Photo by Elle Darcy

Sarah Sax grew up in St. Louis on Uncle Scrooge and Sailor Moon comics. She studied storytelling and sequential imagery at Hampshire College and worked in education and gaming in the Bay Area before starting her publishing journey. She is the illustrator of the first three books (Escape This Book: Titanic; Escape this Book: Tombs of Egypt; and Escape This Book: Race to the Moon) in the inventive, interactive Escape This Book series, which has been translated into eight languages. Picture Day, her first of four graphic novels in the Brinkley Yearbook series, was published in June 2023. Tryouts, the next graphic novel in the series came out in May of 2024. Sarah lives and works in Portland, Maine with her husband and a small menagerie of pets.

Fun facts about Sarah

I love animals

I’ve always loved animals. When I was young I though I might want to become a veterinarian! Growing up my sister and I had many pets over the years:

  • 4 cats (Holly, Rusty, Daffy and Lil’ Bit)

  • 3 hamsters (Scampy, Speedy and Speedy Jr.)

  • 1 guinea pig (Oreo)

  • 1 rat (Rhoda)

As an adult I’ve had two cats (Winsor and Orson) and now have a very large Bernese Mountain Dog (Lottie). Maybe next I’ll get chickens!

I love spicy food

I love to eat spicy food, the more face melting the better. A few years ago for my birthday my husband threw me a Hot Ones themed birthday party in which we tried the entire gauntlet of wings while I answered in-depth questions that he wrote for me. Da Bomb is just as horrible as everyone says it is, but I’m proud to say I made it all the way though every wing!

Halloween is my favorite holiday

I love any occasion that requires a costume so halloween is my favorite time of year! We go all-out decorating in my house and each year we build a new creature that we add to our yard for trick-or-treaters. Last year we built a dragon with glowing eyes that blows smoke out of her nose!

I like to hide easter eggs in my books

I love to pepper my books with hidden references to all kinds of things! It makes me laugh as I’m drawing and I hope it brings joy to my readers too. I’ve hidden references to all kinds of things from characters in books I loved growing up, games that I worked on, my pets and even local commercials that I find amusing. Look closely to see what you can find!