Day 9: Yesenia Moses

 Yesenia Moises is an Afro-Latina author, illustrator, and toy designer. She uses her colorful illustrations and whimsical designs to create wonder and magic for young readers. In addition to her original Picture Book Stella’s Stellar Hair, she also serves as illustrator for Tennis Olympian Serena Williams, and The Adventures of Qai Qai series. Her work has been featured on Buzzfeed, SyFy, NBC News, and on the pages of publishers like DC and Image. In a time where the world can be a scary place, she wants it to be filled with big hair, bright colors, and lots of sazón from the heart!

The Journey: My Path to Publishing

Depending on your online algorithm, you come across a range of accounts on how someone landed in publishing. Sometimes it’s a stroke of inspiration taken from a loved one in their life, a burning need to express a feeling, or an event that shook them to their very core and radicalized their pen.

For me, the path to publishing was in no way, shape or form linear which raises the possibility that my story will likely be one of the more unorthodox ones you come across. It is my hope that in sharing this you’re able to see that as cliche as it sounds, there truly is more than one way to break into publishing.

I have a degree in Toy Design and for my thesis, I was tasked with creating a character and building a brand around them; complete with a toy line, plush doll and picture book. I’ve always loved stories and growing up I’d draw up characters and have them go on all sorts of adventures so the picture book aspect of the thesis project felt right up my alley. While it would be a couple years before my first book deal, this project was my first foray into the world of picture books and set the stage for what was to come.

The Back Story: How I Got “The Deal”

After graduating from college I worked a variety of design jobs before taking a leap of faith to go full time freelance. Making art for fun was suddenly relegated to evenings and weekends, and my life didn’t look anything like my younger self thought it would. In an effort to put myself out there and take a step toward building the life I envisioned, I began posting my artwork online, occasionally vending at conventions whenever my work schedule would permit.

Then in September 2017, I logged onto Twitter and saw there was a hashtag that was rapidly gaining traction. It was called #drawingwhileblack and its purpose was to uplift and spotlight black artists. The posts were formatted with 3 pieces of art that you were most proud of and a photo of yourself.

Chalking it up as a day like any other, I made my post using the hashtag and thought I’d be shouting into the void at my then 200 followers, but I was surprised when within an hour my phone was blowing up from the influx of notifications. It was both exciting and overwhelming! For about 3 days straight my phone was on life support and there was suddenly a new audience of people that were excited to know more about me.

Ultimately, the viral visibility from that weekend caught the attention of an art director at Macmillan and led to them reaching out about a book they needed an illustrator on called Honeysmoke: A Story of Finding Your Own Color. Truly amazing things can happen when you put yourself out there and I still remember how utterly flabbergasted I was to receive that email. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take and I know my career wouldn’t be where it is today if I had made a different decision about sharing my artwork on that fateful day.

After I submitted the final art, I kept in touch with the art director and asked a ton of questions because I absolutely loved bringing the text in Honeysmoke to life and found myself enamoured with the thought of writing something of my own. I toiled away that summer crafting what would become my author-illustrator debut, (which just had its 5 year anniversary!), and in the fall of 2018 pitched my very first picture book.

The Inspiration: Who/What Inspired Me

My work is most often inspired by my life experiences with an afro fantastical twist.

My latest book, Sounds Like Joy, was inspired by a piece of artwork I’d posted online featuring a black mermaid sitting serenely on some coral. It received a really big online response and when I would go through the comments, the number one thing that I noticed was that people said that my artwork brought them joy. During the pandemic, I wanted to use my art to give back to the audience that has helped me get to where I am as both an author and an illustrator. Sounds Like Joy is a love letter and a thank you to everyone who’s ever supported me on this publishing journey.

In the case of my author-illustrator debut, Stella’s Stellar Hair, I was in the midst of my own personal hair journey when I happened to attend a black women’s empowerment expo being hosted by a local radio station. I’d gone in search of discounted hair products but ended up walking away with a completely different view on my hair. My whole life I was told that natural hair was something to be tamed and I’d hear words like unkempt or unmanageable, yet in this space women were proudly rocking their crowns, adorned in such amazing and creative ways. That experience stuck with me and served as the inspiration behind Stella’s journey as she goes across the solar system to get help with her hair from her nine fabulous space aunties.

The Buzz