The Painters Of Lexieville

Sharon Darrow says that THE PAINTERS OF LEXIEVILLE had its start when she was seventeen and working one summer in an Arkansas county welfare office. "A man and his son came in one day to begin their county jobs, all dressed in white painter’s clothing," she recalls. "As the summer wore on, the father and son held themselves with more confidence and pride, and their laundered painting clothes grew as colorful as confetti from drips and drabs of paint." Many years later, Sharon Darrow awoke dreaming of a girl’s face, her serious eyes half-covered by long bangs, and the heroine of THE PAINTERS OF LEXIEVILLE was born. The author of THROUGH THE TEMPESTS DARK AND WILD: A STORY OF MARY SHELLEY, CREATOR OF FRANKENSTEIN, illustrated by Angela Barrett, Sharon Darrow teaches in Vermont College’s M.F.A. in Writing for Children program. She has three daughters and lives in Chicago.