We were lucky to catch up with Julia Shea recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Julia, thanks for joining us today. Who is your hero and why? What lessons have you learned from them and how have they influenced your journey?

With little question, my heroes are Sally Morgan and Chris Lutz from The Curious Reader, a children’s independent bookstore in Glen Rock, New Jersey. It was my first real job, and I was fifteen. My whole life I had loved reading and drawing, but felt very lost in terms of what my future might look like. I was a very ambitious kid, but a lot of that energy was nervously directed to doing the very predictable “right” thing, like going to the best college you could muster, and then working as a doctor-lawyer-banker all at the same time or something like that, which I really had no interest in.
One of the most valuable lessons I learned there was that there was that I didn’t have to plan my life out as a teenager, or let other people decide my path for me. There were other paths that I could forge myself, like being an entrepreneur or a creator of books! Since then, I’ve come to really learn that life will take your plans, gobble them up, and send you on bizarre adventures you never saw coming, but you can take those alternative paths and still be happy and successful.

Working with them also developed my taste and respect for children’s books as a medium!

I’m incredibly proud of them! They just celebrated their tenth bookstore birthday this past year (and I just turned 25)! Without them, I don’t know if I would have ended up working in children’s publishing, or even in a creative career at all. They’re also very involved in their community in Bergen County and beyond. Everywhere I go, I shout them out, often with people responding “oh hey I love those guys!” Go check them out on instagram @thecuriousreaderbooks or in person if you’re ever in their neck of the woods!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hello! I’m Julia Shea, I work in children’s publishing as a designer as my day job, and at all other times that I’m not sleeping, I’m an illustrator and writer. I also do some freelance design work!

I’ve been an artist for my entire life, and a writer almost just as long. It look a little while to learn to spell.

In my personal writing and illustrations, I’m very inspired by my own memories and personal history. I remember the frustration of not being taken seriously in my childhood very vividly. Most of my work is dedicated to and edited by the many different versions of my younger self, and it’s my dream to write and illustrate books that resonate with them.

I love blending the border between illustration and design. In my personal design work, most of my type is hand-drawn. I love leaning into the details as a creator, because as a consumer it’s my favorite thing to get lost in. I suppose the overarching theme for my work is that at the end of the day I’m making art for myself, even when it’s for a client! I have been very lucky that my clients have sought me out for this, rather than ask me to step away from it.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I’m currently working on unlearning my perfectionism. For the longest time I thought it was an asset, but I think I was using it to compensate for my ADHD and less-than-stellar organization skills. I’ve always had really high standards for myself, and every time I wouldn’t quite perform to them, I’d spiral in anxiety and shame. It got to the point that the fear of failing began stifling my creativity and ability to work when I was in college. It took a long time to reestablish my creative practice, and even more to learn ways to keep myself organized so I don’t need to rely on mentally torturing myself to get stuff done, haha! I still have high standards for myself, but I try to also give myself a bit of grace, and trust myself in the process of making things.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Make friends and be genuine! I am admittedly not the greatest at using social media to promote myself, but I love using it to connect with other artists and kid lit people. To me, community building feels much more rewarding than your standard networking, because you can approach it from how you can build others up along with yourself. There’s room for us all, and together, we go farther!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.julia-shea.com/
• Instagram: @jshea_art