Cathleen Thole-Daniels is an illustrator, poet and a story noodler. This is because lots of times her poems become long, twirly noodles that turn into stories instead. She discovered her love of children's books on a rainy day in the back corner of a neighborhood book store. Where she fell head first into the most wonderful picture book of all time and would have loved to stay there forever. But eventualy she had to come out, mainly because the store was closing and they kicked her out. So she bought the book and wrote a gushy fan letter to the author who actually replied! Cathleen went on to write her own stories and joined the Society of Childrens Book Writers & Illustrators and became the New Jersey Regional Advisor for SCBWI from 2015 - 2018. 

Cathleen earned a BA in Art Therapy from College of NJ, professional certification in advertising art & graphic design at NY Center for Media Arts and graduate studies in digital graphics at NYU. A publishing illustrator since 1990, she started out in the fantasy market painting book covers, computer game covers and super hero trading cards. Her past clients include Simon & Schuster, Barnes & Noble, Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Image Comics (Wild Storm), Legend Entertainment and Topps Trading Card Co. Cathleen is also a retired high school New Jersey art teacher.

To date she illustrates and writes her own picture books and illustrates middle grade novels. She works digitally in ProCreate and Adobe Photoshop. Cathleen bases her digitial style from extensive experience in traditional mediums such as watercolor, color pencil, pastel, acrylic and oil. When she is not working on books, she is either making silly stickers and cards for her Etsy shop, Empathic Planet or hanging out with her family and two very silly black cats. 

SCBWI, Society of Childrens Book Writers and Illustrators
CBIG, Childrens Book Illustrators Group