Headlands Center for the Arts

Artist Statement

I graduated with a degree in fine art from Cooper Union college in 2008 and have been making comics and cartoons since then. My cartoons are published in The New Yorker, and my second graphic novel, Passing for Human, was published by Random House in 2018. I post autobiographical cartoons on Instagram several times a day. I’ve had a Fulbright fellowship, a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in fiction, and a Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists, along with residencies at MacDowell, Yaddo, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Center. I was born in New York State and live in New York City.

While at Headlands

While at Headlands I’ll be finishing a book, due at Random House fall 2019, that’s a rendition of the Old Testament with a female God. Without straying too much from the original text, which I translated from Hebrew, I’m making God into the main character and exploring the reasons behind her actions. This is a way for me to revisit my Jewish upbringing through the filter of my more recent feminist interests—to reexamine and reshape what I’ve been told. When I’m in the finishing stages with a graphic novel, I put aside my freelance work so I can focus only on the graphic novel. It’s a wonderful time, but also a lonely time—one at which I’d be especially grateful for the company and support of the Headlands residency.

Artist headshot by Jorge Colombo