Aileen Leijten, was born in Belgium where she attended the Rudolf Steiner School in Antwerp. She earned a BFA in Animation Film from the Royal Academy of Art (Ghent, Belgium), and an MFA in Experimental Animation from CalArts (USA).
Leijten’s art films won awards and were nominated in Festivals nationally and internationally. She worked on commercial projects for Hanna Barbera, Sony Studio’s, Digital Domain, Mattel Media, Walt Disney Imagineering, and she won a grant to work on a project for Starbright Foundation, Stephen Spielberg’s non-profit.
In 2004 Leijten and her husband, John Rocco, moved to NYC, to make a career transition from commercial artwork to writing and illustrating Children’s Books. They returned to Los Angeles 8 years later to continue their book work from there. Leijten is currently working on a graphic novel, to be published in June of 2017.