Matt Phelan
Faculty, MFA in WCYA
Profile
Matt Phelan is an award-winning, New York Times-bestselling author/illustrator of picture books, middle grade novels, and graphic novels for young readers. Matt has also illustrated more than twenty books by authors such as Jeanne Birdsall, Linda Sue Park, Anne Rockwell, Patricia MacLachlan, Jane Yolen, and Michelle Knudsen. He is the illustrator of The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, winner of the 2007 Newbery Medal.
Matt received the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction for his first graphic novel, The Storm in the Barn. He has been nominated for five Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, including Best Writer/Artist and Best New Graphic Album for Bluffton. In 2014, Matt was awarded the Free Library of Philadelphia/Drexel University Children’s Literature Citation, an honor he shares with Lloyd Alexander, Jerry Pinkney, Susan Hirschman, and Maurice Sendak.