Meet Steven Salerno

We recently connected with Steven Salerno and have shared our conversation below.

Steven, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

The purpose in my life presented itself at a very early age. Like having a seed within just waiting for me to water it! Beginning when I first picked up a pencil as a young child I found the action of drawing came as a very fluid, natural process for me. I could easily draw what I saw or imagined in my mind. I remember when I was 8 years old the teacher handed out paper, brushes, and a little watercolor tray kit to all the kids in the classroom with instruction to paint whatever we wanted. About a half hour later she strolled past each of the students at their desks reviewing their artistic efforts and making encouraging comments. She halted beside my desk and stared at the painting I had made from my imagination of a tropical island with palm trees, beach, and surrounded by ocean and sky. She then looked at me with a very quizzical look on her face. Without saying a word the teacher grabbed my painting and abruptly left the classroom. I found out later she showed my painting to the Principle who promptly taped it to the hallway wall outside his office for all the students in the school to pass by and see. Having this natural talent lead me to constantly explore drawing every day throughout my childhood and into my teens -for hours and hours on end. I knew that becoming an “artist” was a predetermined path for me, a path I pursued intensely.

After high school I attended Parsons School of Design in New York City. When I arrived at the school to register for all my first year classes the department Vice Chairman took me aside and explained he was having me skip all the first year curriculum and instead registered me into all the second year classes and studio workshops. I graduated with Honors from Parsons -and a week after graduation I received my first magazine assignments, launching a life long profession as an illustrator, which I’ve been doing now for 40+ years!

During my student years at Parsons I found I had an affinity for drawing expressive figures and characters. I greatly admired certain fine artists and illustrative artists in history who also defined their own works creating very expressive characters, such as: Honore Daumier (French 1808-1879), Henri Toulouse-Lautrec (French 1864-1901), Windsor McKay (American 1871-1934), Francisco Goya (Spanish 1746-1828), Ludwig Bemelmans (Austrian 1898-1964), E.H Shepard (English 1897-1976), Gustaf Tenggren (Swedish 1896-1970), and many others. The connecting theme throughout my own work is the care and attention with which I also create the expressive characters inhabiting all my illustrations.

For the first 20+ years of my career I created thousands of published editorial illustrations and eventually advertising illustrations as well. Initially I obtained clients on my own, then for many years through my rep agents. In 2000, I then shifted the focus of my career and began predominantly illustrating picture books for children, both fiction and nonfiction. My strong suit of creating expressive characters was a perfect fit for illustrating picture books and I could barely keep up with the demand from publishing houses! Of course my purpose now is to create wonderfully illustrated picture books, and always with the lofty goal in mind that one of my picture books will one day win the coveted Caldecott Award, the best illustrated picture book of the year! I’ve had many specific goals within my career but my overall everyday motivation is simple: to always give my best effort.

An individual’s core talent and skill can certainly launch entry into their chosen career -filled with hopes of success. But make no mistake, just talent alone only goes so far, due to the fact that there is always competition with so many highly talented people all vying for the same position or assignments. So, you just cannot coast! If your talent is supported with only mediocre effort -this is a sure recipe for short lived success or none at all! Talent and purpose requires never ending nurturing, direction, and hard work.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Thus far in my long career as a freelance illustrator I’ve created thousands of published illustrations for hundreds of clients in magazines, newspapers, publishing, advertising, product packaging, and retail graphics. However, I’m especially proud of also being the illustrator of 37 award winning popular picture books for children and the author & illustrator of 5 of these titles. My picture book illustrations bring to life the expressive, memorable characters that move and define a picture book story –and the rich, striking scenes for nonfiction historical picture books creatively capture the spirit of the story’s era and its characters. Picture books are an initial introduction of art, literature, and story telling to our newest members of society. It’s possible for a superbly written & illustrated picture book to be reprinted for generations to come! So, although I do still enjoy creating editorial and advertising illustrations, in comparison illustrating picture books is especially important to me because of their potential to have an extended life far into the future and to possibly make a place in children’s literature history. As a picture book author I’m always writing new stories to submit to my editors at various publishing houses. I do love illustrating the stories of other authors -but to illustrate more of my own stories is my premiere goal.

NEWS
I have 2 new picture books scheduled for release in Spring 2025:

“It Simply Can’t Be Bedtime” -written by the prominent NY Times editor and columnist, Pamela Paul, her very first picture book story, illustrations by Steven Salerno. It’s the story of a little girl ignoring her father’s insistence that she get ready for bedtime, so he cleverly gets an assist from the girl’s favorite stuffed animal, the very British Lady Pigsworth. The release date is slated for Spring 2025, published by G.P Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

“MADELINE Says Be Kind” -written by John Bemelmans Marciano, illustrations by Steven Salerno. This is the final title in the series of 5 new MADELINE picture books & board books published by Viking/Penguin Random House. These picture books & board books feature one of the most well known and beloved characters in picture book history, Madeline. Yes, that Madeline! With the famous opening line: “In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines.” My career as an illustrator has always been about expressing my own illustration style, however exclusively for these new MADELINE titles I agreed to create all the illustrations by mimicking the recognizable illustration style of the famed originator of the Madeline character, author/artist Ludwig Bemelmans (b. 1898 – d. 1962). NOTE: All 5 of these new MADELINE titles are written by John Bemelmans Marciano, the grandson of Ludwig Bemelmans. They were released in the following order:

(1) Love from Madeline -released April 2022

(2) Madeline’s ABCs -released June 2022

(3) Madeline’s 123s -released Nov 2022

(4) Madeline’s SEASONS -released Spring 2023

(5) Madeline Says Be Kind -to be released Spring 2025

MOST RECENT PICTURE BOOK AWARD
My illustrated nonfiction picture book, “The Crayon Man -The True Story of the Invention of Crayola Crayons” -written by Natascha Biebow, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2019, won the prestigious Irma Black Award for Excellence in Children’s Literature for 2020, voted on by children all around the world.

MOST RECENTLY RELEASED PICTURE BOOK
My illustrated nonfiction picture book, “On the Corner of Chocolate Avenue -“How Milton Hershey Brought Milk Chocolate to America” -written by Tziporah Cohen, published by Clarion Books/Harper Collins 2023.

MOST RECENT AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR PICTURE BOOK
My fiction picture book, “Tim’s Goodbye” -written & illustrated by Steven Salerno, published by Farrar Straus Giroux 2018. The gathering of Margot and her friends is a mystery, until a visual twist within a key illustration reveals the children are gathering for an impromptu ceremony to celebrate the life of a beloved pet that has died.

CURRENT PICTURE BOOK PROJECT
Currently I’m in the sketch stage for my 4oth picture book, illustrating a new nonfiction title for publisher Putnam/Penguin Random House. I will complete all the final illustrations by the end of May 2025, so the printed picture book will probably be released in Spring 2026. For now I’m still keeping info about this new title under wraps but will eventually post a more revealing article about it on my web site blog.

Many of my picture books have received starred industry reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, Children’s Literature, and The New York Times Review of Books. 9 of my picture books are Junior Library Guild Selections with 6 of these attaining their highest Gold Standard recognition. My picture book illustrations have been displayed in the Society of Illustrators (NYC) annual exhibition of the very best in children’s picture book illustration. Some of my picture book titles have been translated into Chinese, German, Korean, Japanese, Arabic, and Spanish.

I’m an Honors graduate of the Illustration Department at Parsons School of Design (NYC) in 1979, where I studied art history, printmaking, animation, and illustration under top industry professionals, including with the famed author/illustrator, Maurice Sendak, creator of the ground breaking picture book, Where the Wild Things Are. I’m originally from Vermont, and live and work in New York City.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Communication, execution, and persistence are the first three qualities/skills that popped into my head. And they function simultaneously!

COMMUNICATION
Being an independent freelance illustrator means I’m always working by myself -but of course a lot of client communication is required. So, not only must my illustration images clearly convey ideas, concepts, moods, information, etc, but behind the scenes I’m also communicating often with art directors, designers, editors, account managers, production managers, contract managers, etc… Being prompt, organized, and concise with all my communications across the board is expected of me. Doing so makes all the various stages of my process and coordination with all the other key players run more smoothly. There’s nothing worse than receiving messages, information, or directives that are just not clear enough thus requiring more time and effort to get everything clarified. So, I take extra care in my communications.

EXECUTION
Completing a project under a time constraint is the essential nuts & bolts of what I do! Providing the client with terrific illustration images and ON time is everything. As a one-person-operation, when I agree to do a project (whether it requires 1 illustration or if the project requires 60 illustrations) I imaginatively conceive of my intended images in sketch form to present to the client for approval, then must create all the corresponding final illustrations, all within the set time frame of the deadline. From years of experience, when I take on a project, working backwards from when the final art must be delivered I can calculate what amount of time will be required to complete the sketch stage and also what amount of time will be required to create the final illustrations. I’m operating in two mind sets: hyper absorbed in the premiere task of creating my illustrative art images -but also aware of the business side of the project, too. My ability to execute the final illustration and make the deadline is reflective of my dependability. The added pressure of meeting deadlines is a sure way to build up one’s character of dependability!

PERSISTENCE
Getting rejected. Being told, “No.” Getting shut out or shut down. It’s going to happen whatever the profession. And you must make the decision to keep going. Make an improvement. Try a different approach. Start over again. Knock on more doors. Persistence is an essential quality and comes under different names:
stubborn, never giving up, always getting back up again. Not being lazy is a solid companion trait with persistence. Keep moving, keep working, keep making projects for yourself and setting various goals. Of course no one is a robot or a machine. Downtime, resting, resetting, recharging are all necessary periods to help stay healthy and on track in the long game. But you’ll know when you are just being plain lazy: procrastinating, neglecting your talents, wasting your own time. When it happens you just have to get up and get engaged again.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

Obstacles! They’re like chunks of metal hanging around your neck on a heavy chain, clanking together, weighing you down, and tripping you up! Most are everyday kind of stuff, so relatively manageable, and tend to fall under the category of procrastination. You just need to garner the energy and plow ahead. Don’t freak out at the mere existence of these annoying, clanking obstacles hanging around your neck. Consider them to be noisy but necessary notification reminders of the things that do need addressing. The bigger the obstacle the more energy and heart it takes to overcome it. Say you have four troublesome obstacles but three of them are really not too challenging. So tackle those easier three first, which gets you rolling and provides some psychological momentum to then take on the last and most difficult one!

For example, for the past couple years I know I need to totally revamp my web site from scratch and present a fresh new format for displaying my works, new copy writing, etc… But I’ve been dragging my feet procrastinating, using the excuse that the current site is OK and can hold even longer. But the topic is a constant drip, drip, drip in my mind getting louder and louder. So, it’s time.

However, other obstacles with broader more insidious themes can paralyze and have potential to bring things to a halt: Self Doubt. Fear of Failure. Rejection. Disorganization. Indecision. Burnout. When one of these kinds of obstacles gets around your neck you break into a sweat and start losing sleep! At times I’ve had some of these more disturbing obstacles weighing me down, but with enough time and effort, even these can be surmounted, too.

For example, because my goal is to illustrate more of my own picture book stories, I’ve written probably 20 stories over the years and presented them to my circle of editors at various publishing houses, in hope of getting them published. But thus far I’ve had only 5 picture books published as both the author & the illustrator. And recently I submitted 5 more new picture book stories to my editors, but they too were all rejected. Very disappointing! To the point that I do find myself entertaining the idea of just giving up. So, right now I’m still stewing about these recent rejections, but ultimately I know it’s just another obstacle, and like others in my past it too somehow can be climbed over. Once the initial frustration and disappointment subsides, I will relax and regroup. And tap into the strength and determination I’ve exhibited in the past for fuel to keep going, keep trying… I’ve found that when you try again most times your next attempts becomes sharper and better anyway. You never know what new and exciting opportunities might be just around the next corner. The trick is to keep moving forward in order to have those corners to go around!

Contact Info:

Image Credits

all art images: © 2025 Steven Salerno

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