Your name: Carrie Turley and Lara Law 

Business name: Lawley Publishing 

Length doing business: Lawley Publishing is in our sixth year 

Town/neighborhood: Based in Gilbert 

How Lawley Publishing came to be: Lawley Publishing founders, Carrie Turley and Lara Law, first connected through a shared love of literature, creative arts and the magic of childhood. This friendship led to the spark of an idea, which is now an epic middle-grade fantasy adventure series. They realized that the publishing industry was a challenging place and didn’t always produce empowering literature for children. So, a wonderful partnership was born, and they took a piece of themselves — Law and Turley — and created Lawley Publishing. 

Professional background highlights: Carrie and Lara were new to the publishing industry when creating Lawley Publishing. If you ask them, they’ll tell you that every step since their meeting has been divinely guided. While that is true, they are both talented, driven women who are not afraid to learn and let their love for children fuel everything they do. They each bring complementary skills to the table: Lara is an artist, while Carrie is an author. Because they come from the author and illustrator aspect, they have additional insight and understand trade frustrations, so they developed a company that works with this creative industry in unique ways. Because they have children and grandchildren, they know what kind of literature is powerfully positive and want the best for all young readers. These two aspects blend perfectly into what has become Lawley Publishing. 

Founders’ roles: With their different set of skills, they each handle a few aspects of the business. But even though Lara oversees the creative and illustrator side while Carrie works with the layout and submissions/editing areas, they handle the majority of business decisions together. They enjoy working with authors and illustrators from all over the world to bring their stories to life. 

Changes we’d like to see in this area: There are too many children who are not learning to love reading, yet there are enough books in the world for everyone to find plenty of material to enjoy. Sometimes it takes patience to teach a child to read; sometimes it takes time to weed through the wrong kinds of books to find the right ones; sometimes it takes the example of an adult to show the way; sometimes it takes the right environment and an emphasis in the home for a child to see how exciting books can be ... but all of that effort is worth it. Reading helps a child in every area and can be a life-long support and creative outlet. We do what we do because children deserve to have amazing books to choose from that inspire and empower them. 

What are we promoting: Lawley Publishing emphasizes clean, empowering, fun literature for children. We produce picture books for ages starting as early as toddler and up through middle-grade chapter books. 

What we’re excited about and why: Yes, Lawley Publishing offers incredible stories, but on the other side of things, we also provide a unique publishing experience. We’re a medium-sized publishing house, which means we have access to a wide array of resources, yet we are still small enough to know our authors and illustrators personally. We value the creative process and promote our authors and illustrators collaborating. We feel this produces a cohesive final product and an author/illustrator team that is passionate about what they’ve created together. 

Favorite community cause and why: We foster children’s Literacy because fueling a child in reading supports them in so many other ways — it helps them develop their imagination, promotes creativity, aids their scholastic development and academic progress and can help them learn practical, real-world skills like making friends, being kind, overcoming fear and being inclusive. 

Family: Carrie Turley is the mother of three and the grandmother of eight. Lara Law is the mother of five and the grandmother of four. Both enjoy spending time with their children and grandchildren, which helps them both stay young at heart. 

Other interests and hobbies: Lara and Carrie both enjoy reading, sewing, painting, quilting, crafting, eating, baking, shopping together and spending time with their families. 

Our guiding philosophy: Kids should have empowering, clean literature that enhances natural curiosity, empowers imagination, and ignites the magic of childhood. We strive to connect with children on a fun and fundamental level by producing books they love to read, relate with and can grow from. 

Our advice to today’s youth: Read, read and read some more. If you don’t like reading, that just means you haven’t found the right book yet — keep searching for a book that interests you. There are so many options, so many amazing places to go, so many interesting people to meet, so much imagination to visit. 

How our business supports the community: We donate books throughout the year to a wide variety of schools, libraries, and other literacy programs like Project Sleep Tight and Kids Need To Read. Our authors and illustrators visit schools to interact with kids on a personal level, teaching them and inspiring them about the wonderful world of literature. Carrie and Lara also love to visit schools and community groups to teach children about the publishing industry and encourage children to explore creative and imaginative paths. Our website has informational blogs for parents, educators, and caregivers. We also have a resource page that provides free reading-log pages and other activities, crafts, and educational material that coincide with our selection of books. Our YouTube channel provides a safe place for children to be online and enjoy free Storytime with our authors.