'That looks like me': Vashti Harrison inspires Shore students with black history

An award-winning author and illustrator who is a 2006 graduate of Nandua High School returned to her alma mater to speak to students from several Accomack County schools on the first day of National Women's History Month.

Vashti Harrison, 29, had her first book published in December. Her children's book, "Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History," won an NAACP Image Award in January.

It introduces young readers to 40 black women who impacted American history in fields ranging from science to politics, the arts and more.

Harrison spoke, in two sessions at Nandua High School, to elementary and middle school girls from several schools.

"That looks like me," one girl in the audience said, viewing one of Harrison's drawings in a slideshow projected on a large screen before the author's talk began.

That's exactly what Harrison was trying to accomplish with her book — to give young girls, especially black girls, illustrations of role models in various career fields to which they also could aspire.

She encouraged the students to practice skills and be persistent in pursuing their passion as they seek to find their place in the career world.

"I'm an author and illustrator and filmmaker, but it took me a whole lot of time to figure out that's what I wanted to do," she told the students, many of whom clutched copies of Harrison's book in their hands.

BACKGROUND: 'Bold women in black history' inspire book by Virginia Shore author, illustrator

"If you had asked me 10 years ago, or five years ago ... If I wanted to be an author, I would have said, 'Absolutely not,'" Harrison said.

And it was only a couple of years ago that Harrison decided to try to make a career out of her longtime passion — drawing.

"I hadn't drawn for a long time," she said.

In the meantime, Harrison had earned a graduate degree in film — but while studying film at CalArts, she sometimes sneaked into drawing classes. Drawing was something she had loved since she was young, but she wasn't sure she could have a career in it.

After a brief stint in television production, Harrison found employment, and fulfillment, as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator — including the publication of a book she not only illustrated, but wrote.

Harrison said drawing "was not a talent I was born with; it's a skill that I worked at." She encouraged students to also work at developing their own skills in areas that interest them.

Once she decided to rededicate herself to illustration, "I just made a personal challenge to myself to draw every day ... Practice is key."

She encouraged the girls in the audience to "try things that are hard for you" — and not to be afraid of failing.

Even though she is established as a professional now, "success still takes a lot of hard work," Harrison said, showing the audience multiple versions of a book cover illustration on which she recently worked, before coming up with the one the publishers decided to go with.

"Just because I've reached this point ... it doesn't mean that there aren't struggles along the way," she said.

Harrison demonstrated her drawing method — done on an iPad using Apple Pencil — and also read to students three entries from her book — about Raven Wilkinson, a ballerina; Dr. Mae Jemison, an engineer, physician and astronaut; and Florence Joyner, a record-setting Olympic champion sprinter.

They are among the women whose stories Harrison hopes will inspire the next generation of young women, in particular young black women, to pursue their passion.

Of Jemison — who, in addition to being an astronaut, engineer and physician, also loved and practiced dancing her entire life and even danced when she was in space — Harrison said, "The thing that I love the most about Mae Jemison is that she was many things — she was never defined by one thing."

"It's just a really beautiful testament to (the fact) that this combination of the things that you're good at can come together to make a real change in the world," she said.

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