, she did concept sketches for me, and I hired her. I’d seen appealing artwork of several other potential illustrators, but I liked her ideas about several especially difficult-to-illustrate pages (at least in my mind).  She nailed them! Red-headed Zack is a likable lad with a devilish streak. By golly, he didn’t want to dig in the dirt with his parents. He was bored and decided he must have a garden that was all his.

Amanda captured the snarky personality of Zack in…