Lori Nawyn

Writer, graphic designer, and self-taught artist and illustrator Lori Nawyn helps others discover their own inherent strengths and abilities. She has written two inspirational books for girls and women, and three cookbooks. She illustrated two mainstream children’s books, What Are You Thinking? and Love, Hugs, and Hope: When Scary Things Happen. The latter book, created to help survivors of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, continues to be used in classrooms and clinical settings across the country. Nawyn has illustrated inspirational and educational childrens’ works for public and private entities. 

Clients include The Christensen Academy of Music and Dance Foundation. For the Academy, she designed life-sized characters from The Nutcracker Ballet by Willam Christensen, the father of the American Nutcracker. Over her career, she has developed print and video art curriculum for students in Africa and Fiji. She also founded Hearts and Hands Dolls, a non-profit organization that manufactures soft sculpt dolls for terminally ill children and elderly shut-ins.   Nawyn is a prolific artist whose work encompasses whimsical and inspirational themes. Her grandmothers are her heroes. Whether her great-grandmother’s treadle sewing machine, or her Grandma Esther’s home-grown vegetables, brood of chickens, or tales of bears, their influence often shows up in her work. Nawyn is married to a firefighter and enjoys seeking adventures in the outdoors, including hiking, fly fishing, and urban mushing with her dogs. She makes her home in the foothills of  Utah’s Rocky Mountains where she owns and operates a country store and grows lavender.