Diary Comics Workshop with Word West

I’m delighted to be teaching a 6-week comics workshop with Word West!

Each Tuesday, from May 10 to June 14, we’ll talk about diary comics (and graphic narratives), the intersection of writing and memoir and drawing, and really dig deep into what makes a comic work. We’ll also do a ton of drawing (together and on our own), share work, and each student will produce a final comic of their own to share/discuss during our last class. We’ll look at work by Kristen Radtke, Adrian Tomine, Alison Bechdel, Marjane Satrapi, Lee Lei, Mira Jacob, Gene Luen Yang, Ebony Flowers, Craig Thompson, and many others.

No experience? No problem. This class is designed for the writer who dreams of seeing their words paired with their art; for the artist who wants to see their art elevated with a memoirist’s perspective; for the amateur who’s never tried crafting a comic of their own but has always wanted to; for the art-proficient who just need an excuse to get back to it.

The workshop costs $250, and there are only 6 spots in total. If you’re interested, sign up today!

intro to diary comics w/ robert james russell

New t-shirt campaign: DOGS I’D LIKE TO MEET

Trying something new with my art. I put together a shirt called DOGS I’D LIKE TO MEET (DILM) for Everpress. Everpress lets artists create limited-edition campaigns for their work; once the campaign ends, Everpress mails out the shirts. This shirt is silly, but I love it, and (more than likely) won’t make this design again.

If you’re interested in a DILM shirt, you have until March 28 to pick one up!

Art Collab with Katie Nieland

I collaborated with mega-talented Nebraska artist Katie Nieland on a STICKER PACK we’re calling WAY OUT WEST. We each designed three Western-themed stickers (you can see them below). We’ll be selling them in person at Pour Craft Beer & Spirits on Friday, April 1, 2022, from 6:00 – 9:00 PM (in Lincoln, Nebraska).

If you can’t make that, you can buy a pack on Katie’s website.

New essay “Dolos” at Gulf Coast

The final part of my art + words series ORIGIN STORY is up at Gulf Coast. DOLOS examines my fraught history with water, estranged family relationships, how we’re irrevocably changing the planet.

I’ve seen breakwater works all over the world, often crude blocks of rock or cement dropped in shallow waters as a deterrent, or used to help create jetties. Here, I’m stunned not just at the quantity of dolosse, but how they seem to halo the island, as ubiquitous as sand and rock and trees and rain. I lean up from the back seat of the tour van and ask the driver if he knows about them, how old they are, if he has any information about them. 

He doesn’t know what I’m talking about at first, so I point to a dolos, then the scores of others we pass. East of us, a storm is darkening the sky. The waves are violent and crashing. He says, laughing, “They protect us from god.”

Read Part 1 (Purple)
Read Part 2 (Wood)
Read Part 3 (Pigeon)

New essay “Holarctica” at Essay Daily

Delighted to have an essay about Nebraska at Essay Daily as part of their #Midwessay series. I write about the pains of leaving the upper Midwest and the beautiful joys of the prairie.

According to Nebraska pioneer folklore, to cure any illness in cattle, hang bittersweet around the animals’ neck.
     On a hike in a nature preserve, after I see a penned-in herd of buffalo grazing lazily in a greened-over pond, I find a strand of bittersweet growing wild along the trail. I stop and look up. It really is spears of pink light here chucked down from heaven. The buffalo snort, indifferent to my presence. A Cooper’s hawk circles above, hungry for field mice and toads, clearing the path ahead. I put a wad of the bittersweet in my front pocket and carry on. It’s still too early to see if it’ll make any difference at all.

New essay “Pigeon” at Gulf Coast

Part 3 of my four-part art + words essay series ORIGIN STORY is up at Gulf Coast. PIGEON examines pets and death, the routes we take in life, and our oft-overlooked proximity to all living things.

What is it to call an animal or a plant a pest, anyway? To say it does not belong wherever it might find itself? We worry so much about words like endemic and exotic, forgetting that these beings will outlive us all, will find a way to migrate even if we weren’t here. We scour the globe, leave home, find adventures in new places. We spread ourselves along wall-sized, push-pin festooned maps in our bedrooms and wish to be anywhere but here. But an animal? Invasive. A plant? A weed.

Turns out, we just numb ourselves to the majesty surrounding us.

Read Part 1 (Purple)
Read Part 2 (Wood)

New essay “Wood” at Gulf Coast

Part 2 of my four-part art + words essay series ORIGIN STORY is up at Gulf Coast. Part 2 examines WOOD (but also: trees + our bodies + loss).

It’s 2008 and I’m living in a cheap apartment complex outside of Detroit. I’m in a relationship growing distant by the day; neither of us laugh any more, we barely talk. Instead, we eat takeout over my beaten up coffee table watching reruns of tv shows we’ve seen a hundred times already. The beige paint on the outside of my building is peeling, showing a light blue base coat. It’s springtime and wet here, showers almost every day, wind slapping the roof and cheap siding. Inside, they’ve pasted peel-and-stick wood paneling along the bedroom and living room walls as some sort of placation.

Check out Part 1 here (all about purple).