Success Story Panel: Amy Kumph

Moderator Alvina Ling (top L), illustrator
Amy Kumph (top R), author Pam Harris (below)

Amy Kumph earned a Bachelor of Science in interior design, a more practical path to her than an art degree, but she continued to creating murals and pottery before ultimately set her sights on illustrating. Amy lives on the East Coast, close to the sea, with her husband, three daughters and two funny little dogs. 

AMY'S FIRST BOOK is in progress right now, but she started thinking about illustrating a decade ago while raising her kids. She was reading a lot of incredible kids books that she absolutely loved and just kept thinking "I think I would like to do this, but there were a lot of people out there volleying for these positions and I felt like I wouldn't make it, and that created a little bit of fear. I won't lie to you, there was a little bit of will I ever even accomplish this goal? But I just kept going, and here I am."

Amy's favorite book as a kid

Amy's first in-person conference was the SCBWI New England Editor/Agent Day many years ago for which she wrote and illustrated a book dummy to present at different round tables over the course of the day. Amy says the positive feedback from those roundtable industry professionals was enough to keep her going for many years to come.

Until last year! When she won the SCBWI unagented illustrator portfolio show award. From that win Amy had two interviews, one with Little Brown Books, and one with Simon and Schuster, and Amy called both of those experiences "just fabulous".

But Simon and Schuster's Lauren Rille helped set Amy up with her agent, Andrea Morrison of Writers House, and in January of this year Amy found out she would be illustrating legendary Cynthia Rylant's next picture book (title to come) with Allyn Johnston of Beach Lane Books editing.

Advice Amy would give to those just starting out: 

• Give yourself time and space to be creative. 
• You be you, be true to who you are. 
• Think long and hard about what you want to actually draw or illustrate, because that passion will come through, and if you're not interested in what you're illustrating, that will be obvious.
• Have fun.
• Fear less.

Amy says she regrets not putting herself out there earlier, she lurked for years before joining or submitting to portfolio shows, and the first show she did finally enter she won! If you've worked really hard, if you've done the research, if you've done the reading, the next step is to start putting yourself out there.

from Amy's online portfolio