Author Crush : Dare Wright

For the past two years, I’ve been writing and photographing a children’s story starring my three rescue cats. Along the way, the work of Dare Wright has been my inspiration… and in a sense, a roadmap.

Her books were my first glimpse of how photographs can build a world for children. Photography-based picture books are very rare in the children’s market, but Dare used the medium so elegantly decades ago. As I continue shaping my own stories, I feel it’s important to acknowledge the artists who helped light the path. My project likely wouldn’t exist without her influence.

If you aren’t familiar with her name, Dare Wright was a Canadian-American photographer, model, and children’s book author. A visionary who didn’t quite fit the mold of any single role. In 1957, she created The Lonely Doll, a haunting story that paired photography with a narrative that felt both innocent and unsettling in the best way. The book stars a little doll named Edith and two teddy bears.

After reading Dare’s biography, what haunts me most is how much of our personal histories seem to overlap. Yes, we’re both Sagittarians but the parallels go deeper than astrology. Dare’s intense, almost all-consuming bond with her mother shaped both her art and her adulthood. I understand that dynamic more than I’d like to admit.

Dare’s closest, most enduring relationship was with her brother Blaine. They were extraordinarily close, almost to the exclusion of others. I feel a gentler version of that in my own life. My brother and I have spent years sharing studios and cheering each other on creatively. This taught me that art can be a place where siblings grow together instead of apart.

There’s a wonderful (and at times devastating) biography about her life, one that reveals just how fragile that world of imagination became. Dare withdrew further and further from the outside world.

As much as I feel connected to her, I also take her story as one of caution. Creativity doesn’t have to demand solitude to survive. The inner worlds we build through art should expand our lives, not replace them. Dare’s legacy reminds me to stay rooted in the real world too.

The Lonely Doll became a New York Times bestseller and launched nine more photographic books starring Edith and the bears. Dare showed us that childhood isn’t only happiness and simplicity. Though my projects message heads in a different direction than The Lonely Doll, her approach made me believe that photography belongs in children’s books and gave me the confidence to commit to the path I’m on.

I hope that someday my own stories can offer children what Dare’s work gave me: a place to dream, to play, to feel seen and a world where photographs become portals to a world more magical.