Tangles is one of three finalists in the Book Illustration category of the 2011 Alberta Book Publishing Awards! Download the lists of finalists at the Alberta Book Publishers’ Association website. Winners will be announced June 11.
News
The Kitty’s Parents
Cute Overload has never failed me; it has been there whenever I needed help procrastinating, or a break from depressing political news. And now, it has alerted me to proof that I am right about The Kitty’s parents. For those of you who don’t know, The Kitty is a main character in my book Tangles, and I always suspected that she was the child of the Owl and the Pussycat. And see below: it is possible. If a cat and an owl can be close friends, could they not be more?
Here is the drawing from Tangles…
And here is the real-life support for my theory. What do you think?
Vacation before and after
I drew these on the ferry on the way to Tofino for a much-needed weekend away… Now that I’m back in town, I would say that I am somewhere between these two images.
Sarah shares a recipe on Writers Reading Recipes
What will Julie Wilson (aka Bookmadam) think of next? This was an unprecedented opportunity for me to read from the delightful cookbook published by the National Council of Jewish Women in 1974, a book that I have read with pleasure, even though I haven’t cooked from it. It is the kind of cooking that my mother called “goyishe” because it was not healthy and relied on a lot of Jello and mayonnaise, but which many Jews will recognize from their childhoods.
Writers Reading Recipes, episode 1
Review of my keynote talk at Banff
Now that I’ve admitted to reading blog posts about myself, here’s Peggy Trendell-Johnson’s notes about my talk at Banff. Great title — it’s exactly what I was trying to get across: “I can’t draw” is no excuse, says Sarah Leavitt”
Video review of Tangles
Since Tangles came out last September, I’ve posted links to reviews in the Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun and other papers, but I haven’t linked to any of the blog posts about Tangles, maybe because it feels like too obvious an admission that I Google myself on a fairly regular basis. But when I saw this video review of Tangles by Ben Ziegler (via Lorne Daniel), I had to post it. This kind of personal, thoughtful response to my book just makes my day. There is also something special about connecting with men through Tangles — not that responses from men mean more to me than responses from women, but just that as a feminist and a lesbian I have become accustomed to making artistic and emotional connections with women. But through Tangles, I have had these very intense connections with male readers, both older men who have their own experiences as caretakers of people with Alzheimer’s, and younger men who are comics readers. I have this weird idea that somehow because our lives are totally different (or I assume they are) that they won’t respond to my book. But of course that is not how literature works. You’d think I might know that by now, after years of crying and laughing and sighing over books by people who are completely different from me.
Sarah at Graphic Medicine Conference in Chicago!
This is going to be great! I’m going to Chicago for the second Graphic Medicine conference: COMICS & MEDICINE: The Sequential Art of Illness, June 9-11. First of all, I will finally meet the wonderful Brian Fies, who has been extremely kind and supportive since I first contacted him when my agent and I were shopping Tangles around. Cannot wait! And, hello, I get to go to a conference where Scott McCloud is a keynote speaker. Scott McCloud! And Phoebe Gloeckner! Anyway, I am going to deliver a paper (!) “Documenting a family’s struggle with Alzheimer’s Disease: from sketchbook to graphic memoir,” and lead a workshop, “From diary to graphic narrative: finding the story in your personal experience.” It is all going to be ridiculously awesome. And check out the conference graphic, from Brian Fies’s book Mom’s Cancer.
Sarah at Graphic Medicine Conference in Chicago!
This is going to be great! I’m going to Chicago for the second Graphic Medicine conference: COMICS & MEDICINE: The Sequential Art of Illness, June 9-11. First of all, I will finally meet the wonderful Brian Fies, who has been extremely kind and supportive since I first contacted him when my agent and I were shopping Tangles around. Cannot wait! And, hello, I get to go to a conference where Scott McCloud is a keynote speaker. Scott McCloud! And Phoebe Gloeckner! Anyway, I am going to deliver a paper (!) “Documenting a family’s struggle with Alzheimer’s Disease: from sketchbook to graphic memoir,” and lead a workshop, “From diary to graphic narrative: finding the story in your personal experience.” It is all going to be ridiculously awesome. And check out the conference graphic, from Brian Fies’s book Mom’s Cancer.
Sarah at Non-Fiction Collective Conference, Banff, April 29-May 1
In just over a month I’ll be heading for beautiful Banff, where I haven’t been since the summer of 1977, when my mom and dad packed us all into our maroon station wagon and drove from Maine to Washington. Instead of going on a guided horseback ride and holding up the entire group by bursting into tears because my horse scared me, I will be delivering a workshop for my fellow non-fiction writers about graphic memoir. It might be a little less scary.
- Image from freeprintables.com
See the conference program on the Creative Non Fiction Collective website.
Sarah at Non-Fiction Collective Conference, Banff, April 29-May 1
In just over a month I’ll be heading for beautiful Banff, where I haven’t been since the summer of 1977, when my mom and dad packed us all into our maroon station wagon and drove from Maine to Washington. Instead of going on a guided horseback ride and holding up the entire group by bursting into tears because my horse scared me, I will be delivering a workshop for my fellow non-fiction writers about graphic memoir. It might be a little less scary.
See the conference program on the Creative Non Fiction Collective website.