Willow Dawson

Willow Dawson, originally from Vancouver, British Columbia, is an illustrator and writer working out of Toronto, Canada. Her stand-alone illustrations are rendered in ink and acrylic on cardboard. She also works sequentially in ink as a comics artist. Some of Dawson’s clients include Kids Can Press, Owl Magazine, Shameless Magazine, Feathertale Review, Filmblanc, Sumach Press, Kiss Machine, Locust Mount Records, Tightrope Books and Omni TV.

Dawson most recently illustrated No Girls Allowed: Tales of Daring Women Dressed as Men for Love, Freedom and Adventure (written by Susan Hughes), an 80-page graphic novel. Recent projects include Ella and Squid’s Top 5 March Break Favourites (Owl Magazine), The Innumerable Obsessions of Purl McGee (self-published) and the four-part Violet Miranda: Girl Pirate graphic novella (written by Emily Pohl-Weary, Kiss Machine). Dawson is presently working on 100 Mile House, a series of comic-style memoirs, which will be featured on-line this summer at Top Shelf 2.0. Her books have received funding from the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Dawson is a member of the Canadian Association of Photographers and Illustrators in Communications, JacketFlap and Illustration Mundo. She attends book and comic book festivals across North America, participates on panel discussions, gives artist talks and teaches. In her spare time she sews, grows plants, collects dead bugs, eats spaghetti and doesn’t comb her hair. Willow also plays saw, keys, and sings in the band Little Brown Bat. This is a more detailed biography of the artist, from the following source: https://www.kidscanpress.com/Creators/willow-dawson/

No Girls Allowed
Dawson illustrated the 2008 graphic novel, No Girls Allowed, written by author Susan Hughes and published by Kids Can Press. The book tells several stories of different women across the globe and through history who dressed as men for various reasons. No Girls Allowed has received positive press, including rave reviews on Boing-Boing, National Post, and the School Library Journal.

Hyena in Petticoats: The Story of Suffragette Nellie McClung
Dawson was approached by Penguin Canada (through her first agent) to create a historical graphic novel about Nellie McClung, Canada's most outspoken suffragette who is credited with getting women the vote and (along with the other members of "The Famous Five") getting women officially recognized as "persons" under the Act. Since McClung felt that her time on the farm was the underpinning to her political and literary success, Dawson wanted the design of the book to mirror the design aesthetic at the turn of the century during the suffragette's formative years. She created page borders with banners inspired by the covers of 1900s farming catalogues and tiny, moving animals reflecting the theme of each chapter. This book was reviewed in CM Magazine and Quill & Quire and others. This book also received support from the Ontario Arts Council's Writers' Reserve Program.