Archive for comics

Writing the Future: NCTE Annual Convention

November 16, 2011 at 12:45 pm · Filed under comics, State of Emergency, Uncategorized ·Tagged , , , , ,

I’ve been so busy wrapping up the History Detectives gaming project (more on this soon) that I am just now planning for the upcoming NCTE Convention. I’m really excited to be on a panel moderated by the educator and author Katie Monnin, who is spearheading a great initiative in getting comics into classrooms. TRANSFORMING 21ST CENTURY AND PRESENT-DAY GRAPHIC NOVEL READERS INTO FUTURE GRAPHIC NOVEL WRITERS will be a hands-on session for educators in reading and writing in the graphic form. Also on the panel: Josh (our first time on a panel together!) and James Bucky Carter, as well as some other amazing creators. I’ll be bringing copies of my Scholastic book Forward 54th!, illustrated by Aaron McConnell, and some other nonfiction graphic novels that I think are worthy of study in the classroom (there are more and more every day!). I’m honored to be part of the National Council of Teachers of English Centennial celebration–with, what seems to me, a very appropriate slogan “we are reading the past and writing the future.”

State of Emergency is due out soon, but I don’t have a copy in hand yet. Still, I like to gaze at Josh’s art on the cover.  I’m proud of our merging of prose and comics forms in what feels like exciting ways.

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Forward, 54th!

September 21, 2011 at 10:26 am · Filed under comics, education, Uncategorized ·Tagged , ,

My nonfiction graphic book Forward, 54thForward, 54th!: The
Story of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment is out from Scholastic! It’s so exciting to see the wonderful illustrations Aaron McConnell did to bring the historical moment to life.  You can also read about Aaron’s process of illustrating on his blog.

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January 31, 2011 at 1:37 pm · Filed under A.D., comics, Dojo Graphics, State of Emergency

We’re busy here at Dojo Graphics these days. What began as a dream is turning into a reality—a still-evolving reality. The projects keep coming and we’re moving in the direction of cross-media narrative studio. Josh is completing his next book, a collaboration with NPR’s Brooke Gladstone, to be published by Norton later this spring. You can read about it here. I recently completed a nonfiction book for Scholastic called State of Emergency that features a comics-and-prose mashup of one of the storylines in A.D. I’ve also started writing an online narrative educational game for a TV production company, which requires a blend of writing skills—novelistic treatment and visual narrative construction. It’s a prototype, so there’s a lot that we’re developing from scratch, which I find really exciting—to be on the cutting edge of 21st century literacy. And at the heart of it all is the ever-evolving form of comics: old-as-time and totally of the moment.

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Poetry Inside Out

October 29, 2010 at 9:49 pm · Filed under comics, creativity, education, language

I’m involved in an innovative project called Poetry Inside Out. The project is based around  groups of mixed-level fluency students working to translate poetry into English. It’s a joint project of the Center for the Art of Translation in San Francisco and Teachers and Writers Collaborative in New York and funded by the NEA.

It’s being piloted in a mostly Spanish-speaking middle school in Washington Heights, where I’ve just finished my first week of teaching.

These kids are amazing. They get what living in a bilingual/bicultural world is all about. They understand translation on an organic level. They may need help with the written part of it, but they get it in a way that someone like me, raised monolingual, has to work to understand.

While the Poetry Inside Out pedagogy revolves around translating poetry, it is also more broadly about interpreting another’s vision while making it your own.

When I write graphic novel scripts, they are for someone else to interpret—to translate—into visual reality. When I am working on my novel, I am laboring to translate a vision of a book—or of my character—effectively into words, into scenes.

In fact, the more I think about it, the better metaphor of translation is for the work of a writer.

Funny how life works. Mulling this over, I came across this beautiful New York Times essay by Michael Cunningham on the translations of The Hours, and on the broader meanings of translation.

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Future Issue: The Oxford American collaboration

September 11, 2010 at 5:36 pm · Filed under comics, environment, future, Josh, Oxford American

"The Island." Text by Sari Wilson, art by Josh Neufeld

Josh and I have a new collaboration in the current issue of The Oxford American. The Oxford American is an excellent literary magazine and this issue is really fascinating.

The concept: Life in 2050. Close enough to our lives to be able to do what fiction can do so well—be prescient, be absurd, be invasive. As Marshall McLuhan said, “Art at its most significant is a distant early warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen.”

Our one-page comic deals with the question “What happens to decommissioned oil rigs?” Of course, it was on our minds. DeepWater Horizon, etc. Well, it seems, we stumbled onto a good question. No one really knows! But there are plenty of ideas. Given that it can be damaging and costly to actually remove these rigs, ideas abound.

“Around 4,000 oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico will be decommissioned within the next century. Given that an average deck on one of these rigs is about 20,000 square feet, that’s potentially 80 million square feet of usable space just off the coast of the United States,” reports Business Week. The most popular ideas include a resort/convention center, artificial reefs, wind farms. Riffing on that, we came up with an eco-farm and casino.

But, and here’s where we really let our minds go to the  fantastical: Who—or what—will be inhabiting them?

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ALA Graphic Novel Monday

June 23, 2010 at 8:21 pm · Filed under comics, education

Heading to D.C. this weekend for the American Library Association’s annual convention. I’ll be on a panel with Scholastic author Peter Gutierrez, professor and reading expert Katie Monnin, and librarian David Serchay. Reading and Teaching with the Graphic Novel: Navigating the Resources will be at the new PopTop stage on Monday, June 28 from 1:30-2:30. Our panel will be dealing mostly with resources available for this growing form of literature: What is out there? Where to find it? The panel will be one of several that day. The whole thing is part of Graphic Novel Monday, sponsored by Diamond Book Distributors.

A quick trip through the day’s events highlights that graphic novels are growing in popularity and acceptance as a form of literature in this country. Other panels include Great Graphic Novels for Teens: Ground Zero for a Cultural Shift in American Publishing and Graphic Novel Editors: The Masters of Design with Abram’s Sheila Keenan and Scholastic’s David Saylor, among others.

I am excited to be part of this groundswell of interest from the academic community and librarians (who are the form’s early adapters!)

This will also be a great time to share the news about upcoming plans for the new Drawing Words and Writing Pictures website, which I have been helping to develop as an educational resource.

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The Graphic Novel Institute at Northwestern

April 21, 2010 at 3:39 pm · Filed under comics, education, Reading with Pictures

Josh and I will be in Evanston, IL this coming weekend to take part in a comics and education conference called The Graphic Novel Institute. The G.N.I. will be held all day Sunday, April 25, at Northwestern University from 10am – 4pm, with a catered meet-and-greet following from 4-6.

The G.N.I. was originally affiliated with the International Reading Association annual conference, but has since broken off on its own as a pre-IRA event. It is being co-sponsored by Northwestern, Diamond Book Distributors, Reading with Pictures, and Baker & Taylor.

I will be moderating a panel with Michael Bitz, William Ayers, and David Rapp called “Why and How to Teach with Graphic Novels.” In the afternoon, I’ll be co-leading a breakout session with Peter Gutierrez and Alan Holtz called “Developing Graphic Novel Resources for the Classroom.”

Josh will be co-leading a breakout session with Alex Rodrick on the topic of creating graphic novels with a secondary reader focus.

We’re looking forward to being part of this effort to bring the comics and educational communities together.

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Reading With Pictures

March 26, 2010 at 4:28 pm · Filed under anthology, comics, Reading with Pictures

I’ve been editing some graphic stories for a new educational comics anthology to be published by Reading With Pictures, a cool new nonprofit aimed at increasing use of comics in schools. Most interesting and startling to me is the range–a funny piece built around a field guide that features a Little Big Foot (yup, they exist) by Scott Cunningham and Philip Pittz, a thoughtful meditation on ex-pat life in South Korea by David Precht, and a powerful portrait of a young professor’s journey to become a teacher by Mike LaRiccia. The anthology features a cover by Jill Thompson (The Sandman) and original stories by over 50 all-ages creators including. You can check ‘em out online at http://www.readingwithpictures.org.

RWP has recently launched a pledge drive on kickstarter.com to finance the publication of this new educational comics anthology; pass along the news to any and all interested in comics and education.

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