Ruth Harper is a children’s picture book illustrator, known best for illustrating The Kissing Hand. She has also illustrated Sassafras, Happy Mamas, and Otters, Snails and Tadpole Tails (2019).

She is a self-taught artist from England who also fancies herself as a spiffy writer-in-the-making lately. In a nutshell: Ruth’s rich roots of design began in the graphic arts industry, she enjoyed being an art teacher for four years, wrote an accredited art curriculum, turned to fine art and spent many years perfecting her craft, and then returned to books.

She is a Signature Member of the Colorado Watercolor Society, is an active member of SCBWI, and is represented by Deborah Warren of East West Literary Agency.

Ruth lives in a tiny town in the rolly-polly hills of west Iowa with an adorable husband, a dog and a cat, and they have six marvelous grown-up kids between them (plus two handfuls of grandbabies!).

She can be contacted via her website, www.rutheharper.com, or Instagram (@rutheharper), or Facebook https://www.facebook.com/rutheharper.artist.

I started my first career as a ballerina dancing with the National Ballet, New York City Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, and the Danny Diamond Dance Theatre. I also served as alignist and choreographer for the U.S Figure Skating Team in preparation for the Pan American Games (1973), and for the 1976 Olympic Gymnastics team. In 1980 I became too ill with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis (JRA) to continue dancing. Because I had done a lot of children's theatre and children's dance, and I have always enjoyed children's literature, I turned to writing children's books for my creative outlet.

But my writing career actually began much earlier than 1980. When I was a young girl, I had two older brothers who took great joy in teasing me.

When I was in the fourth grade, I began keeping journals of the silly things they would say and do. Then I began adding things my pets did. Finally, I began to write down everything I saw and heard every day.

When I was in my early twenties, my mother found my journals and I turned the stories into my first book called, Happy Apple Told Me. But, I learned a very hard lesson writing that first book. I learned that you don't just write a book; you rewrite, and rewrite, and rewrite, and rewrite a book. Thirty years later, I am still learning.

My passionate advocacy for children continually molds my writing style and subject matter. I have taken my one-woman educational program, The Writing Penn, into schools, libraries, and children's hospitals, where I shape and refine my story ideas in partnership with kids.

My favorite part about being a children's author is meeting my readers when I speak at a school or at a store. I get so many wonderful ideas from you, and you, and you. So, thank you for your inspired ideas, and letters, and emails. Now, it's your turn to keep a journal.

I live with my husband, my youngest daughter (who inspired The Kissing Hand), and two dogs in Olney, Maryland. We have three children and one foster child.