When my son was four, I started to teach myself how to be a writer and book artist, so I could write stories from my childhood and make them into books by hand, showing him how wonderfully different lives could be.
In 2007, I launched Handmade Storybooks to encourage everyone to share their stories.
Photo: Sushmita with students at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Women’s History Month event celebrating 100 years of Girl Scouts. The students learned to make the My Clubhouse Book. 2012
Unique & Handmade: As a book artist I enjoy the fact that I can write my own stories and design the books that will carry them. I design the books, print them, fold and cut and bind them, till they are complete.
Since we all want our children to read, I decided to learn how to make my stories into unique storybooks by hand. Soon, I found that others had stories to share too and they found my storybooks a novel way to learn about people from around the world.
Since then my work has been two-fold—
1) Writing my own stories and making them into books to sell and
2) Teaching others to make their own unique books to put their own stories in it thus encouraging them to get creative and share their stories and
Read an article about my work in India Currents (2009).
Check my Educator page to see my Handmade Storybook projects for Living Legends of Alexandria and the Smithsonian Institution. See more photos and events related to Handmade Storybooks on our Facebook page. Check out some of my projects below. You may order your own unique copy, handmade by me, from my shop. If you’d like to make a copy of your own, please email me!
This work is about encouraging children, families, and seniors to share their stories of home, heritage, and migration through the accessible and exciting book arts. When we make time to listen to the stories of others we change, and we change our community.
