Publisher Profile: Tra Publishing
2026 marks the 10th anniversary of Tra Publishing!
The CBC asks Jessica Faroy, Publishing Director, questions about the publisher.
How did your publishing house start out?
Tra Publishing was founded in 2016 in Miami by Swiss-born graphic designer and author Ilona Oppenheim. The publishing company builds on fifteen years of design excellence through Ilona Creative Studio, Oppenheim’s creative consultancy firm. Tra’s early publications focused on artists’ books, monographs, and titles exploring fine and decorative arts, architecture, and design. In 2020, Tra expanded into children’s publishing with And the People Stayed Home, based on the globally viral prose poem. Since then, Tra has published over 40 children’s titles.
What is your publishing house most known for?
Tra Publishing is known for creating beautifully crafted books that readers experience physically, as opposed to digitally, with particular emphasis on the physical components of the bookmaking process. At Tra, the tactile process of holding and reading a book is a mindful experience and is expanded through vellum pages, shine-a-light technology, Pantone colors, die-cuts, foldouts, and more.
Where in the country is your house based? What do you love about being based there?
Tra Publishing is based in Miami, Florida. The city is reflected in the company’s design approach, with its light, colors, textures, and warmth serving as a constant source of inspiration. Most importantly, Miami’s cultural richness and diversity inspire Tra’s collaborative work with artists and writers from around the world, each with their own distinctive sensibilities and experiences.
Which genres does your house prefer to publish?
Tra’s books inspire social, cultural, and environmental awareness. Its children’s list includes picture books and middle-grade illustrated titles that span nature and science, art and design, and travel and culture, encouraging curiosity, creativity, and a deeper understanding of the world around us.
Which title has your house recently rallied behind?
Tra published The Nature of Our National Parks in April 2026, and it quickly won the hearts of the entire team. Not only was the fully illustrated middle-grade title a comprehensive collection of the flora, fauna, and formations found across all 63 national parks, but it was also deepened by a beautiful narrative inspired by the author’s journey to visit each one. The book connected with every department at Tra, and it was especially rewarding to hear from park rangers around the country about how meaningful and important they felt the book was.
Which upcoming titles is your house buzzing about?
Tra could not be more excited to publish Wild Silence: A Photographer’s Journeys to the Edges of the Earth by Pete McBride this fall. McBride is an award-winning nature photographer, author, explorer, and filmmaker, and his debut children’s title celebrates the natural world and our relationship to it, encouraging children and their families to forge and strengthen their own connections with nature.
Adapted for young readers from McBride’s award-winning Seeing Silence, the book shares stories from his travels to remote, quiet places on every continent. Layered and engaging, it combines captivating narrative, beautiful illustrations, and educational content with QR codes linking to McBride’s videos and audio recordings from these special places, as well as sixteen full-color pages of his award-winning photographs featured throughout each continental section. It is a substantial and striking book designed to inspire young readers and their families to see, experience, and connect with the natural world in new ways.
Name a few of your favorite backlist titles that people should check out.
Kitty O’Meara was Tra’s first children’s author, and Tra published her debut children’s book, And the People Stayed Home. Tra is especially happy to have been part of that journey with her, which has continued through The Rare, Tiny Flower and Oliver and the Night Giants. Her books carry a sense of joy and light that reflects her work as a lifelong writer.
Sweet People Are Everywhere by Alice Walker, adapted into a picture book from one of her poems, demonstrates how illustration can add meaning beyond the written word. Quim Torres’s artwork is informed by extensive thought and research, bringing cultural context and visual details to the poem that deepen the meaning of the text.
Octopuses Have Zero Bones by Anne Richardson, with illustrations by Andrea Antinori, brings math and science to young readers in a way that is engaging and whimsical, with text and illustrations that complement and build upon one another, and most importantly, open a window into a world of wonder. Tra is looking forward to publishing Richardson’s follow-up, Snow Is Not White.
Thank you, Tra Publishing!
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