Featured Illustrator: Amy Lynn Spitzley

 Viola, Scrapbook, Wall Drugs notepad, scoliosis, "the Englishman," and covers: Author/illustrator Amy Lynn Spitzley

Charlie Barshaw coordinates our regular Writer Spotlight feature and interviews writers of SCBWI-MI. In this piece, meet writer/illustrator  Amy Lynn Spitzley.

Banner for The Mitten for 2026. Amy describes it as follows: It's mixed media, and the original piece is called The Long Journey. I may have been influenced by 

childhood memories of Leo Lionni, and my love of Redwall books. Fun fact about this one--the mice are made of homemade paper, some of which I made myself. 

Viola Doyle or An Unconventional Gift

3.83 avg rating — 52 ratings — published 2014 — 3 editions

I hadn’t heard of this title, which I think you wrote first but published after The Scrapbook of My Revolution?  Decent ratings, too.  How did a hatpin play into Viola?

Well, originally because I was going to this writing group every week, and they did stream-of-consciousness writing. This was back when my 26-year-old daughter was an infant, playing on a blanket in the corner of Horizon Books, where we used to meet. 

One time the facilitator brought in a bag of jewelry and told us to pick one and come up with something to write without stopping to think about it. As stopping to think isn’t something I tend to do, I immediately came up with this young woman, riding her bike through a park with her hair streaming behind her and not caring what her fellow park-people thought. That was the beginning of Viola Doyle. 

As for what the pin does in the story? It’s magical, of course. What else would it be? 

I was a beta reader for your Scrapbook. Seems I remember the Malians were tall and strong, and good-hearted people who took on some blatant racism and alienism from bad hombres.

How badly did I mis-remember?

Not bad. That’s the Athletics. They were the physical ones. All of them tended to be super-healthy, though. There were Athletics, Sensitives, Camos, and Manipulatives. Amber, the MC of Scrapbook, was a Sensitive. She could read emotions. 

I may as well say it up front. I'm Malian. Yeah, one of the freaks. I've got gold skin and the ability to read emotions. It's great fun, too, believe me. Yeah, right. Anger. Frustration. Desire. Try reading those all day. But I'm not the only one who's frustrated. We're all mixed-up and sick of the bad press and attacks and everything else from Regulars. Things are changing, though. I'm getting other Malians in my school together. We might be able to show people that we're just as human as they are...unless one of my best supporters is really public enemy number one.

Did you have plans for future Malian stories?

I don’t. I feel like that field is all played out, you know? When I came up with Scrapbook it felt different. Now YA is crawling with angsty power-people. I’m not complaining about that–I’ve read quite a few of those books myself, and my daughter (same one from the bookstore baby blanket!) is a teen librarian, but I don’t want to do what everyone else is doing. I never liked that idea.

I know I entered a story in the Young Authors competition in 6th grade. That same year, when I was 12, we went out west for a vacation and I got a little notepad with blue flowers on it at Wall Drug Store and started writing. I kept track of the amount of animals I saw—several herds of buffalo, 20 prairie dogs, that sort of thing. That was really the beginning.

A Wall Drug notepad w/blue flowers. What did having that notepad on that exciting trip awaken in the writer and artist in you?

Bathtub Gnome

Um. Well. I guess it just showed me that writing could be fun. I loved that notebook. I looked for things to write about. I guess observation and the act of putting pen to paper hadn’t really been linked till then. 

Revising a story called The Midnight Trees. It’s the edgiest thing I’ve ever done, about people in a society where the rich ones live high in the trees and the regular ones live on the ground. There’s a drug called Stem that’s distilled from the same trees, and it’s getting most of the society hooked. A few people are trying to figure out how to combat this, including a brothel-owner’s daughter named Angel.

You said you liked drawing trees? What do you find about trees that’s so alluring? Would you be a treetop dweller or a “groundie”?

I love trees! Trees, wind, clouds, water, books. Those are my Things. I need them to be anything like a functional Amy. Well, and my people, too, of course, but that’s a given. I think I’d like to live in the treetops because of the wind, but in that story, the upper levels were for the elite, and I wouldn’t be that. Really I’d want the freedom to move between the two. I wouldn’t do well in Hierro. 

My character, Angel, comes out all right in the end, after tackling elitism and drug abuse. It’s a bit dark. I think I’d have to go in with a humor brush and lighten things up a bit. I do not believe this world needs more gloom and doom. Nope, nope, nope! 

I haven't worked much on the Midnight Trees story, just because it is so dark. I like elements of it, but I've been gravitating more towards a retelling of an old Russian story I wrote about 15 years ago. I'd like to clean that up and get it out in the world, probably more than the Midnight Trees story. It feels lighter, more fun, and even more wholesome--though ick, what a word--and more like something I'd like to read myself nowadays.

All this without mentioning your portfolio. You’re a prolific artist with a large toybox of tools. Are you supporting yourself as a freelance artist?

I am not. I’d love to though! Man, the retail world is NOT where it’s at. I’m on disability for severe scoliosis too. Being able to support myself doing something I actually love would be  absolutely wonderful.  I am open to partnerships/advice and even perhaps a bit of soul-selling, should anyone be interested. I’m sure I’ve got extra soul stored away somewhere! 

I make art that amuses, beautifies, and maybe inspires a little thought. I use whatever is fun for me--collage, acrylic, watercolor brush pens, pencil, colored pencil, and gel pens. I've done woodburning and murals and sidewalk art. I specialize in portraits, trees, and anthropomorphic animals.

Tell us what it takes to conceive a giant piece of art, find a wall to paint it on, and then deal with ladders and paint and weather? 

Honestly, I’ve never done an outdoor mural, and I can’t really do indoor ones or sidewalk art anymore, because of the aforementioned Stupid Scoliosis.

As I age, my art changes. My portrait women have gray hair now, and my animals are more intricate.

How intricate are your animals?

Huh. Fairly intricate. I’m not a photorealist, though I admire the level of detail they get! I like putting human expressions on animals. I’d give myself a good B or B+ for my animal art.

I'm very influenced by Redwall books, as well as people like Jan Brett for the beauty and Leo Lionni for the collage look of things. 

You lovingly refer to your husband as “the Englishman,” and your son and daughter are the apples of your FB eye. Despite the plague of tourists, you’ve got a pretty good life in Traverse City. Are you a traveler, or a home-body?

Ha! They have their moments. My husband and son are on the autism spectrum, and my daughter probably touches the tip of the scale, too. I like to say that the Godfreys are Autistic and the Spitzley is Artistic. It makes for an interesting, though sometimes frustrating, household! 

I like the idea of travel, but I have anxiety. I don’t like not knowing where I’m going to eat or how things are going to play out. At the same time, I tend to be impulsive and restless. It can become kind of a mental mess. I’d love to figure it out a bit more and try to travel, but there’s also a money issue at play. So…I guess I’m not really a traveler or a homebody. I’m just an Amy.

What’s next for Amy Lynn Spitzley?

Good question! Let me know if you figure it out before I do. 

Also, I should have mentioned somewhere that I would really really LOVE to get work as a book cover illustrator, and I think my work would be suited to that, but I cannot seem to break into it to save my life! Most frustrating. 

Please share any social media:

Instagram Amy Spitzley, artist

Facebook Amy Lynn Spitzley 

Website: amyspitz.wixsite.com/artwork-of-amy-lynn.