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Meet THe Team
Interested in writing and drawing your own graphic memoir? Join Malaka Gharib, author of two graphic memoirs, I Was Their American Dream and It Won't Always Be Like This, as she breaks down the writing and drawing process. That includes deciding on which part of your life you want to share, maintaining a sense of privacy and talking with family members about your project. You also don't need to be a professional artist to make a graphic novel. She'll show how other writers — like Mira Jacob, author of Good Talk and Liana Finck, author of Passing for Human — were able to express their graphic memoirs visually and creatively without much professional illustration.
• In-Class Writing Lift: Light
• Homework: None
• Workshopping Drafts: Optional
Use code EARLYBIRD through June 4 for 10% off. (Members, check your email for your special 20% off limited-time discount code.)
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Malaka Gharib is a journalist, cartoonist and graphic novelist. She is the author of I Was Their American Dream, a graphic memoir published in 2019 about being first-generation Filipino Egyptian American, which won an Arab American Book Award in 2020. Then in 2022, she published It Won't Always Be Like This, a graphic memoir about her summers in the Middle East.
By day, she works as a digital editor at NPR for Life Kit, a lifestyle podcast about health, finance, relationships and more. Her comics and writing have been published in the Los Angeles Times, Catapult, The Believer Magazine and The New Yorker. She has been profiled in The Washington Post and The New York Times. Some of her comics and zines are archived at the Smithsonian Institution, the New York Public Library, the Arab American Museum and Barnard College’s Zine Library. Her art and writing has been exhibited at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Harvard Radcliffe Institute and Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery. She lives in Nashville, Tenn., with her husband, son and Shiba Inu.
"Malaka's class was fantastic! I appreciated how thoroughly she covered everything from the storytelling to the 'nuts and bolts' of creating a graphic memoir. She was thoughtful, reflective, and absolutely inspiring. I especially appreciated how respectful and encouraging she was about people's work and ideas."
"I loved this class. Malaka was vibrant, incredibly articulate, totally inspiring, and so open about her experience."
"Malaka was super engaging and inspiring! It was very insightful to hear about her own professional journalism practices and writing process. Every question asked was answered with a lot of thought and care."
