We had the good fortune of connecting with Lonnie Busch and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lonnie, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
Survival. For myself and family. I was easily working 60 to 80 hours or more a week. During the day I was the art director of a small design studio. In the evenings I did my freelance illustration projects, sometimes working until 2 or 3 in the morning. Illustration was my true love, and at the time, I was just rolling with whatever work came in. The illustration work continued growing, while my duties at the studio during the day became more demanding as well. I worked every night, then all day, and every weekend. It was when my baby son started crying when I held him that I knew this wasn’t working anymore. I loved working at the studio, and it was a secure steady paycheck. But the freelance illustration was what really excited me, so I took the plunge and never looked back. And I’m thankful I made the right call.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Maybe due to little formal training, I discovered my path through trial and error. As a teenager, I gravitated toward the airbrush because I saw people at auto shows using them to paint T-shirt designs. After working in many mediums as a freelance illustrator, I settled on the airbrush. It rendered subjects the way I saw them in my head. And since no one in St. Louis was really using it much at the time, it helped me land my first big agency project, which opened all the doors.

Eventually my work led to David Bartels, one of the most creative art directors in St. Louis. He led me to Gerald & Cullen Rapp repping agency in New York, and suddenly I had national exposure with a Newsweek cover right out of the gate. In 1987 I did the Pan Am Games commemorative stamps for the US Postal Service. In 2001, “The Greetings from America Stamps,” and in 2005, “The Wonders of America Stamps.” I worked with Richard Sheaff on both of those projects and am proud to have been chosen to represent the USPS and America in both cases.

My writing has been a bit rockier, but still so rewarding. My short stories have appeared in numerous literary magazines over the past 22 years, and garnered numerous awards. My novella, Turnback Creek, won the Clay Reynold’s Novella Award and was published by Texas Review Press in 2007. I thought that was the start, but it wasn’t. I kept writing, doing my freelance illustration, and sent out queries on my novels. Occasionally I’d get a manuscript request, which ultimately bore no fruit. In 2017, ready to give up on writing, I sent out an email query for my novel, Pink Souder. I had decided that once I had exhausted this last attempt, I was done. The Bent Agency took my novel, which would become The Cabin on Souder Hill, and be published by Blackstone Publishing in 2020. By 2022, I parted company with my agent and Blackstone, and started self-publishing. Unlike my illustration career, my writing was fraught with false starts. But I’m still here, still writing, and my enterprise has brought together the three things I love most; writing, illustrating my covers, and creating animated/video book trailers.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
No visit to the mountains of North Carolina would be complete without a trip to Asheville, the funkiest little big town I’ve been to. We’d hit the Laughing Seed Cafe for exceptional vegetarian/vegan fair, spend time in downtown Asheville with street vendors, sidewalk musicians, and artists displaying their work on blankets. We’d visit Malaprop’s bookstore, lounge at an outdoor coffee shop, then Mellow Mushroom for a designer stone-baked pizza.

After that, we’d cruise the Blue Ridge Parkway at 6000 feet elevation, gazing out upon endless mountain vistas that will blow your mind. Along the way we’d hit Sylva and one of the coolest little bookstores around, City Lights Bookstore of Sylva. If you were still up for an adventure, I’d take you on a short, or long, hike up to Siler Bald, 5607-foot elevation, where you could see all the way to Georgia. Then I’d top it off with a drive up the Highlands Road, let you take in the 250-foot waterfall, then order huge ice cream cones at Kilwins in Highlands.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Oh, man, there are so many people who played crucial roles in my life. My mother always believed in my art, even if I didn’t. Her mother, my grandmother, bought most of my paintings before I was fourteen, probably with money she won at the track. And that might account for my desire to enter commercial art!

Then there was my drawing instructor, Stanley Tasker, who taught first year drawing at Washington U in St. Louis. When he found out I wasn’t returning the second year, he helped me land a design studio job. Bill Vann at Helios Studio, who wouldn’t hire me because I wasn’t ready (we became great friends years later) and Steve Blives and his partners at Exodus Studio who did hire me the same day about an hour after my meeting with Bill.

Greg Edmondson who was inspirational in my sculpture work many years later, as well as my Aunt Gerri, an artist herself, who throughout my life, encouraged me in all my artistic pursuits.

My writing came out of nowhere during a divorce and tumultuous time in my life. Jubal Tiner, professor at WCU, became my mentor when I moved to NC eight years later. Then, in pursuit of writing, all the great authors I read, the list too long to mention, and to whom I am forever grateful. My partner of 25 years, Nancy Reeder, teacher, writer and storyteller and constant cheerleader and first reader for all my novels. All my creative friends, and my two children who are incredible human beings.

Website: https://lonniebusch.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lonniebuschauthor/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lonnie-busch-89100251/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LonnieBusch52

Other: https://lonniebusch.com/illustration/

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