Five Ways to Start Making Graphic Essays
September 29, 2023 § 17 Comments
The relationship between Graphic Literature and Flash Nonfiction
By Kelcey Ervick
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Kelcey Ervick is the author and illustrator of the graphic memoir, The Keeper: Soccer, Me, and the Law That Changed Women’s Lives, winner of a 2023 Ohioana Book Award. She is co-editor, with Tom Hart, of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Graphic Literature. Kelcey is the author of three previous award-winning books, and her comics have appeared in The Rumpus, The Believer, Washington Post, and Lit Hub. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati and is a professor of English and creative writing at Indiana University South Bend. She writes and draws about the ups, downs, and loop-de-loops of the creative life at The Habit of Art.
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Thank you for this! I am inspired to use your approach in an upcoming workshop that combines writing and collage.
So glad to hear this, Amanda! I love that you’re combining writing and collage! -Kelcey
When I’m feeling really brave, I draw a simple tree, flowers, or hearts in my journal. I keep looking for my drawing gene, instead, I capture thoughts through photographs. Today, I will look at my photographs through a new lens—one that compresses and sits juxtaposed to words. Thanks for the inspiration.
How awesome that you work visually with photographs. Yes, add words next to, on top of, and around your photos! Cut and paste your photos beside words. Cut out the subject of the photo and leave a silhouette where you place the words. Make a collage!
Side note: I learned from reading Lynda Barry that drawing isn’t a gene (it’s a practice) and that we have to dispense with concerns about “bad drawings”! I personally love “bad drawings” (as should be clear from my not-very-precise drawing style).
-Kelcey
I know what I’ll be playing around with today! Thanks!
Well, shazam!
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I love this! Thanks, Kelcey! Brilliant as always!
Thanks so much, Rachael! xo
-kelcey
Kelsey,
Well, this is pretty cool!! i will try this. And I’m sending it to MyBestFriend Carol Burt (potter extraordinaire and collage person already) cuz she will love this. And be better at it from the get-go than me. (DOWN negative voice!!) I love collage and this is motivation to get more ink for our 4c printer.
I hope you are doing well. I hope i get to see you next year at MWW. This exercise here would be wonderful as a session. AND Word has a font called Courier. But I also found a page of free typewriter fonts you can download: https://appsthatdeliver.com/app-tutorials/microsoft-word/typewriter-fonts-for-word/#:~:text=Is%20There%20a%20Typewriter%20Font,fonts%20to%20an%20old%20typewriter .
We could print out a flash piece in one of these fonts and bring it with us to collage. ????
I hope you are doing well. I’m writing a lot these days. And now working on a series with a playwright in Muncie about a prequel to post-apocalyptic society. Not normally my ouvre, but i’m kind of excited about it.
I just finished reading Lorrie Moore’s *I’m Homeless, **If This is Not My Home. *I’ve only read her short stories, but this was a real experience. I’m a fast reader, and some of the lyrical passages were *just breathtaking*, but I couldn’t slow down enough to really savor them, as much as they deserved. I’ll wait a week, and then reread it. Anyway it inspired a whole new stab at my short-story-in-progress (literally about 30 drafts of it now)(Cant’. Let. Go.)(but this is the last, I swears).
Anyway thank you again for the article on illustrating with collage. And thank you for not putting it behind a paywall. Yeeeaaah. I’ve kind of decided the paywall thing is the admission price for reading one’s colleague outside of a peer-review journal. Which is fine. But thank you!
Take care!
Cheers, Mary Carter
Hey Mary Carter! Thanks for your lovely comment and update. Glad to hear you’re doing so much writing, and I love the idea of using the typewriter fonts for a prose piece and turning it into collage! I just finished Lorrie Moore’s book too!
-Kelcey
I love this so much. I doodle around with drawing, but have never seriously thought about combining with my writing. I especially love the connection to flash and juxtaposed images–as that is sort of the way I tend to write anyway. Thanks so much for the inspiration!
Ooh, I hope you start combining your doodles with your writing!
-Kelcey
This is so much fun!
Great to hear! Thanks for reading!
-Kelcey
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