Not Just Dudes in Tights: Mean Girls Club

Not Just Dudes in Tights: Mean Girls Club

Do I have a recommendation for you today, folks! If you’ve been looking for a violent, vulgar, and oh-so-satisfying story of a group of badass broads and revenge against the men who wronged them, do I have the book for you! Mean Girls Club: Pink Dawn, written by Ryan Heshka and released in 2018, was… Read more »

A Bouquet of Comics

My first deep impression of anthologies was as texts in poetry school. I still have a shelf dedicated to these early intros to poetry: The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, Imagist Poetry: An Anthology, Great Poems by American Women: An Anthology. In the literary arts, collections like these register a kind of arrival to such… Read more »

A Whole New World: Graphic Novels for Kids

Graphic novels are rising in popularity, across age groups. In September 2019 The New York Times announced, citing “reader interest and market strength,” that it would bring back its monthly “Graphic Books” best seller list, which includes fiction, nonfiction, kidlit, comics, and manga. Topping the list upon its October 2019 return is the Middle Grade… Read more »

ICYMI: Four Lovely Books With Pictures Released in 2018

Unlike fashion, books can’t become so-last-year (unless they started out as the button-down jumpsuit of the literary world). I browsed through books with pictures released in 2018 and below are four of my micro-reviews. I tried to cast a wide net, since there are so many subgenres of what for a long time were just… Read more »

Episode 227: How to Craft a Knockout Graphic Novel — Interview with Eoin Colfer, Andrew Donkin, and Giovanni Rigano

Hey there word nerds! Today I am so excited—and I’ll admit I’m also having a bit of a fangirl moment—because I’m interviewing Eoin Colfer, Andrew Donkin, and Giovanni Rigano on the show! Together, they comprise the powerhouse team behind the heart-wrenching and powerful graphic novel Illegal. You probably already know Eoin Colfer as the bestselling… Read more »

Getting Graphic: A Closer Look at Graphic Novels

Graphic novels are enjoying a great deal of popularity these days, with some of them taking home some significant awards.  El Deafo by Cece Bell, was named a Newbery Honor Book in 2015, the first ever graphic novel to win this distinction. The graphic novel Smile, by Raina Telgemeier, was an American Library Association Notable… Read more »

New Spin: The Graphic Novel of “Miss Peregrine”

Every month or two, DIY MFA’s Wendy Lu will be hosting “New Spin,” a column that covers everything that falls within alternative storytelling: literary mash-ups, books that put a new spin on classic stories, and “meta-books” that use new media, graphic illustrations, and interaction between words/design for an enhanced reader experience. Supernatural, eerie, weird. These… Read more »