Bill Slavin - Author/Illustrator

Bill Slavin was born on February 12, 1959, in Belleville, Ontario, as the seventh of eight children. He illustrated his first book, “The Adventures of Zok the Caveman,” when he was seven years old. It was published in an edition of one. He has been writing and illustrating ever since. He has illustrated over one hundred children's books, fiction and nonfiction, including Stanley's Party by Linda Bailey, winner of the 2004 Blue Spruce Award, the Christie Harris Illustrated Children's Literature Prize and the Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator's Award.

He also co-wrote (with his brother Jim Slavin) and illustrated Transformed: How Everyday Things Are Made, which won the Norma Fleck Award as well as the Children's Literature Roundtables of Canada Information Book Award in 2006. In 2014, he completed his Elephants Never Forget graphic novel trilogy, fulfilling a lifetime desire to return to the world of comic books that he had inhabited in his youth.

Bill lives in the village of Millbrook, Ontario, with his wife, Esperança Melo, who is also an artist and the co-illustrator of Drumheller Dinosaur Dance, winner of the 2005 Blue Spruce Award. They have lived and worked in this community since 1990.