We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Edward Dennis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Edward, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
I would say the most meaningful project to date I’ve worked on is my Children’s book. Years ago I worked as a Special Education instructor in the inner city. As a 3rd generation Mexican-American I encountered many children that were 1st generation or immigrants themselves. I often got questions from them during the heated political climate of 2016 about “the Wall”. I didn’t know how to respond to be honest. That is what led me to create my book.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
For those that don’t know me, I’m an author/Illustrator that has worked for such companys as Giant Bicycle group, Disney, HBO, Toyota USA, Anheuser-Busch, Western Union, Giordana Cycling and Shimano. I’ve been published in several magazines, Pure Nintendo, Nintendo Force, Backcountry Magazine, Mountain Flyer: the mountain bike journal, Outside business journal and ImagineFX. I work primarily with digital art now using Corel Painter or some Adobe product. As of late I’ve been more into animation than just static artwork. In between doing all this I’ve recently signed a publishing deal for a series of children’s books, the first of which comes out this Novemeber.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
I think what most creatives miss early on is that it’s more than just being talented. You have to know business as well, and that’s hard for many of us creatives because we’re introverts. I worked for many years not getting jobs, recognition or even an email back. I was shy and didn’t know how to take charge. This was my early to late 20s…It wasn’t until my late 20s and now my early 30s did I learn being talented isn’t enough. This is something I think most artist learn later on, it’s not something instinctive.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
My journey to getting my book out, it’s been a 9 year journey. It was an idea I had years ago, but I didn’t think I was good enough, I was insecure about my storytelling. my art, and probably myself. But the more time I sunk into it I realized I wanted to have it be more than just something I made in my studio. I was dreaming of Barnes & Noble, walking the aisles and seeing my book. But as a Latino I knew how hard it would be for this to happen. Last year I think something like 4000 children’s books were traditionally published in the U.S. and only 5% were Latinx. Traditionally published is to say, you’re not self publishing. So it is a business decision for the publisher to take on a story, give it to their distributors, etc. A companies reputation could take a hit if they published a bad book. My hopes were dropping the more I learned of the odds, out of those 4000 traditionally published books only a handful make it into major retailers. The acceptance rate is 1%, with a rejection rate of 99%…A lot has happened since I signed my publishing deal in 2020, my book comes out this November and I also have several Wal-Mart and Barnes & Noble launch events.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.theboyfrommexico.com
- Instagram: EduardoDenniz
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwarddennisart/
- Twitter: EduardoDenniz