About!

Dorson Plourde is an author and elementary art educator from Portland, Maine who is currently mastering the nuances of the Greater Boston accent. At home his studio is full of picture books, good tunes, and paints …but mostly spots for his cat Theo to snooze on.

His passion for creative outlets began early on, from the days he and his brother would be shooed out of the apartment to “GET OUT & GO PLAY!” Days were filled with scribbling in sketchbooks, FROG & TOAD books, exploring the woods, and organizing increasingly complex scooter races. -It’s remarkable how few of these activities have changed now that he identifies as an adult.

Looking back on the books he’s read, he’s definitely gathered a few things along the way. He learned to be fearless in the library from his younger brother who could always find gems in the stacks. He learned how to enter another world when his teachers would read Roald Dahl. He learned how to draw velociraptors from checking out how-to-draw books and books about velociraptors. He is also an expert in owning a falcon, creating shelters, and climbing down Katahdin because books about surviving in the wild are a must in Maine.

He is influenced by the philosophical questions posed in children’s picture books (and by CHILDREN THEMSELVES) as well as the compulsion to stay present in an age rooted in distraction. His work focuses on the intimacies embedded within suburban riff-raff, early onset nostalgia, and the anxieties that determine the day-to-day.

Growing up between “Dairy Queens and 7-Elevens” has taught him that surviving suburbia can be just as challenging as Katahdin, and that vegetables are very important.