The Joyful Living Colouring Book Format: Coloring Books

From the author and illustrator of the critically acclaimed graphic memoir In-Between Days comes a splendid new colouring book of original new illustrations with a few choice words of hope that will inspire and delight.

When Teva Harrison was first diagnosed with cancer, she felt lost, cast adrift. In order to pull herself out of depression, to draw herself forward, she started to draw. In the beginning, the drawings were tiny wildflowers photographed on her travels. Something about that act of looking, drawing the edges until flowers emerged, focusing on something so short-lived, resilient, and beautiful changed the nature of her days. It let the joy back in. This colouring book is an expansion on that germ of hope. Having cancer has made the world feel especially precious to Harrison, and she finds magic and delight everywhere: symbol-enriched heraldry, animals and birds, everyday objects that give her pleasure, foliage and flowers, and a few choice words of inspiration and hope.

TEVA HARRISON (1976–2019) was an author and visual artist. She wrote and illustrated the critically acclaimed graphic memoir In-Between Days, which was the winner of the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Nonfiction, a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction and the Joe Shuster Award for Cartoonist or Auteur, and was a Globe and Mail, National Post, Kobo, and Quill & Quire Book of the Year. Forty-five works from In-Between Days have been exhibited in a solo show at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Teva was Principal Illustrator for the National Film Board/National Theatre production of playwright Jordan Tannahill’s Draw Me Close: A Memoir, a virtual reality theatrical experience blending live theatre and virtual reality technology.

She was a finalist for the Canadian Magazine Award and the National Magazine Award, and her writing appeared in the Walrus, Granta, Quill & Quire, the Huffington Post, Carte Blanche, Reader’s Digest (Canada, U.S., and International editions), the Globe and Mail, and more. She was a regular commentator on CBC Radio, in the Toronto Star, and in the Globe and Mail, and she appeared on programs including Canada AM, The Agenda with Steve Paikin, Space TV’s InnerSpace, The Morning Show, and in Maclean’s, Chatelaine, and Rabble.ca. She was also the illustrator of The Joyful Living Colouring Book.