About Me—Joel Selby

I’m a children’s book illustrator and indefatigable generalist.

Photo by, you guessed it, the author

I came across this writing prompt months ago and I’ve meant to participate all this time, but I’ve been stuck.

Actually, I have 3 separate false-start drafts for this article, but none of them took off because I was trying to be too clever about the format: autobiography in the form of a book list, my life told through five objects, stuff like that. Not bad ideas in themselves, but not what I wanted for the definitive “who I am” post.

Finally, I was like darn it, I need to stop trying to reinvent the wheel and just do what I do best: make a giant dadblamed list of everything that excites me.

So here’s my colossal catch-all compendium.

It’s wordy. It’s long. It’s eclectic and packed to the brim. But that is what it’s like inside my head, so it’s also honest.

It’s Joel Selby writing about Joel Selby in the way only Joel Selby could write it.

You’ve been warned.

The Basics

• I was born in Washington, DC, and grew up in the Baltimore suburbs.
• I’m a stereotypical Marylander: 1) over-pronounced “O” (if you know, you know), 2) I own Orioles paraphernalia, 3) I brighten up every time I see Maryland’s insane-looking…