Blog

almost home

June 15th, 2012

I just finished my teaching stint at the U of Chicago. Here are some of my wonderful students working on their minicomics at the end of the quarter.

I schlepped myself back home to VT last Saturday, but am out on the road briefly. I did a reading in Portsmouth NH last night, and tonight I will be in Western MA!

If you’re in the environs of South Hadley, come hear me read from my new book Are You My Mother? at The Odyssey Bookshop at 7pm.

And tomorrow, Saturday, 6/16 I will be in BTV! At the Amy Tarrant Gallery at the Flynn, 6pm.

Tuesday the 19th I’ll be at the Galaxy in Hardwick, 7pm.

And Tuesday the 26th all be at Bear Pond! Montpelier! 7pm.

end of the road trip

May 13th, 2012

I did it. A twelve city book tour in twelve days. Finishing up in Portlandia, a Powells sponsored event at the Bagdad Theater.

The Portland reading was kind of tame compared to last night’s event in Seattle. In Seattle I signed a dildo harness for the first time. Tomorrow I head back to Chicago, and teaching.

The awesome Nicole Georges was in the audience today. Afterward she gave me a copy of the galleys for her upcoming graphic memoir, Calling Dr. Laura.

And last night in Seattle I saw Ellen Forney and her mom. Ellen’s graphic memoir Marbles will be out this November.

I had two interesting encounters with Portland faucets today. Perhaps this is just hallucinatory fatigue, but they seem to have such beseeching expressions.

My Osprey suitcase saga has continued…more failure today, and much precious downtime spent on a futile repair effort.

>

So tomorrow, back to Chicago. I have a signing on Wednesday the 16th at Women and Children First. And next weekend, I will be participating in this amazing conference at the U of Chicago that my co-teacher Hillary Chute is producing. Check it out, it’s kind of mind-blowing. Comics: Philosophy and Practice. Unfortunately the registration is full. But it seems like it’s going to be pretty wild.

suitcase malfunction, solved

May 11th, 2012

On my 12-day cross country schlep, my new Osprey suitcase failed. The handle would come completely free from its shaft, then wouldn’t retract at crucial moments. Like when I was trying to shove it into the overhead compartment while blocking 75 annoyed people from getting to their seats. It was really stressful on top of everything else I’m managing on this trip.

I didn’t have any time to deal with it. I sort of got it to work occasionally, but it kept losing its shit at the most inopportune junctures. Finally today in LA I had time to call the company. It’s a new suitcase, I bought it in October. The customer service people did not say Dude, that so sucks, I’m sorry! But they did direct me unapologetically to a video on their website that would show you how to fix the problem with a phillips head screwdriver and some duct tape.

I called the front desk at the hotel and they immediately provided me with these items.

In a few short steps, I repaired the suitcase. One of the rails inside the shafts had come disconnected. A little tape did the trick.

This gave me a tremendous sense of satisfaction. But I am still kind of annoyed by the whole thing. After returning the tape and screwdriver to the front desk, I noticed this cryptic message as I got off the elevator.

I had a great time at the LA public library ALOUD series tonight. Lots of friends, including Eloise Klein Healy, Jack Halberstam, and my high school boyfriend were there.

how bout that obama?

May 10th, 2012

Very refreshing indeed.

I am on day 10 of my book tour, heading today to LA.

Our blog pal June Thomas just put up a conversation with me about Are You My Mother? on her nonfiction books podcast over at Slate, The Afterword.

Maurice Sendak

May 8th, 2012

Man, now Maurice Sendak is dead. The very first book I read by myself was Hector Protector and As I Went Over the Water.

What were your favorites, not counting Where the Wild Things Are?

When a friend of mine was growing up in NYC she got to see him tell and draw stories in person for an audience.

What a brilliant guy, who took children very seriously.

Wood between the worlds

May 8th, 2012

On day 8 of book tour. I’ve been reading lev grossman’s wonderful meta-Narnian fantasy book “The Magicians,” and am very struck with the way his Neitherlands, his version of Lewis’s Wood Between the Worlds, resembles an airport. I am trying hard to see the magic in the daily security lines, crowded planes, luggage mishaps, and ever-shifting array of boarding procedures. A young woman soldier across the aisle just told her father she loves him. I guess that’s a kind of magic.

philly free library

May 4th, 2012

There was a great crowd at my reading in Philadelphia last night, including a bunch of Bryn Mawr students who burst out at the end with the Bryn Mawr cheer (in Greek of course) Anassa kata, kale kale. Ia ia ia Nike! Later in the signing line a nice woman gave me a gift but not her name or any way to contact her, so on the off chance that she’s reading the blog, thank you for the amazing watchwork cufflinks!

I was also very happy to see Dr. E and Aunt Soozie again! Soozie passed on notes from some of you–thank you Meg W, and Ian for saying hello. Here’s a pic of the three of us: (I didn’t ask Soozie or Dr. E for their permission, so let me know if you want me to take this down)

(here we are in 2007 at the Philadelphia Library last time I was in town.)

Okay. Onward to DC!

Are You My Mother? Tour

April 27th, 2012

Here’s the current window display at 57th Street Books in Chicago. (Thank you, Hannah!)

And here is a picture of dinner in New York last week following the Publishing Triangle Awards, at which my amazing erstwhile publisher Nancy Bereano, of Firebrand Books, presented me with the Bill Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award.

That’s Nancy on the left. My lovely girlfriend Holly Rae Taylor on the right. My friend Sarah Van Arsdale next to Holly. (go to Sarah’s blog for an illustration of the awards ceremony) And in the background, the poet David Groff and his partner Clay Williams, and the novelist Sion Dayson.

Are You My Mother? has been getting some very good press. Here’s an interview with the redoubtable Maud Newton on the Barnes & Noble website. And a very wonderful review in Entertainment Weekly.

I’m starting off on an intense book tour next week, a city a day. Unfortunately it launches on May Day in NYC, when Occupy Wall Street is calling for a general strike. But if you’re not busy blockading the Manhattan Bridge or the Holland Tunnel, and/or you get out of jail early, come on up to Bunns and Noodle.

Here’s the tour schedule. Please come to a reading!

Are You My Mother? book tour, May 2012

Tuesday May 1, New York City
Barnes & Noble, 7pm
2289 Broadway @ 82nd St.

Wednesday May 2, Cambridge
The Brattle Theatre, 6pm
40 Brattle Street
Sponsored by the Harvard Bookstore

Thursday May 3, Philadelphia
Free Library of Philadelphia, 7:30
1901 Vine St.

Friday May 4, Washington, DC
Politics & Prose, 7pm
5015 Connecticut Ave NW

Saturday May 5, Toronto
Toronto Comic Arts Festival

Sunday May 6, St Louis
Left Bank Books, 4pm
321 N. 10th St.

Monday May 7, Milwaukee
Boswell Book Co., 7pm
2559 N. Downer Ave

Tuesday May 8, Berkeley
Books Inc, 7pm
1760 Fourth Street

Wednesday May 9, San Francisco
The Booksmith, 7:30
1644 Haight Street

Thursday May 10, Los Angeles
Los Angeles Public Library, 7pm
Format: On-stage interview with Deborah Vankin
Mark Taper Auditorium—Central Library
630 W. Fifth Street

Friday May 11, Seattle
University Bookstore, 7pm
4326 University Way NE

Saturday May 12, Portland
The Bagdad Theater, 5pm
3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd
Sponsored by Powell’s

Wednesday May 16, Chicago
Swedish American Museum, 7:30pm
5211 N. Clark St.
Sponsored by Women and Children First Bookstore

hellzapoppin’

April 17th, 2012

Man. I have been trying and trying to find time to write a blog post, but I have never been so busy in my life. Thanks to Mentor and others for noting some of the recent developments around here—the Guggenheim, The joint review of my new memoir and Jeanette Winterson’s new memoir in New York Magazine. And also this week’s New Yorker profile—which the author Judith Thurman is having a live chat about on Wednesday.

Here’s a small close-up of the illustration I got to do for The New Yorker piece.

Any one of these items would have sent me to bed for a week, but they’re all happening at once. Plus this week I’m traveling from Chicago (where I’m teaching at the University of Chicago until June) to NYC to attend the Publishing Triangle Awards where I will be receiving the Bill Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award. I protested that I am too young to receive a lifetime achievement award, but by the end of all this I may have aged into the proper bracket.

Here’s what I’ve done since finishing Are You My Mother on February 3rd: Took my mother on a trip to Las Vegas. Uprooted myself and moved away from my home to teach in Chicago. Co-curated an exhibit of my work with my colleague here, Hillary Chute. Had an opening for the show. Did multiple public talks, including a Graphic Novel Symposium at Colorado College last week with Hillary and Chris Ware. Drew a self portrait to accompany The New Yorker profile. (below are some studies.) Received copies of my book hot off the press and spotted billions of tiny errors, and some not so tiny, which took me a long time to recover from. Did many publicity interviews, with very fancy people like Lev Grossman at Time Magazine, and Maud Newton, though these are not out yet.

But the big thing has been teaching a class twice a week, on autobiographical comics, with Hillary Chute. These kids are very smart and it is hard staying even half a step ahead of them. Plus Hillary has us reading all kinds of dense, difficult autobiographical theory that I barely understand.

I want to return to Jeanette Winterson for a moment. In some interview I read with her recently, she said that she feels ill if she can’t read every day. And I would say that I start to feel a little ill, or at least hollow and insubstantial, if I can’t write every day—at least a very minimal diary entry or blog post about what I’ve been doing. And I haven’t been able to do that in many weeks now.

I hope that this post makes me feel better.

Here are some of my studies for The New Yorker illustration. It was very helpful to have a drawing to work on while I’m living in this strange faraway place.

Guggenheim Fellowship

April 13th, 2012

[This is Mentor. I’m sending out a quick message until she has a chance to post in more detail, but as you may have heard Alison Bechdel has been awarded a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship for 2012.

Here are some pointers to a few of the announcements:

– On the Guggenheim Foundation website.

– From the LA Times .

– Here’s my favorite, from the Burlington (VT) Free Press:
Bolton woman recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship

–Mentor]