Rising Stars: Meet Cazzy Zahursky

My father and his mother, my grandmother, were very artistically inclined. My grandmother and her sister were prominent artists in Pittsburgh. My grandmother was an illustrator for department store ads in newspapers back in the day when drawings were used more than photographs in newspapers. My father had art pieces that were reproduced by the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) in NYC. My grandmother had pieces in the Carnegie Museum. Their talents had a strong influence on me.

Later, my school electives were filled with writing courses, yearbook editing courses & clubs, various art classes, and more. Despite my family’s heavy influence and my innate gravitation towards the arts, they strongly encouraged me to pursue the sciences. I obliged and found myself entrenched in the biotechnology field, double majoring in biotechnology and computers. After a brief two years stint at a biotechnology company, I found myself revisiting the arts, this time the performing arts for several decades. I fell in love with the expressive and liberating form of storytelling.

I began writing custom stories for the children of close friends as unique birthday gifts. Several of these friends strongly encouraged me to look into publishing the stories for the general child population.

It wasn’t until I had children of my own and our daily visits to the library, did I take this suggestion more seriously. My children were the missing link that gave me that final push to bring my stories to publishing fruition. As soon as my kids were born, it gave my passion for storytelling a clear purpose.

The storyline of the first book I published derived from the personal influences and dichotomy of my daughters. Being a newbie to the publishing world, it took me two years to learn the industry standards of publishing a children’s book. Along with having two young children, I chose to take on the challenge of wearing nearly all of the hats and was learning everything from book dimensions to illustrating for publication, to formatting, to the editing processes, to printing, to marketing, and much more. Even after five years, I’m still learning to this day.

Once I completed my first book, Escape to Fairy Kingdom, the process of bringing my other storyline ideas to life was much more fluid. I began writing and illustrating more regularly. Along the way, I’ve also created my own press and my own storytelling YouTube Channel, Circle Time Books, where I bring the stories of other authors’ books and my own to life through fun voices, sound effects, animation, and more. I have plushies and other paraphernalia of my characters to complement my books, as well. I attend many vending events, library appearances, school visits both in-person and virtual. I’ve paid visits to classrooms in numerous states and even a virtual visit to a classroom in China.

I currently have six published books (Perspective Detective, Barnabee Believes (in Himself), Barnabee Gets a B, Cardboard Rosie, Escape to Fairy Kingdom, Catch Up!, and Rosita, La Muñuquita De Carton) that I wrote and illustrated and several more on the way! Barnabee Believes (in Himself) and Cardboard Rosie are both award winning books. And it was recently announced that Perspective Detective received the gold medal in the Children’s Mystery category for the annual Readers’ Favorite Awards contest.  I’m even proud to say that my now nine-year-old daughter published a book, The Treasure Hunt, which she wrote and illustrated when she was eight years old.