William Edward Joyce (born December 11, 1959) is an American writer, illustrator, and filmmaker. He has achieved worldwide as an author, artist and pioneer in the digital and animation industry.
He has written and illustrated over 50 children's books and novels which have been translated into over 40 languages.
Joyce began his film career as a concept artist for Toy Story (1995), and has since been active in both animation and live-action. He subsequently landed credits on the films including A Bug's Life (1998) and Robots (2005). His book A Day with Wilbur Robinson was adapted into the Disney film Meet the Robinsons (2007), with which he has direct involvement.
Among his many awards, Joyce has won six Emmys, three Annies, and an Academy award, the last being for his short film The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (2011).
Joyce was named by Newsweek magazine as one of the 100 people to watch in the new millennium. His feature films, all based on his books, include Epic, Rise of the Guardians, Robots, and Meet the Robinsons. His television series include the animated Rolie Polie Olie for which he was creator and showrunner.
He has also painted numerous covers for the New York Magazine. His company, Howdybot Studios, is focused on Joyce's stories in a variety of mediums and media. Joyce's short film Mr. Spam Gets a New Hat (2022) has won awards at a number of film festivals in the U.S. He is also in pre-production on an animated version of The Great Gatsby. Both projects are in collaboration with DNEG Animation.
In 2022, Joyce's novel Ollie's Odyssey was adapted into a Netflix series titled Lost Ollie.
Career[]
Children's literature[]
Joyce has written and illustrated over 50 children's books including George Shrinks, Santa Calls, Dinosaur Bob and His Adventures with the Family Lazard, Rolie Polie Olie, The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs, A Day with Wilbur Robinson, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, The Guardians of Childhood series, and many others.
Joyce's first book Tammy and the Gigantic Fish by James and Katherine Gray was published by Harper & Row (now Harper Collins) in 1983. After the retirement of his longtime editor Laura Gerringer, in 2011 Joyce moved his backlist and all subsequent books to Simon & Schuster, where his editor is Caitlyn Dlouhy.
Since being at Simon & Schuster, Joyce has produced a number of bestselling titles, including The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore which debuted at Number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list in July 2012, a position it held for several weeks. Morris Lessmore has been translated into over 40 languages and was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 best children's books of all time. Morris Lessmore is the most expansive and experimental of Joyce's stories. With his company Moonbot Studios, Joyce along with his partners, produced the Lessmore story in a variety of media and mediums simultaneously. A short film was in production (using handmade miniature sets) while the book was being illustrated (along with Joe Bluhm) and an interactive story app was being devised.
The story app of Morris Lessmore received overwhelmingly positive attention and in August 2011 briefly dislodged Angry Birds as the bestselling app in the world. It was voted into the app hall of fame soon after.
Personal life[]
William Joyce lives with his son Jackson Edward Joyce in Shreveport, Louisiana. His daughter, Mary Katherine, died on May 2 2010, at the age of 18, due to complications from brain cancer. Rise of the Guardians, a film inspired by The Guardians of Childhood book series and in turn by stories that he told her as a child, was dedicated to her memory, reading "For Mary Katherine Joyce m a Guardian Fierce and True" during the credits. The main Epic, which is based on Joyce's book The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs, was named after her. His wife, attorney Frances Elizabeth Baucum Joyce, died on January 20, 2016, at the age of 55, due to complications of ALS. He remarried on July 31, 2020.
In 2006, Joyce founded the Katrinarita Gras Foundation to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. He sold prints of his unpublished Mardi Gras The New Yorker cover, with profits going to Louisiana artists and arts organizations.