Naomi Canale

Naomi Canale is a visual artist and writer who works in collage, sculpture, painting, and bookmaking. Courage and curiosity are the rudimentary themes within her work as both a storyteller and artist. These two parallels, when in cohesion, are also how she strives to live her life. As a child, she was the class clown who struggled to read, but was drawn to the narrative art in picture books. She still has several of her tattered books she never returned to her school library—hopefully her school librarian never reads this! Today, she’s pretty good about returning her books to the library and even works in one. When she’s not reading, spending time with her family, or gardening, she can be found playing with a mix of art mediums; some of which she uses to create dragons for her local bookshop, or to illustrate pictures. She illustrates mostly with traditional materials like colored pencils, watercolor, and pens, and lately she’s experimenting with collage. For many years, she was self-taught, but entered college for a degree in the arts after being diagnosed with Dyslexia as an adult. She has mentored with some wonderful authors through The Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators (Ellen Hopkins, Susan Hart Lindquist, and C.S. Jennings), and even served as Co-Regional Advisor for SCBWI Nevada. She was also a freelance writer alongside Michael Zoumas.

Naomi is a member of SCBWI and represented by Timothy Travaglini of Transatlantic Agency If you’d like to work with her on a book, you can reach out to her agent at tim@transatlanticagency.com. For other inquiries you can contact her here.

HONORS

2024 Milkwood Residency

2023 ARTprenticeship Mentor through Creative Waco

2023 Cynthia Leitich Smith Writing Mentor Award Nominee

2022 Grand Prize Portfolio Winner Austin SCBWI

2022 Emerging Voice Illustrator Mentorship Winner Austin SCBWI

2022 Contestant on Public Artist, Magnolia Network

2017 Hood River Breakout Novel Intensive Full Scholarship Recipient