More About Julia Mills (She/Her)

Julia Mills is the award-winning author/illustrator of I AM STUCK and 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 I Bluesky

Julia’s strengths include…

• Creative encouragement

• Rethinking plot elements

• Experimenting with new mediums

• Thinking outside the box (page?)

• Getting stuck things unstuck.

• Making connections visually and with words.

What Julia is looking for…

Julia is looking for a mentee who is like a manatee. And by that she means curious, communicative and able to eat several tons of aquatic plants. Just kidding about the plants! Seriously, Julia is looking for someone who is open to working on at least one manuscript, probably two.

Her mentee should be comfortable trying new things. Julia likes to work with author/illustrators because she likes developing the whole project!

A Note From Julia:

“I'm asking for a dummy but please don't let that intimidate you! If you don't have something written feel free to sketch a fairy tale or something from the public domain. I'm not looking for perfection, just potential! You should be so proud of yourself for putting yourself out there.”

Julia’s 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:

• Humor

• "Weird" books with interesting characters

• Animal or non-human protagonists

• Illustrations in traditional or digital mediums

• Illustrators who want to try new mediums

• A story that starts silly and ends not silly

Julia is not a good fit for:

• Concept books (unless something really interesting happens)

• Nonfiction

• Overly wordy manuscripts

Who can apply to Julia?

Unagented Illustrators and Author-illustrators.

*Note: Applicants must submit a dummy with their application. This can be finished or a simple sketch dummy. Please see the “Note from Julia” on this page for more clarity.

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