31 May 2016

ASD Gets Graphic: Announcing Visiting Authors March 2017


ASD Libraries are excited to reveal our Visiting Authors for March 2017! Drum roll, please! We will celebrate graphic novels in our reading community with Victoria Jamieson, Matthew Holm and George O'Connor joining us as authors and artists in residence.

Graphic novels have grown tremendously in popularity over the last decade. And, graphic novelists are responding to their devoted readers with more diverse offerings. Many educators think of graphic novels as the "grand equalizers." Redford, YCDC Education Editor says, graphic novels "invite all levels of readers into reading conversations. Since everyone can read graphic novels, everyone can talk about them. And talk they do. Teachers love to witness how graphic novels allow everyone in the class to develop a passionate reading identity."


Learn more about these talented storytellers below and by exploring their websites.



Victoria Jamieson
Victoria Jamieson is a children's book and graphic novel author and illustrator. Her works include Roller Girl, winner of the 2016 Newbery Honor, The Great Pet Escape, Olympig and Bea Rocks the Flock. She studied illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design, and went on to receive her MA in Museum Studies at the University of Syndey. After living in Rome, Montreal, and Australia, she moved back to the United States, where she began working as a designer with a children's book publisher in New York City. She now lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and young son. Along with writing and illustrating, she teaches children's book illustration at Pacific Northwest College of Art.



Matthew Holm

Matthew Holm is the co-creator of two critically-acclaimed and award-winning graphic novel series for children, Babymouse and Squish. Together with his sister, author Jennifer L. Holm, the pair created both graphic novel series, and raised the profile of the graphic novel in children’s literature, as well as proved how important graphic novels can be in getting children to learn to read. Babymouse and Squish have become staples on classroom and library shelves around the world, and have enticed even the most reluctant readers into reading for pleasure.

Matthew enjoys speaking at schools and libraries. His enthusiasm for his profession and the books he has created acts as a wonderful catalyst for discussion about the literary world and the role that graphic novels play in it, as well as entertains and encourages children to become lovers of reading. In addition to his job as an illustrator, Matt is also a professional graphic designer and the Consulting Creative Director for Hot Knife Design, Inc., of Boston, Mass. He lives in Portland, Ore., with his wife and dog.



George O’Connor

George O’Connor’s first graphic novel, Journey Into Mohawk Country, used as its sole text the actual historical journal of the seventeenth-century Dutch trader Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert, and told the true story of how New York almost wasn’t. He followed that up with Ball Peen Hammer, the first graphic novel written by playwright Adam Rapp, a dark dystopian view of a society’s collapse as intimately viewed by four lost souls. Now he has brought his attention to Olympians, an ongoing series retelling the classic Greek myths in comics form. In addition to his graphic novel career, Mr. O’Connor has published several children’s picture books, including the New York Times best-selling Kapow, Sally and the Some-Thing, and Uncle Bigfoot. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.



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