One November day in 2022, just a few months after receiving her degree from Willamette’s Pacific Northwest College of Art, Rowan Kingsbury BFA’22 received a message. It was from her former illustration professor David Hohn who was inviting her back to campus for an exciting opportunity: a portfolio review with Sam Arthur, co-founder of Flying Eye Books, an award-winning children’s book publisher based in London, UK. Little did Kingsbury know that this casual text would set in motion a series of events that would transform her from recent graduate to published author in less than a year.
The timing of the portfolio review was perfect; Kingsbury had already developed a graphic novel for children as part of her senior thesis project and was looking for potential publishers.
“Sam liked my portfolio review and I said, ‘Do you want to see some of the comic pages I’m working on?’” Kingsbury remembers. “He saw them and said, ‘I think we want this.’”
After a call with her agent, she soon found herself negotiating a two-book deal with Flying Eye.
“I remember smiling a little uncontrollably,” says Kingsbury of the moment she signed the contract. “It all felt very unreal.”
The book, “Avery and the Fairy Circle,” began its life in Kingsbury’s thesis class as an educational graphic novel and children’s book featuring plants from the Pacific Northwest — a tribute to her botanist mother. During the course, she developed a script, some finished illustrations, rough sketches, and sample pages. She also considered how she might want to market and eventually publish the work.
“It showed that I could even do a graphic novel and write a script, which was all kind of new to me,” Kingsbury says.
Understanding the business side of being an artist
Now an independent professional artist, Kingsbury appreciated learning about the business of publishing in her PNCA classes.
“I’ve always been kind of an entrepreneur, which is a fun thing to be as an artist,” Kingsbury says. “I learned a lot about business in my classes — contracts, taxes, how to set up our portfolios, and financial math for artists. It’s really important for students and artists to get a business sense.”
When Kingsbury was ready to reach her dream of becoming a published author, she had her PNCA network in her corner. Illustration faculty member and thesis mentor Molly Mendoza gave her advice on negotiating her first book contract. Hohn advised her on different elements of the business. She also received extensive feedback from her peer group of PNCA alums — all of which strengthened the final product.
Kingsbury has already begun work on the sequel to “Avery and the Fairy Circle.” Now, years after her chance encounter with a publisher at a portfolio review, she’s come full circle — she’s been invited back to PNCA to give feedback on current students’ work, a testament to the role that the PNCA community has played in Kingsbury’s career.
“I have so many lifelong friends from my time at PNCA that I still see,” Kingsbury says. “I kept in touch with them and I stayed in town, and now I can't imagine leaving Portland anytime soon — because PNCA set me up to have just a beautiful community.”
