J.C. (Judith Christine) Mills was born in Middleton, Yorkshire, England – in the city of Leeds – and emigrated to Toronto, Canada as a young child. Primarily self-taught, she began drawing and sculpting in her teens and in the early 1980’s decided to pursue a fulltime career as an artist. Since then, she have had several solo exhibitions in Toronto, as well as solo and group showings in Halifax, Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal, Chicago and Kennebunkport, Maine.
Over the years, J.C. has created fundraising Christmas cards for The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto; a larger-than-life-sized sculpture of prairie women for the Cornwall Centre in Regina, Saskatchewan; a memorial painting for Branksome Hall, Toronto, the 2000 Canadian Children’s Book Centre poster, and a sculpture presented to Prime Minister Jean Chretien by the Liberal Party of Canada in 1992. Her work is included in several corporate and private collections including those of Bob Hope, Anne Murray, Reader’s Digest, The Edmonton Art Gallery, Shell Oil Canada, The City of Toronto Art Collection, The Toronto Board of Education and the Canada Council for the Arts. Currently her work can be found at Bronte Harbour Fine Arts in Oakville, Ontario, and Mast Cove Galleries in Kennebunkport, Maine.
J.C. has lived primarily in the Toronto area, apart from 4 years she and her family spent in Montreal. The arrival of her son in l992 brought with it a renewed interest in children’s literature. That same year, she wrote and illustrated her first manuscript - The Stonehook Schooner- about the stonehooking trade that took place over a hundred years ago in her local lakeside community of Port Credit, Ontario. It was published by Key Porter Books in 1995. Since then, J.C. has continued to write and illustrate children’s books, still finding time to paint and sculpt for galleries.
J.C. listens to music (mainly classical and jazz and blues) whenever she is working. She has always found it to be an integral part of the creative process and the positive influence derived from it became the basis for her second picturebook The Painted Chest. After that, she worked on four more projects, producing the illustrations for Bridge 6, While the Bear Sleeps, Wild Cameron Women, and The Boy Who Stuck Out His Tongue.
J.C. has always felt a strong attraction for the ocean (her family began vacationing on the American East Coast in the early 1960’s) and believes that it influences her view of the world and her art and writing, too. Her husband and son became enthusiastic visitors there several years ago, and they always try to spend some time in New England (primarily Maine) every summer. This familiar area is where she decided to set her fantasy/adventure trilogy – The Goodfellow Chronicles – made up of 3 books entitled: The Sacred Seal, (2001) The Messengers (2003) and The Book of the Sage (2004). Her family’s love for the water inspired them to take up sailing a few years ago and, in turn, their sailboat Raconteur (and J.C.’s fascination with things historical) inspired her to write the young adult novel The Strange Voyage of the Raconteur in 2005 – the story of a young man’s chance encounter with a mysterious sailor and his connection to the legend of an ancient and powerful relic.
J.C. was selected to be one of six Canadian children’s authors involved in the General Mills Publishing Program for 2001/2002. This unique program featured authors and their books on General Mills cereal boxes along with Canadian athletes who competed in the 2002 Olympic games. Paired with the gold medal figure skating team of SalĂ© and Pelletier, J.C. wrote a biography of the pair and appeared with them on boxes of Cheerios.
Her most recent book is the young adult novel entitled 'Carew', which was published in the fall of 2006. It is an adventure story set in the foothills of the Himalayas, about the capture of one very unusual animal and the repercussions its imprisonment has on the entire world.
