Thursday, May 14, 2026
6-8:30 pm
FREE
Join us for a fun, relaxed social mixer and presentation celebrating the amazing Asian creators, writers, and producers shaping the world of children’s media! This gathering will connect industry pros (children’s book illustrator and designer Eugenia Yoh of Chronicle Books, storyboard artist Nira Liu of Pixar Animation Studios, and toy entrepreneur Elenor Mak of Jilly Bing) with local community to chat about storytelling, innovation, and Asian representation in kids’ content.
This event is co-presented by the Children’s Media Association Bay Area Chapter and the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. It is free to attend, but registration is requested. Refreshments will be provided.
ABOUT THE PANELISTS
Eugenia Yoh is a Taiwanese-American author-illustrator in the Bay Area. She is a children’s book designer at Chronicle Books during the day and a children’s book illustrator during the night. Her first book, This Is Not My Home (Little, Brown 2023), is a love letter to Taiwan, and her second book What If We… (Little, Brown 2025), tells the story of two siblings who bond during an imaginative summer. With more picture books lined up, she hopes to continue telling stories with heart and humor. She enjoys soup, Japanese fiction novels, bananagrams, the Chinese yoyo and occasional folk-dancing. You can find her online at www.eugeniayoh.com.
Nira Liu is a filmmaker, comic artist, story lead, and bathroom rapper. He began his career as an intern at Blue Sky studios in 2015, and is now a lead storyboard artist at Pixar Animation Studios. His recent credits include Onward, Turning Red, Elemental (2023), Win or Lose (2025), and Hoppers(2026).
Nira spent his early childhood in his great motherland of China and moved to the US as a teenager. In elementary school, he would stare out the window and dream of turning into Ultraman and fighting different alien kaiju. In middle school, he dreamed of becoming an underground rapper who had Jay-Z rapping hooks for him. Fortunately, those two passions didn’t work out, so now he has a career of telling whacky humorous stories with his drawings/writing. He enjoys telling gentle stories that make people feel less alone in this world. You can find Nira on Instagram @niradrawdrawdraaw.
Elenor Mak is the founder and CEO of Jilly Bing, a toy company creating dolls that reflect Asian American children. The idea started when she searched for her daughter’s first doll and didn’t see anything that felt right, so she decided to build it herself. Elenor and Jilly Bing have been featured on the Today Show, Forbes, Entrepreneur, CBS Mornings, and NextShark.
Previously, Elenor co-founded Keaton Row, an e-commerce fashion company, and led go-to-market strategy for Target’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence team. She later joined Madison Reed, where she helped expand retail and open flagship locations on both coasts.
Elenor holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a degree in economics from Dartmouth. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two children. You can find her online at jillybing.com.