CINCINNATI — Loren Long wasn’t looking for his next children’s book while walking his dog Charlie on the Little Miami Scenic Trail.
It’s somewhere they walk almost every day. But one day, he spotted an old yellow school bus through the trees near The Schoolhouse Restaurant in Camp Dennison.
The curiosity of the bus would lead to one of the Cincinnati-based author and illustrator’s most celebrated pieces of work, The Yellow Bus.
"I just saw the bus through the trees from the trail," Long said, "It became a muse."
And it's not unusual for Long to find his inspiration this way.
The Cincinnati area has served as both a backdrop and inspiration for his work. In fact, it was his distinct “Americana” style inspired by the American Regionalism movement and artists like Thomas Hart Benson that helped get him where he is today.
“(Editors) thought I was unique on some level, because I came from the Midwest, so they needed my talent," Long said.
As a kid, Long thought he’d play for the Cincinnati Reds. But as he grew up, he found a love for illustration.
"I liked sports. I was a typical kid. My parents were not artists. I wasn't around that kind of world, but I liked to draw from the very earliest memories of my life," Long said. "That was always there."
One of Long's professors at the University of Kentucky, who taught graphic design, was especially instrumental in his future career.
"I was like, 'You keep calling me an illustrator, what do you mean?' And he said, 'Every time I give a graphic design assignment, you do a painting or a drawing. That means you're an illustrator,'" Long said.
Long went on to attend the American Academy of Art in Chicago. And after being rejected from a job at Hallmark, a friend mailed him a newspaper ad for a job at Gibson’s Greeting Cards in Cincinnati. They hired him, and he made his way to the Queen City.
Long would then go on to freelance for Forbes, Time, Sports Illustrated and more.
But over time, magazine work became less frequent as the internet was on the rise. Long began getting offers for picture books, which "set the rest of (his) life."
"I didn’t find what I love to do, and what I am doing for the rest of my life, until I was nearly 40," Long said.
Long had worked to establish a successful career as an illustrator, and he was content with making art for other people’s books.
Until one of his editors eventually encouraged him to try writing, reminding him that he was already a storyteller. That led to his first book, Otis, which would later be adapted into a television show.
"When I'm making a picture book, I'm really thinking of the words and the images being a team and dancing back and forth," Long said.
While Long spent some time still entertaining manuscripts from other authors, even working alongside Barack Obama, Amanda Gorman and Madonna, he is now primarily focused on writing and illustrating his own books.
"Little readers, who could be as young as two or three or four or five or six or eight or 78 — they can look, and their brain puts together what's going on. ... You can take away words because the art does it," Long said. "I like for the images to do most of the heavy lifting."
Just like the influence of the American Regionalists he admired, Long has also been influenced by the city he lives in. He often hides Cincinnati Easter eggs in his illustrations, like a Greater’s Black Raspberry Chip ice cream cone.
They may be small touches that not every reader notices, but Cincinnati finds its way into Long’s work nonetheless.
Long is motivated to keep creating work, and to do it from his studio with Charlie by his side. His newest book, The Boy and the Island, comes out in January of 2027.
Long's message to aspiring artists? "You can do it."
“You don't have to live in New York City,” Long said. "They need your sensibilities. They need your art. They need what you have to say. They need your voice, and I've found that out personally throughout my life."
