Doug Salati. Photo: Erin V. Carr. To be perfectly honest, I don’t really know how he did it. For the past four years I’ve sat roughly six feet from Doug Salati, inadvertently (and sometimes intentionally) listening to and watching him work on Hot Dog, from its foggiest beginnings to its...

On the highest floor of an old factory at the edge of Brooklyn, overlooking the water, is a skylit artists’ studio. This profile is drawn from interviews with the seven children’s book creators who, over the years, have shared that studio with Sophie Blackall.“Drawn in Brooklyn,” 2010 Photo: Matt Carr.Sergio...