Mahjong with a ghost
Exciting news: A short story I wrote was published in GigaNotoSaurus! Read it here:
"Four Sparrows" by Angela Hsieh
A ghost comes across three old women waving their hands over bone and wood tiles, conducting a strangely familiar ritual...
GNS is one of my favorite online speculative fiction magazines. It's where I first came across the work of authors like Zen Cho. And may I recommend the hilarious Just Enough Rain by PH Lee?
I was chatting with my friend Bren (whom you may recall is also an incredible artist) about how we're fairly confident in putting our illustrations and our comics out into the world. But there's something about prose that makes us squirm a bit more. It's more vulnerable. Like someone is peering directly into your brain. Do primarily-prose authors feel similarly about their visual art?
ALL IN AT ALA
ALA was a blur and a blast! I've never talked to so many librarians in my life, and I had the loveliest conversations. It's a strange and wonderful feeling to have so many people whom you've never met before recognize your work and talk with you in depth about it.
I finally got to meet some author friends I've only ever interacted with online, Nicole M Hewitt, Sara Shacter, and Amar Shah, who're just as lovely in person as they are online. I got to reconnect with my fellow comic artists Katie Risor and Taylor Robin, and chat with the ever-lovely Barbara Perez Marquez. Plus, I got to see my pals Abby White and Jess Callans on a panel on young teen lit. They all spoke so passionately and eloquently on telling stories for kids in the often-overlooked 13-15 age range, and it gave me the boost I needed to dive back into a project I had shelved. They also embarrassed me (I mean this lovingly) by pointing me out in the audience and shouting out Lu and Ren.
If you're a visual artist who works in or is interested in the world of books, I highly encourage you to apply to the artist alley! The application was due in mid-February, and I heard back in March.
Now, if you think everything went 100% smoothly on this otherwise beautiful and magical weekend: Do remember that gouache painting I made to donate to their scholarship auction? The one that I created in exchange for the table in the Artist Alley? Now, would you like to take a wild guess what very specific item I left back at home?
🥲
Thankfully, my pal Mithra (whom, you may also recall, is the very talented animator who animated my trailer) leaped into action, wrapped the painting up and booked it over to the nearest FedEx. Then my friend and Chicago host Anu made sure they were home to receive the package and then drove it all the way to the convention center for me. All this to say, my friends really came through for me and I'm very grateful to them for looking out for me.
And finally, a conference wouldn't be complete without a missed connection! If you happen to be or know the absolutely lovely human being wearing a purple "Newbery Award Committee" t-shirt who stopped by my table (#1753) that Saturday (June 26) and had the sweetest things to say about Lu and Ren and told me to keep making books, please drop me a line! I was super overwhelmed and completely forgot to get your name. That conversation really stuck with me!
ACE OF HEARTS: THE ARO OF LOVE
Progress is slow but steady on Ace of Hearts. It'll really be down to the wire to finish it in time for the fair, but I believe in myself!
Why is Ames wearing shorts in February? It's not because I totally didn't think about what the weather is like in the mid-Atlantic in the winter while I was actively melting while drawing during a heat wave. It's uhhhhh because takes place in Florida!
SOME PARAGRAPHS ON RISOGRAPH
The ALA crowd couldn't get enough of "The Void Bleps Back." I got a lot of questions about what risograph is, so I thought I'd talk a bit about it here!
If you're not familiar with risograph, it's basically digital screenprinting: pushing ink through a stencil onto a piece of paper, one layer and one color at a time. You create a grayscale digital "stencil" for each color layer. 100% black translates to 100% opacity of whatever color you've chosen for that layer; 50% black (middle gray) translates to 50% opacity of that color; 0% black (white) translates to 0% opacity of that color; so on and so forth.
Setting up this file for riso is a relatively straightforward affair. I planned for it to be riso-able from the start, so I drew each color on a separate layer. The lighter colored inks are pretty transparent, so on the black layer I had to make sure to mask out any parts where I wanted the pink or yellow to show through.
A DOSE OF DELIGHT
The #KidLitArtPostcard tag on Bluesky. The first Thursday of every month, the kidlit illustrators of Bluesky post illustrated postcards with their name and contact info. It's a wonderful way for illustrators to connect with art directors, and for illustrators to find each other!
The annual Allentown Existential Chili Cookoff. What even is chili? And importantly, does it taste good? These are the questions that will presumably be answered at a cookoff with that sort of title.
This piece on endangered wildlife in Alabama, while serious in its subject matter, also has some fascinating information on how mussels reproduce. It's got gifs of the very convincingly fishlike lures that some mussel species use to get fish to bite them so that their larva can hitch a ride on the fish's gills.
You can now get a copy of Lu and Ren's Guide to Geozoology wherever books are sold! I recommend getting it from Bookshop.org or from your local independent bookstore. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend and/or leave a review! And if you haven't already, please watch the animated book trailer!
RESOURCES FOR OUR TIMES
It’s a highly uncertain time right now, not least for our unhoused and our migrant neighbors. I urge everyone to inform themselves of their rights and their neighbors’ rights, and to be aware of what to do if you see someone being detained. Stay safe, and keep each other safe.
Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid (DC-MD-VA area) - look into mutual aid groups in your own communities
SALUTE zines (covers many major metropolitan areas in the US)
ACLU’s Know Your Rights
5 Calls
Gaza Soup Kitchen
Your local food bank
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