Our creators
Meet the talented creators behind Little Beetle Press books – authors, illustrators, translators and other creatives who bring our stories to life.
Halyna Budilova
Halyna Budilova is a Ukrainian children’s author, poet, songwriter, and a publisher. Before establishing Little Beetle Press, she worked as an English teacher, journalist, translator, interpreter, editor, project manager, and even a ghostwriter! Since moving to Ireland, she has published numerous books, including A Magical Summer in Tír na NÓg, A Very Very Happy Book, Eco-Tales of Giants, and Sleepytime, My Little Squirrel!. Her work has received national and international recognition, with awards for both her books and large-scale storytelling projects created in collaboration with Nova Poshta.
A wife and mother of two boys, Halyna enjoys writing poems and songs, reading, dancing, and playing board games. As a three-year-old, she once discovered a pink lion hidden in her wardrobe and was convinced it had appeared by magic. Although she later learned it was a gift from her parents, she still believes in those tiny everyday miracles – a belief that continues to inspire her writing today.
Tiernan Dolan
Tiernan Dolan was born in 1953, in Edgeworthstown, Ireland. Before retiring, he was an Irish and English teacher in a secondary school. He also worked as a volunteer with GOAL, a humanitarian organisation, in many different countries, such as Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Rwanda, or even Sudan. Sips, the Magic Pony is the first book he wrote, and is based on a real life pony and a real life young girl.
Nowadays Tiernan can be found farming or volunteering with the local Ukrainian community. He enjoys reading, swimming, photography and updating his Facebook page, Humans of Longford. Tiernan has always been strong-willed. When he was about 5 or 6 years old, he wanted to tell his father a story but he was too busy reading the newspaper. Undeterred, he lit a match and set fire to the newspaper, saying "You'll listen to me now".
Kateryna Kovtunenko
Kateryna Kovtunenko was born in Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine. In university, she studied medicine but also worked as a freelance illustrator. After the pandemic and the beginning of the war, she stopped studying and focused on her artistic career. She collaborated with Little Beetle Press on two projects, the Colour the Giants series and the Nova Post books. She’s also an illustrator for Upwork and for a board game, and she sometimes works as an English teacher or an AI trainer.
In her free time, Kateryna enjoys going to the gym, traveling, watching TV shows or spending time with her dog, cats, and lizard! She’s also always liked playing games and when she was a child, she could spend hours playing Totally Spies on the computer. Those early games were probably her first steps into the world of character design and storytelling.
Yogesh Mahajan
Yogesh Mahajan was born in 1987, in Mumbai, India. He graduated from Sir J.J. School of Art, where Rudyard Kipling was born! He has been a full-time illustrator since 2016 and has worked on many projects for picture books, puzzles, game art, packaging, stationery and even animation projects. Now My Life Is New is his first picture book with Little Beetle Press.
Yogesh is very passionate about his work but he still enjoys some free time. He especially likes to go on walks or long drives with his wife and his young daughter. Wandering has always been something he enjoyed. When he was a child, he loved sitting backwards on his father’s scooter while riding home from school. And if he was scared of the puppies who would bark at him on the way, it only added to the thrill of the experience!
Rasika Ashwin
Rasika Ashwin was born in 1990, in Pune, India. She did a master’s degree in design and visual arts from M.I.T. Pune before moving to the US in 2021. She is now a freelance illustrator and as such, works in various areas. She sells hand painted products at artists’ markets, is a surface pattern designer, paints murals and is even a children’s art educator! Happy Will Be The Days is the first picture book she illustrated with Little Beetle Press, and she actually read it in the preschool she works at, which amazed the children, it’s not everyday you meet the artist in person!
Rasika is now married and recently had a baby boy, who occupies most of her time. She still enjoys her free time, during which she gardens, hikes, bakes and paints. Drawing has always been part of Rasika’s life. As a child, she often drew on paper napkins with her father’s pen at their favourite restaurant, and even came second in a national drawing competition!
Dariia Tverdokhlib
Dariia Tverdokhlib was born in 1989 in Krasyliv, Ukraine. She grew up surrounded by books, convinced the illustrations were where the real magic lived. She started considering being an artist as a job during her exchange in the US in 2006, where she saw her host mom turn watercolor sketches into real book pages. Today, she creates illustrations for toddlers, kids, and young adults that either help make sense of the world or offer a well-timed escape into it. She illustrated her first children’s book in 2019 and A Magical Summer in Tir Na Nog is the first picture book she illustrated with Little Beetle Press.
She is now a mother of twin daughters who love books just as much as their mother and who inspire her everyday. Dariia has always been very passionate about art, luckily ignoring an unfortunate piece of advice from one of her teachers, telling her outlines didn’t belong in “real art”.
Yulia Markhisud
Yulia Markhisud was born in Derazhnya, Ukraine. She obtained a degree in land management but quickly switched this field of work in favor of the arts. After the birth of her first child, she started running and met a community of people who kept asking for her drawings. That’s when she decided to become a children’s books’ illustrator. Sleepytime, My Little Squirrel is the first picture book she illustrated at Little Beetle Press.
Today she enjoys spending time with her children and husband and loves to be creative with her work. Yet her creativity was not always rewarded. When she was studying land management, she designed a sign which got rejected because it did not fit into the general framework and was too unconventional. However, this event helped Yulia understand her talent and that creativity is what she enjoys best.
