Woolgathering: Bedtime Stories for Wayward Grown-ups - Paperback

by Valeri Blossom (Illustrator), Corbyn Hanson Hightower (Author)

Woolgathering: Bedtime Stories for Wayward Grown-ups is a collaboration between two quirky, misfit kids who became two quirky, misfit adults. The result? An often poignant, always lyrical, sometimes funny, artistically arresting compendium of art and stories that touch and complement each other. Though they have never met, writer Corbyn Hanson Hightower found artist Valeri Blossom and recognized her as one of her own, and knew her work would perfectly fit her bits and pieces of the sorts of bogeymen that haunt adults right before falling asleep. Cathartic, poetic, and colorful, this is a book for an appreciator of folk art and tales well-told, as well as for the collector and fan.

Author Biography

The author and illustrator of Woolgathering: Bedtime Stories for Wayward Grown-ups are two women who have never met, but became collaborators and lifelong friends through recognizing the way their expressiveness matched via the magic of Etsy and Facebook. They also shared a desire to tell the tale of how misfit children become happier-but still remain misfit adults. Both are quirkily successful in their creative fields. Corbyn started a confessional blog at the age of forty about her family's life surviving the economic recession and, now, sometimes even gets paid to write. Her pieces have been featured in The New York Times, More Magazine, Yes! Magazine, shareable.net, chevrolet.com, The Huffington Post, scarymommy.com, and more. At one time she wrote a piece on dumpster-diving for organic food that, for a brief and glorious time, might have made her the Most Hated Woman on the Internet. Corbyn has a full-length memoir currently in the works with a real, live, New York agent. She lives outside Sacramento, California in a crumbling hippie rental, where she sometimes raises chickens and enjoys a handsomely-bearded husband and three lovely children.
 Valeri has spent some time studying art history and taking studio courses, but what came of it might have just happened regardless, from within. She's a celebrated creator of colorful mixed-media paintings that often possess a curiously melancholic touch of darkness infused into otherwise playful pieces. Her work has appeared in galleries and boutiques in the US, as well as in private collections throughout the US, UK, Canada, and Australia. She resides where the wild things are with three sons and a uniquely supportive husband. Valeri is also toying around with her memoir but might best speak her truth with a paintbrush in hand. For now. She couldn't resist the Beatles reference and shows off her work on Facebook under the name "Valeri, Screaming From the Gallery." Her work can also be found in her Etsy shop (valeriblossom.etsy.com), as well as other outlets.