When I read the first set of Lines Drawn: Comics by Parents and Teachers Who Have Had Enough, I knew I wanted to be a part of the project.  My contribution, School Choice, rounds out the the second set, where we considered "active shooter" training for kids.  Today is the 19 year anniversary of the Columbine massacre, and we've all sat watching horrible school shooting after horrible school shooting as if we did not have the power to prevent them.  

I believe that our fear of becoming victims ourselves, drives our reactions and responses to victims. When confronted by victims of crime, violence or injustice, our first response is often defensive.  We set about delineating what makes us different from the victim ("I would never walk alone at night!"), rather than listening for what they might teach us and what they need from us - even if they aren't alive or able to speak.  I've noticed that the qualities we detest in people who we accuse of "playing the victim" are the same qualities we are terrified to reveal: frailty, interdependence and need for help.  

The way we address the problem now - by focusing on the victim, and potential victims' actions over collective responsibility - reveal our adamant, pig-headed refusal to accept responsibility for the current state of things.  Naomi Wadler, the Parkland students, and all of the young people in school walkouts are demonstrating that admitting you are vulnerable and interdependent will make us stronger.  Listen to what they say; hear what they need.

We're a few hours away from the "Great American Eclipse" today.  I have vivid memories of a partial eclipse in the 1980s.  I was terrified that I would glance at it briefly and be struck blind like a nymph who keeps asking to see Zeus in all his glory without knowing what she's getting into.  If you know me well, you know I check on astrology like most people check on the weather.  This eclipse is a big deal (astrologically) for America in general, the president in particular and all of us individually.

The fate of this country, and my family in it has been weighing on me since before the election.  I love America, and I'm not going to give up on the idea that people of different backgrounds can live together peacefully, support one another and progress together.  We need to look honestly at ourselves and be willing to accept hard truths about our own racism and sexism, and be willing to discard the ideas that hold us back, no matter how firmly entrenched they are.

My comic about endings, beginnings, fear and elections, Who Does He Favor? is posted at the Los Angeles Review of Books.  I made this comic in celebration of the 20 year Anniversary of the Smithsonian Asian American Literary Festival.  I feel sure that we are more able to see the inequities, racism and violence in our foundations at this moment.  Protect your eyes from all the glory, but don't close them.

 I am so happy to have Winter Skin up at ROAR - an excellent feminist website. I especially admire their My Abortion project.  It's imperative that we hear women describing their abortions if we are going to have a true understanding of what we are talking about when we talk about abortion  

I made Winter Skin shortly after moving to Pittsburgh, 12 years ago.  Since I was in a new place again, I was thinking a lot about how each community I join finds a way to remind me that I don't totally belong there.  How do you navigate that?  How do you learn to be normal? As a kid, I tried like hell to find the guidebook for being myself.  I learned from magazines. I learned that there was always something I could buy that would help.  I shoplifted lots of make up.  I tried to be whiter, less masculine, less foreign, but never managed to pull it off.  These days, I never expect to be accepted anywhere, so I am never surprised when I'm not.  Still hurts my feelings though.

Just before Election Day, I had the pleasure of being interviewed in a StoryCorps booth by my friend Leigh Anne.  We talked about art making and libraries, but we mostly talked about the election.  I told her that this was the first time I felt genuinely frightened about the outcome of an election.  I knew that many people were foolish, misogynistic and racist enough vote for this president elect, but I had hoped that enough other people would be terrified enough to vote for Clinton too.  I am still reeling and don't want to type his name.

I am so thankful to have been invited to contribute to State of Emergency at the Illustrated PEN.  Working on my piece, Battleground, helped me dig into the deep structural racism that shapes this country and the way we vote.  I emerge from writing and drawing stronger and ready to fight again.  

Just like all your friends with babies, I've dropped off the face of the earth.  Don't worry about me - we're fine, the baby is perfect and yes, I am getting some sleep, thanks.  So I am starting to think about those other kinds of creations now - the ones I've got control over: comics!

We're coming up on an exciting week for comics in Pittsburgh -  PIX: The Pittsburgh Indy Comix Expo is next Saturday, April 2nd.  I am super excited to read comics at the Pre-PIX Reading with some of my favorite cartoonists on Friday, April 1st, and the main event has the best line up yet - including Bill Griffith & Kaz!

I am looking forward to sharing the first postpartum installment of Nonpartum my series for Mutha Magazine with you soon.  I'm also thrilled that Spontaneous, Inevitable, Habitual has been accepted for the Society of Illustrators 2016 Comic Art Annual! 

None of the comics I drew in the 1990s were autobiographical.  When people wrote me letters (real letters - to a P.O. Box!) many of them assumed that my comics were completely autobiographical.  One reader asked "How much of these stories come from your own life?...I guess you must be an 11 year old-grandma-newlywed on maternity leave!"  I take that autobio-assumption for what it is: a compliment, but I think it also says something about comics and the way we read them with such trust.  When you read a comic, you are complicit in making it happen - it feels true.

I've only written a couple of completely autobiographical stories, and I find the responsibility confining.  In my non-comics time, I am a librarian.  That means that I have tsk tsked my way through anti-plagiarism presentations, discretely explained the difference between fiction and non-fiction to all kinds of people, untangled mangled citations, and identified valid information more often than most people.  I am obsessed with proof and documentation, and even more obsessed with the limits of documentation to represent reality.

This has been on my mind while working on my new series Non Partum at Mutha Magazine and reading this discussion at The Comics Journal.  I am honored to have my comics up with some of my favorite cartoonists and nuanced, funny, diverse, intelligent writing on motherhood.  Non Partum is turning out to be the most autobiofictionographical work I've ever done.  I am being very truthful and precise about many things, but I am also mushing some people together, inventing others completely, pretending some things have happened, and not mentioning others that did.  One thing I love about the lies is that they might be what makes the story feel true to you.

I'll be joining Katherine Arnoldi & Russ Fedorka tonight for a panel discussion sponsored by the Pittsburgh Collaborative for Working Class Studies.  The event will be in Room 602 in the Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh - 6-8PM.  We each use comics to address class, feminism and activism in different ways - it will be a lively and enlightening conversation.  Plus there will be a display of feminist/working class/queer/alternative comics out front!