It's been a year of many "firsts" for me, but I don't think I'll soon forget this one: a student at an East Coast university wrote a few days ago saying that he/she (his/her sex isn't evident from his/her name) is taking an "International Graphic Novel" class and is writing a final paper on Mom's Cancer. The student plans to focus on "the art of your work and how your artistic decisions and the different styles you take up have allowed the reader to understand and sympathize with the characters."
The student asked a few questions about how and why I drew what I drew. Being a sucker for both flattery and academic legitimacy, I spilled my guts and told him/her about nearly every jot of style, symbolism, metaphor, foreshadowing, and any other literary or artistic device I remembered employing (although I kept a few secrets to myself). It was fun.
I hope I get to see the result. In any case, it provided my most recent jolting reminder of the impact my story has had among so many people I'll never know. It's a bit unsettling to realize my book's out there with a life of its own, and it's nice when it sends home a postcard from Germany, Australia, Brazil, or an East Coast university to let me know it's doing fine.
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2 comments:
Well, you should give away all your secrets! I think it is great you get so much feedback!
My dad read your book, because I brought it to California. He said it reminded him of what Laurianne went through also.
Brian, that is *SO* awesome. I am so excited for you. The little write-up I did for our newsletter is going to print soon so another 30K people or so will get to read about Mom's Cancer. :-)
I'm just so pleased and happy to know your book has touched as many people as it has, with the numbers continuing to grow every day. I think the college crowd/young adults are a demographic (both as cancer survivors and people who've been touched closely by this disease) that a lot of people tend to forget about and who have not been very sought out by groups that provide supportive resources. Stories like this just go to show how much your book resonates with people of all ages from all sorts of walks of life (which is true of cancer itself - it doesn't discriminate against anything or anybody).
Actually, I might contact you directly about this, but there's a young guy from a college back east who is trying to become more of an activist in that arena to reach out to college students who've lost a parent to cancer. He lost his mom to a bt, which is how I know about him, but I would love to tell him about your book and connect the two of you (as if you needed to add to your list of people to meet!). Obviously this is all of intrinsic interest to me based on my age and I'm hoping to do more program development here at NBTF for young adults as well.
ANYWAY, that was long-winded. Just giving you a big ol' thumbs up and as always, keep up the fabulous work!!
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