Trace Balla author page

Trace Balla biography

Trace Balla is an Australian children’s author and illustrator who works across illustration, community arts, art therapy, animation, and writing songs and stories. She enjoys visiting schools and festivals to talk about her work. Her books for children include the graphic novel-picture book Rivertime, published in 2014, and Rockhopping, published in 2016.

Rivertime follows ten-year-old Clancy and Uncle Egg on a ten-day paddling trip down the Glenelg River. Balla also wrote Shine, a picture book about loss and love published in 2015, The Thank You Dish, published on 1 June 2017, Landing with Wings, published in 2020, Leaf-light, published in 2023, The Heart of the Bubble, published on 15 July 2020, and Treeshape, published on 3 March 2026.

Her stories and illustrations return often to nature, place, community, and children’s close observation of the world around them. In Treeshape, published on 3 March 2026, she tells a memoir in graphic-novel form about her experiences of place, the natural world, and Country.