Marty Kelley Art Workshop - July 14th, 2025

I’m currently a children’s author and illustrator but have, in the past, been a second grade teacher, a baker, a cartoonist, a newspaper art director, a drummer in a heavy metal band, a balloon delivery guy, an animator, and lots of other things. I’ll probably continue writing and illustrating children’s books for many years to come because there are few other jobs where being able to paint a perfect booger-bubble is an actual job requirement.

My career as an artist started when I began drawing historically accurate pictures of spaceships dropping bombs on dinosaurs. When I started going to school, I found even more artistic fulfillment in creating advanced character studies of my teachers. By the time I was a freshman in high school, I had a regular comic strip published in our local town paper. After high school, I attended The School of the Museum of Fine Arts to become an animator.

Shortly after art school, I had a career crisis and moved to Florida where I went back to school and got my degree in elementary education. I taught second grade for several years before making the difficult decision to pursue writing and illustrating full-time.

I’ve written and illustrated many published children’s books, including: Almost Everybody Farts; Pugnapped; Experiment #256; Fall Is Not Easy; The Rules; Winter Woes; Summer Stinks; Twelve Terrible Things; A Cape!; and Fame, Fortune, and the Bran Muffins of Doom.

In my spare time, I visit lots and lots of schools all over the country to show students how I create my books.