Award-winning, beloved children's book author and illustrator Carson Ellis makes a stunning adult debut with an illustrated memoir that evocatively captures a specific cultural moment of the early 2000s and in her journey as an artist.

In January 2001, the young artist Carson Ellis moved into a warehouse in Portland, Oregon, with a group of fellow artists. For the first week she lived there, she kept a detailed diary full of dry observations, mordant wit, hijinks with friends (including her future husband, Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy), and turn-of-the-millennium cultural touchstones. Now, Ellis has richly illustrated this two-decade-old journal with extraordinary new paintings in the signature style that has made her an award-winning picture book author today.

This beautiful volume offers a snapshot of a bygone era, a meticulous re-creation of quotidian frustrations and small, meaningful moments, and a meditation on what it means both to start your journey as an artist and to look back at that beginning many years later.

AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR: Carson Ellis is a Caldecott award-winning author and artist known for her work in the Wildwood Chronicles, The Mysterious Benedict Society , and beyond and the longtime illustrator-in-residence for the band The Decemberists. People who love her children's books will be thrilled to discover this new book--especially parents who are nostalgic for the days of the early 2000s.

BEAUTIFUL, ECCENTRIC, AND CHARMING: Dry, specific, mundane, and somehow completely magical--this book is a true revelation. With gorgeous one-of-a-kind paintings by the one-and-only Carson Ellis, it's transporting and relatable, an unglamorous homage to youthful misadventure, fun, sadness, and all the intense feelings of early adulthood.