Shannon Hochman is both an illustrator and writer. He was lucky enough to have been actually born in Washington, D.C., and not one of its surrounding suburbs. He lived there until college, which is when he moved to New York City to study traditional animation at Manhattan’s School of Visual Arts.
But after ten years in the big city (and enough drama to fuel at least ten novels), Shannon decided to take a risk and haul his entire life to the deep American south, where he attended graduate school at the Savannah College of Art and Design. It was there that he had the epiphany that his artwork and his writing was meant to go hand-in-hand, which defined his creative identity. In Shannon’s opinion, illustration has a place in books for all ages, including fiction for adults. This spawned a project which would eventually become OLLIE, his debut novel.
Shannon is represented by Saritza Hernandez of Andrea Brown Literary Agency for LGBT historical romance and book illustration. While living as a professional artist is a stressful road, Shannon is glad that he is challenging himself to live as a professionally published author and artist.
Examples of Shannon’s artwork can be found here. He particularly enjoys black and white ink illustration, much like the spot art found in chapter books. He also gets a kick out of designing book jackets, especially when putting a new spin on something classic. Most of Shannon’s aesthetic can be found in vintage art. He loves JC Leyendecker and Charles Dana Gibson not only for their skills, but also for their subject matter.
His eye for detail and love of research and history makes research particularly fun. Shannon is “that guy” who always has to have the last word in debates, mostly because he has an annoying penchant for remembering any and all useless facts. Also the lyrics to every recorded song in history. He cannot hold a single note, though.
