Canadian
Keri Smith is a Canadian author and illustrator known for interactive books that ask readers to draw, tear, collect and observe. Her best-known title, Wreck This Journal, appeared in 2007 and sold widely as a guided notebook that invites readers to spoil its pages. She followed it with How to Be an Explorer of the World, The Guerilla Art Kit, Mess, This Is Not a Book and Finish This Book. In 2016 she published The Wander Society, a scrapbook-style guide to aimless walking built around quotations from Whitman, Thoreau and Baudelaire. Her books mix drawing, short instructions and playful prompts, and they sit between art practice, self-help and children's activity books. They have found a large audience among artists, teachers and general readers who want creative exercises. Smith also keeps a blog and has published her work through major houses such as Penguin. Critics have treated her as a popular creative guide rather than a literary author, but her books have shaped a whole genre of participatory journals.