Michelle Cuevas graduated from Williams College and holds a master of fine arts in creative writing from the University of Virginia, where she received the Henry Hoyns Fellowship. She has worked in the youth education department at The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and designed the children’s education program at the Bidwell House Museum in Massachusetts.



THE MASTERWORK OF A PAINTING ELEPHANT
Frances Foster Books/FSG, Spring 2011
Genre: Children & Middle Grade
Agent: Brenda Bowen

Foreign Sales
Germany: Dressler Verlag
Taiwan: Sun Color

Pigeon Jones would be an ordinary boy. If his ears weren’t so big. And his parents hadn’t abandoned him as a baby. And if he hadn’t been raised on the back of a former circus elephant named Birch, who has a remarkable gift for painting.

What Pigeon wants more than anything is to reunite with his long-lost parents, while Birch dreams of finding his long-long love, a beautiful circus acrobat. Pursued by Birch’s erstwhile boss, the evil Ringleader, their quest leads them across America by rail (as hobos), and off to Paris by plane (as sculptures). Pigeon and Birch’s journey around the world eventually leads them to discover where true love and home lie. Family, heroism, and—especially—what goes into creating a masterwork are explored in this imaginative literary middle-grade debut novel by a gifted new writer.