Author-illustrator Elly MacKay has been named this year's Joanne Fitzgerald Illustartor in Residence. A joint project of IBBY Canada, Toronto Public Library, and Joanne Fitzgerald’s family, the residency honours the life of Joanne Fitzgerald (1956–2011), whose books include Plain Noodles, Emily’s House, and Doctor Kiss Says Yes.
During the month of October, Elly will offer hands-on art workshops for school classes in person or online, sessions for adults on topics related to working as an illustrator, presentations to high school and college art students, portfolio reviews, and an exhibition of her artwork. The in-person art workshops will be from October 5-9 hosted at Toronto Public Library’s North York Central Library.
Elly MacKay is a children’s author and illustrator and a paper artist. Both her parents were artists, and when Elly was a teenager her mother took her to visit the Movable Book Society in Chicago. The visit became an informal education in papercraft, and introduced Elly to Victorian optical toys, paper theatres, and tunnel books. Elly began selling her paper sculptures at a Toronto art gallery, and then studied printmaking and illustration at NSCAD University in Halifax and University of Canterbury in Christchurch. Elly lives with her family in Owen Sound, Ontario.
Elly creates miniature worlds out of paper, photographs them, and uses those photos as illustrations for children’s books. Her art involves drawing, painting, cut paper, lighting, photography and digital editing. Elly has created more than 20 books—for Canadian publishers Tundra Books, Owlkids Books and Orca Book Publishers, and in the US for Abrams, Candlewick and Running Press Kids. She is the author and illustrator of Frostfire, In the Clouds and Red Sky at Night among others. Books Elly has illustrated include The Enchanted Symphony by Julie Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton, I Am a Meadow Mermaid and The Secret Fawn by Kallie George.
Past illustrators include Martha Newbigging (2013), Patricia Storms (2014), John Martz (2015), Dianna Bonder (2016), Ashley Barron (2017), Nahid Kazemi (2018), Diego Herrera/Yayo (2019), Soyeon Kim (2021), Sandra Dumais (2022), Carey Sookocheff (2023), Chelsea O’Byrne (2024), and Todd Stewart (2025).
Learn more at ibby-canada.org.