After this publication, Louis was encouraged to write a story about experiencing a seizure by describing a painful childhood experience in school. This became the basis of his first middle grade and young adult graphic novel. To keep it fiction, Louis illustrated the book with imaginative animals. Listen to the Music: Learning about Epilepsy (2020) was met with broad support and encouragement.
Inspired by this positive response, Louis pursued this new career and decided to focus on meditation which he had been studying for a separate project. He developed this topic in his book, Throwing Open the Doors: Considering Meditation’s Soothing Effect on Epilepsy (2021), which intrigued his readers.
His latest book, Jenny and Ellen’s Encounters in Outer Space (2025) is a mystery about a sudden encounter with an old friend, as she was taking off in a rocket to another planet. Upon landing, she realizes she needs her friend’s and teammates’ support. Together they to address concerns that become apparent as they improvise to resolve unexpected questions as the adventure unfolds.
Louis is currently illustrating his next story, which will come out in 2026. This is also a mystery based on an event that captured Louis’s imagination as it caught him by surprise.
Louis Stanislaw was born in Paris, France in the fall of 1982. At a very young age, seizures were challenging him. Although frightened by his classmates’ lack of understanding of a seizure, he received much support from his family and a true friend.
After his family moved to the U.S. before high school, Louis’s interest in writing and art inspired him to pursue this path. Later at Oberlin College, he became more open about his seizures as his friends were quite supportive.
Louis then went to the prestigious International Film School of Paris to focus on filmmaking. This provided the chance for Louis to work on several films, before creating the ground-breaking documentary film, “On the Edge: Living with Epilepsy.” By trying to help remove some of the stigma surrounding epilepsy, the film’s creative interviews illuminate this issue from quite a few interesting angles. “On the Edge,” was shown on PBS and at multiple venues around the U.S. and in Canada.
But Louis’s focus shifted from filmmaking back to his passion for drawing. He gathered a collection of essays on personal experiences about seizures from different writers. Louis created illustrations for each essay. VOICES from the HEART: Lifting the Veil on Epilepsy was published in 2016, which drew much praise for its artistic tone. Douglas Preston, The New York Times bestselling author, wrote, “These affecting and diverse voices take epilepsy out of the shadows and shine the light of understanding and humanity on it from many different perspectives—both personal and medical.”
