Tamara Shopsin is an American graphic designer, illustrator, author, and cook. [1] She has written memoirs, novels, and children's books, and her illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker [1] and The New York Times. [2]
Along with her siblings, Melinda Shopsin and Zack Shopsin, she runs the New York City restaurant Shopsin's. [3]
Shopsin was born in New York to parents Eve and Kenny Shopsin. She grew up in Greenwich Village in New York City with four siblings, including her twin, Melinda. [1] [4] Her family ran Shopsin’s General Store, and her father was a chef and owner of their family's restaurant. She is married to Jason Fulford, a photographer. [5] After her father's death, she and her siblings took over their father's restaurant, Shopsin's. [3]
Shopsin's illustrated memoir about her journey with an undiagnosed illness, Mumbai New York Scranton , was published in 2013. [2] [6] [7] In 2017, her memoir Arbitrary Stupid Goal was published; the book chronicles her upbringing in her family's store and restaurant. [5] [8]
Her first novel, LaserWriter II, was published in 2021. [9] [10]
She and her husband have worked together on various picture books for children. They created the 2014 photography-based picture book, This Equals That. [11] Each page spread in the book contains two photographs that have a visual relation to one another. [12] The book was released by the photography magazine Aperture as part of a series of educational photography books. [13] In 2018, her and Fulord's book, A Pile of Leaves, was published. The book contains cut-out leaves in transparent sheets for each page, that allows readers to look for hidden objects between the layers of pages. [14] [15] Their board book, Find Colors, was published in 2018. [16]