Alison Bechdel

Last night I had the pleasure of meeting Alison Bechdel at a Barnes & Noble in New York City. Alison's autobiography, Fun Home, is a full-length graphic novel memoir. The packaging is brilliant, as it looks like any hardcover book. But when you open the pages, you see the pen and ink art and witty, intelligent dialog that Alison is known for. In The New York Times Sunday Book Review, Sean Wilsey called it "a pioneering work, pushing two genres (comics and memoir) in multiple new directions." It was also nominated for many awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award and three Eisner Awards.

But most importantly, I was so very curious to see how a graphic novelist would do a reading. Would she just read from the comics? Would she act out the parts? Would she skip the reading and just talk about the process of creating graphic novels? I was happy to discover a multi-media presentation. Alison projected panels from various publications on a screen, let the audience read the talk bubbles, then made comments. After, she did an extensive question and answer period.

Of course I got my book signed, and while I was at it I questioned her on her next book. She is working on another graphic novel autobiography, which will pick up where Fun Home ended (around the college years). She was so sweet (thanking us for coming and waiting in line) and nice - some day I'll meet a mean author and blog all about how horrible they are, but so far I've only had great author interactions.

After the talk, we drove home through Central Park and down 5th Avenue. All of the stores had people working in the windows, setting up the elaborate Christmas displays. Some of the trees in Central Park were covered in lights already and lit-up snowflakes lined 5th Avenue. The tree was shipped in and set up at Rockefeller Center yesterday too. I guess the Holiday season is upon us!