I’m primarily known as a children’s picture book author and visual artist. I also write young adult fiction (two chapter books and a YA novel), adult fiction which includes a novel (We Play You), a book of short stories (Rocket Fish) and a book of poetry (Tettrennial Drift). I’m putting together another collection of short stories, two collections of poems and a collection of my comics and commercial illustration work. I won the Governor General’s Award and Schwartz Award for my third published book, The Boy from the Sun. After living in Toronto, Victoria, Vancouver and Montreal I returned to my childhood town of Thunder Bay and started a little self-publishing empire, selling thousands of books and giving away over eight hundred books to children. I regularly give away free books to children during readings and workshops. During the pandemic I gave away free books from my balcony. Special thanks to the Trudeau government for saving my bacon with the CERB cheques. I lost all streams of revenue during the pandemic – closed my studio/gallery space (Rogue Planet Gallery), couldn’t do readings or workshops in schools, lost my writing gigs, and couldn’t go to the markets. It sucked, but I got a lot of work done.
With the ability and freedom to play visually with ideas I do my best to create highly original works to delight and surprise both children and adults. Lots of reading, travel and research feed my imagination allowing me to better express several humanist themes. A 2012 Chalmer’s Fellowship Award sent me to Ghana to do research for a children’s graphic poetry book. I wrote for the online magazine Northern Ontario Travel, and had a column called Art On The Edge, for the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal newspaper where I promoted young talent and indigenous artists in the region. Now, after the pandemic, I’m more focused on completed a number of stories, doing the markets and having art shows. I have a solo show at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery in 2024.
I’ve also worked in a small capacity in film, television and animation, directing, acting (two feature length films, commercials and over 25 short films), creating storyboards, and more. I enjoyed a short stint as an art director in the Play Industry in Vancouver, heading a team of artists to create large indoor sculptures and climbing installations for children, working with Emmy award winning artists in the film industry. I lived, worked and shown my artwork in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Victoria, B.C., Windsor and Thunder Bay. I’m a member of the SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators), visiting Los Angeles to take part in the 2017 conference where I made all sorts of wonderful connections. I had a gallery/studio for two years, Rogue Planet Gallery, which I had to close due to the pandemic. My workload to complete several projects and show my work is pretty crazy, but I found the time to write the first three scripts for a science fiction television series called E.R.S.
The citizens of Thunder Bay continue to be amazingly supportive, many purchasing my books three times over to gift my books to friends and relatives around the world. I’ve surveyed over a hundred children and their parents to discover that children consider my books their ultimate favourites. Children like my books more than Robert Munsch and Dr. Suess, to name a few. However, Where the Wild Things Are, still remains many children’s ultimate favourite. Special thanks goes to the Ontario Arts Council who has been instrumental in supporting the creation of a number of my books and visual art projects over the years.
Currently I’m looking for an agent and publisher for my work, in Canada and/or the United States. I will continue to self-publish in tandem with published works. You can see my work and other activity on my YouTube channel: Duncan Weller
