Hi, I am Xin, a picture book illustrator & author.
photo by: June Witzøe
Short bio:
Xin Li (in Chinese: 李莘) is an illustrator and writer. She was born and raised in China and currently lives in Norway with her husband and their daughter. After spending half of her life living in countries outside of her homeland, Xin chose to paint and write, as stories help her to make sense of a world that otherwise is often lost in translation.
I Lived Inside a Whale is the first picture book written and illustrated by Xin. Additionally, Xin also illustrated You and the Universe, a picture book written by Professor Stephen Hawking and his daughter Lucy Hawking. To see more books and artworks created by Xin, please visit www.lixin.no
How to pronounce my name:
Xin Li is pronounced as “sheen Lee”.
A little bit more about me:
I grew up in a small town in China during the 1980s. Books and audio-visual entertainment were not abundant, and I barely traveled anywhere outside of my hometown as a child.
After I graduated from Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing with a graphic design degree in my early 20s, all I wanted to do was to see the world and have a real adventure. I left China for the first time that winter for a 2 months internship in a graphic design studio in Copenhagen - a city that only existed in H.C Anderson’s fairy tales for me before I went there. During the following 14 years, I studied interaction design and new media. I lived in 5 different countries and worked for several software companies, including two technology startups. One of the projects led me to work as a design consultant in Unicef Uganda for 18 months to bring solar-based computer systems to youth centers in rural Uganda.
Although working as a designer provided me with exciting life experiences, I was unsatisfied with my chosen profession. I kept making a list of future possibilities: a documentary photographer, a book-cafe owner, an anthropologist, a cartoonist...
In 2017, I rediscovered the artwork of Shaun Tan and Maurice Sendak at the children’s book section in the library with my newborn daughter. While my daughter learned to crawl and stand up in the library, I absorbed stories and art by artists that were new to me: Jackie Morris, Marianne Dubuc, the Fan brothers, David Wiesner, and many more.
As my daughter grew, my passion for art and storytelling grew. By the time she started going to kindergarten, I had realized that what made me feel wholeness was to sit down in front of the drawing table and make art. So I made a transition to becoming a full-time illustrator.
Represented by:
Awards:
SCBWI Winter Conference 2021 Portfolio Showcase Winner.
Picture Hooks competition, From Seed to Table, runner-up
Selected Clients:
HarperCollins
Little Simon
Cappelen Damm
Penguin Random House
Scholastic UK
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Rocky Pond
Astra Publishing House