ByTillie Walden

My graphic novel Spinning has been out now for over a month. I think. It’s actually a little hard to remember. Other authors may relate to this feeling - before your book is published, it feels like it’s never going to come out and the world is acting against you. And then when it finally comes out, it feels like its been there forever.

I’ve been traveling around with Spinning, talking to classes full of fidgeting kids, signing books with lines of people who are eager to discover what I actually look like, and getting late night dinners with bookstore owners after a whirlwind evening of talking about myself. Spinning is a graphic novel about growing up as a  competitive figure skater. I talk about the expectations and challenges of being a young girl in that sport, while also dealing with coming out of the closet in Texas.

This is my first real book tour. I’m only 21, which tends to lead to agonizing expressions and eye rolls from a lot of older authors. And being a young, gay woman on a book tour for my graphic memoir has been exactly what you might expect: bizarre and wonderful.

It’s bizarre because so many people are surprised by what I have to say. They think that because I’m so young I don’t have enough real experiences to share. And that’s the moment where I launch myself into stories and use every tactic I’ve ever learned about public speaking to show them I do know what I’m doing. I tell them about moments in Spinning, about how I knew I was gay when I was 5, about the grueling practices and competitions, about how art gave me a connection to myself and a career at the same time. And I talk about how publishing a memoir is so healing because it let’s others hold your memories with you.

After I’m done baring my soul to audiences, people come up to me. They talk to me, they ask me questions, and they tell me about themselves. There was a father who thanked me for being a young successful lesbian that his daughter could look up to. There was the young woman who was having a hard day and simply cried with me. There was a young boy who aspired to one day draw Lumberjanes and wanted to know how he could make that happen. And then there were all the queer teens who simply wanted to share a piece of themselves with me after I had with them.

I think a lot about these moments. And I think about how what really matters about Spinning is not necessarily that it has queerness in it, but that it was made by me, a real queer person. That’s what I see people tapping into. And so much of the conversation about diversity seems to revolve around the content of our books, when really in my mind the focus should be entirely on the creators. True diversity comes from diverse voices.

I think about the queer kids along the way who have shown me their own comics, or who have shared their aspirations to create one day. And they often ask me if they should do a memoir, of if they should try and write a hard, honest story about themselves. I can see that they want to be a part of something, that they want to have an impact. But I always tell them the same thing. If you’re queer and you’re making things, your only job is to make what you want. We benefit from it all. The happy fantasies and the crime novels and the memoirs and the fan fiction. Diversity doesn’t require some hardened, tragic, real life perspective. It only requires that diverse people have a platform to share stories in any form that they want. In Spinning, I wanted to talk about the world of competitive figure skating from my own perspective. I wanted to talk about bullies, my first love, the dangers and beauty of childhood, and finding your identity in a sport where individuality loses you medals. Spinning is a piece of me. I drew every page with care and honesty. At times it was scary to share such a personal story, but I’m so glad I did.

Tillie Walden is a two-time Ignatz Award–winning cartoonist from Austin, Texas. Born in 1996, she is a recent graduate from the Center for Cartoon Studies, a comics school in Vermont. Her comics include The End of Summerand I Love This Part, an Eisner Award nominee. tilliewalden.com

Spinningis available for purchase.

Because I can’t change my primary blog here’s when you can find my other Stuff:

http://remnantgn.tumblr.com/ its for my graphic novel called remnant; a macabre supernatural crime drama that takes place in Boston. I’ll post sneak peaks on it, like sketches, cover art, WIPs, and even my rough drafts. Here’s a sample.

5 Words book 4 is out now!! We are hard at work finishing the last volume these days. Please check out our Instagram account @5worldsteam for more frequent previews, updates, Q and As and peaks into our process. Thank you all for your continued love and support!! ❤️

Happy Heartstopper day! I’m so excited to watch Heartstopper on Netflix tonight!

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[ID: a flatlay photo of all four volumes of Heartstopper sit in the centre of a white sheet].

The Bronx is Writing: Bronx Writers To Read for Bronx Week

The Bronx is Writing: Bronx Writers To Read for Bronx Week

May 5-May 15 is Bronx Week, the celebration of the culture and heritage of what makes this borough of New York City truly great. It’s always great to celebrate my home borough but instead of highlighting the great institutions that come out of the Bronx, but also wanted to take the time uplift the Bronx writers that are gracing our bookshelves! I’m so proud to say that there are so many great…

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Heartstopper Readlikes: Books To Read After Reading ( & Watching) The Series!

Heartstopper Readlikes: Books To Read After Reading ( & Watching) The Series!

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Kat Leyh Talk Now Online

Kat Leyh Talk Now Online

Didn’t manage to make the Kat Leyh author talk Whitney and I conducted ? Don’t worry! The full discussion is now online. Whitney did such a wonderful interviewing the comic book artist and it was a conversation you definitely want to check out!

Watch Below!

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What I’ve Been Reading Lately: May 13

What I’ve Been Reading Lately: May 13

Welcome to What I’ve Been Reading Lately, a feature where I’ll be giving short reviews of what I’m currently reading:

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In September and October, New York Review Comics presents two trailblazing artists whose work remains challenging, striking, and remarkably relevant. Shary Flenniken’s daring, raunchy Trots and Bonnie is an uncommonly honest—and hilarious—portrait of adolescence, while Martin Vaughn-James’s The Projector andElephant are timelessly surreal.

Shary Flenniken, Trots and Bonnie(September)

In the 1970s and ’80s, National Lampoon was home to many of America’s best cartoons, including Trots and Bonnie: a comic strip that followed the adventures of Bonnie, a teenager stumbling through the mysteries of adulthood, and her wisecracking dog, Trots. This collection, handpicked by Flenniken, is the first book of Trots and Bonnie ever published in America. It’s a long overdue introduction to some of the most stunning and provocative comics of the twentieth century, from an artist Roz Chast calls “an absolute genius.”

Martin Vaughn-James, The Projector and Elephant(October)

The British artist and writer Martin Vaughn-James produced some of the most mesmerizing and inventive works in comics in the 1960s and ’70s. Among them were ElephantandThe Projector, interconnected graphic novels that guide the reader through landscapes built out of the everyday and the nightmarish. Together for the first time in a single volume designed and edited by Seth, ElephantandThe Projector are a reminder that we have yet to catch up to Vaughn-James.

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Book Bans: Proactively Addressing Challenges to Your Comics Collection. After registering, you w

Join us on Thursday, June 9th at 2pm EDT / 11am PDT, as our panel of experienced librarians and industry professionals — Moni Barrette, Betsy Gomez, Jack Phoenix — present a brief history of comics challenges, and offer a range of proven strategies for reviewing and protecting your collections, your staff, and your community.