A Success Story by Jacqueline Alcantara

This wild year of 2025 has also been a dream come true for me. My author/illustrator debut titled TIOS AND PRIMOS released just weeks after I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Then a few months later, JUST SHINE (written by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, illustrated by myself) released and it took the #1 spot on the New York Times Best-seller list in its debut week. How did this happen?

This pursuit started over 15 years ago while attending a SCBWI Illinois “Spring Thaw” event. I listened to Scholastic editor Arthur Levine share about his books, editing and the publishing industry and began to feel like maybe this was something I really wanted to do. 

I had been laid off from my teaching position and was taking some illustration classes at SAIC. I was excited to pursue fashion, editorial, and architectural illustration but my mom kept reminding me of the amazing artwork in picture books and brought me to local events including the Andersons Bookstore breakfast and SCBWI-Illinois events.

My mom brought me to that first event. She was a bilingual teacher and huge lover of children’s books. She often wrote her own stories for her students in Spanish and English as she couldn’t find many books for her native Spanish speaking students. After that conference I looked through books from my childhood and fell in love all over again with the illustrators I admired growing up, such as Patricia Pollaco, Chris Van Allsburg, and Chris Raschka. I joined SCBWI around 2015 and became an active member, attending conferences and joining critique groups. 

In 2016 a fellow critique group member, friend, and a stalwart of SCBWI (RIP Micheal Bricis) shared with me an exciting mentorship opportunity. I applied and was accepted as the inaugural “We Need Diverse Books” illustration mentee. As luck would have it, my mentor was also attending the SCBWI Winter Conference that year and threw me into the arms of agent Adriana Dominguez. Adriana looked through my work and handed me her card. We began regular calls that felt like a blossoming long-distance relationship, and the rest is history. 

But really, the rest was a lot of work, and a commitment to creating books I was proud to stand behind. I thank Adriana for teaching me how important it is to listen to your gut and “say no” to projects that aren’t right for you. This, she promised, will make you available for the work that you love. And that will build into getting more work you love, and working with dream authors and publishers. It proved to be very true. 

My second favorite bit of advice is from author Neil Gaiman. He said in a speech titled “Make Good Art” that people get and continue to get work, “because their work is good, and because they are easy to get along with, and because they deliver the work on time. And you don’t even need all three. Two out of three is fine”. When I heard that, I knew I could do the first two things. That advice along with attending more SCBWI events I developed the confidence to be curious. Curious about the publishing industry, about the process of illustrating, and mostly being curious about who I was and wanted to be as an artist. 

I feel like I’m now finding my voice as an author after illustrating for two Newbery authors, Margarita Engle (for the forthcoming WILFREDO'S JUNGLE) and Alicia D Williams (for JUMP AT THE SUN); Kirkus finalist NoNieqa Ramos ( for YOUR MAMA ); authors Baptiste Paul, Janay Brown Wood, and Angela Joy; and two NYT Best-selling authors, Tami Charles ( for FREEDOM SOUP) and Sonia Sotomayor ( for JUST SHINE). The authors and their publishing teams have been my biggest teachers, but SCBWI has been my biggest friend through this journey. Anyone with dreams to create your own books, this is the starting line, but luckily there is no finish line.