I am a disabled Gen X artist who has been creating art in and adjacent to the anime/manga and speculative fiction publishing spaces for twenty-five years. I have displayed art at DragonCon, illustrated a children’s book, and had my self-written short manga “Trickster” published in Tokyopop’s inaugural Rising Stars of Manga compilation. Unfortunately, the need to support my family and raise my children to adulthood took precedence over my art career, and I spent many years on hiatus from the business of art. I returned to art and writing in 2022, studying digital art, graphic design, and animation and releasing my first serial novel, Monsoon, on Kindle Vella (under the pen name Ellen B. O’Brien) beginning in July of 2024.

I love telling stories, both in words and through visual media, and geek out over the many ways art now enhances our experience of fiction, the ways we find and interact with it. And while they’re not as glamorous as book covers and character illustrations, I also enjoy the way a well-designed logo tells readers a story about the author it represents, or how a little touch of animation can make an author’s book ad stand out from the crowd.

I work in a variety of traditional and digital media, and never use generative AI.

In addition to art and writing, I also edit for independent authors, make jewelry, and am looking forward to studying Digital Film arts next year! And I’m learning Portuguese, just because.