I always thought I was a visual artist, beginning at a very early age. I was born of creative parents: one artist and one musician (who was an engineer in real life). I began my freelance career as a hopeful illustrator and production artist after quitting college in 1974. In 1987 I published my first picture book, Pussycat Ate the Dumplings. Since then I have published projects as illustrator and/or author of novelty, activity and picture books, early readers, middle grade fiction and nonfiction, magazine articles, blogs, and a variety of educational materials. I design book covers and interiors, and have created book trailers for a few projects just for fun. You can visit one of those here and also see what else is on my channel.
In recent years, I’ve been hired to write a variety of nonfiction books for kids, a far cry from drawing cute little animals with dots for eyes! It’s been especially enjoyable work, because as a kid, I was super-bored by the books and classes offered to us. As a nature nerd outside of class, I probably missed out on pursuing a career in science because of the lack of inspiration/connection in school. Now I have the chance to write the books I would have loved. I can hopefully help kids get excited about things they’ve never considered before, maybe even help set them on a career path that they’ve never heard of or thought about.
So far, I haven’t turned down a job that sounded interesting no matter what the challenge, (Poop is Power comes to mind, one of my favorites) and I also work on a variety of projects that I hope to sell someday. I thrive on variety and love to learn about things and then turn what I learn into a book for kids. I also write Instructables and have won four contests so far. My partner and I self-published one book which you can find here, and are working on another one which you can read about here. I also like to grow plants, scream at the TV, gawk at nature, and play guitar.
I share my life with one very patient partner of 44 years, Jeep the dog, Bonita and Shinny the cats, and a variety of wild critters that inhabit our Funny Farm in western Oregon.
The photos in the blog header are all public domain, with the exception of the cover of My Friend Rabbit, written and illustrated by one of my heroes, Eric Rohmann.
Hi Robin- A friend quite by chance came upon your book. Entomologists, and immediately showed it to me. We were both surprised and very delighted to see a name that we both recognized on page 33, Lori Moshman. As her mother, I am one of her biggest fans! I can also tell you that while she is no longer at the Georgia farm, she is still working with soldier flies.
Lori was also delighted and very curious as to how you came across her work at the farm. Did you ever visit White Oak Pastures?
We thank you again for mentioning Lori’s name in your book, and of course would love to hear how you came across her work with soldier flies.
We look forward to hearing from you and wish you a Happy New Year!
Best- Karen Moshman
Hi Karen – how fun that you happened upon that book! The way Lori was included was that she was doing fascinating work in the field, and I especially tried to include women since the science field is pretty much dominated by the other sex. 😉 I found Lori’s work while researching black soldier fly farming – her name comes up a lot! I’m glad to hear she is still studying those amazing creatures and that she has helped us inspire girls AND boys to consider the field of entomology.
Hi Robin, I’m one of the SCBWI community connections coordinators for the Eugene Springfield area and we heard you live in the area, so we’d like to invite you to join the “Eugene KidLit” FaceBook page to stay tuned for updates about SCBWI events happening in Eugene. Hope to see you there!
Thank you for the invitation, Doreen.
I see now, it is really generous that you don’t mind the usage of your artwork as long as they are showing your signature on it. Thank you. – Marta
Hi Robin, thanks for the quick reply. Sorry for my English (I’m Hungarian in fact) what I meant is that I would like to buy a digital photo of that picture that I could download (here in Hungary) from the web and print it in any size. In fact I’d buy the licence of using that picture. Like here: https://www.shutterstock.com/hu/search/illustrations
Hi Marta – I put it here, with a link to the larger file:
https://robinkoontz.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/leap-into-literacy-a-printable-poster/
Dear Robin,
I just found a postcard of yours at e-cards.com today:
https://www.e-cards.com/send/write-card.pl?group=default&mediaId=1599224611&db=ec-cards&select=
..that somehow cought my I (and feelings as well) and therefore I’d like to know where could I buy that picture so that I could print that in a poster size? Are they available at any photo stocks?
Kind regards,
Marta
Hi Marta – thank you! Alas I sold that painting a while back, but I think I have some 9×11 prints. I will check my portfolio and let you know. Originally it was for a poster for Oregon literacy I think 1992…
I found a copy, it’s about 8×8 inches. Send your address to my email address and I’ll send it to you! Thanks again. robink (at) robinkoontz (dot) com
always delightful! or–what was that word? Supraditty?
Sparpungent!
I am so glad these are now available. Can’t wait to get three sets of the series for the grandchildren. Keep up the wonderful work, Robin. It always brings smiles.