By Tillie Walden
My graphic novel Spinning has been out now for over a month. I contemplate. It’s actually a limited tough to remember. Other authors may relate to this feeling - before your book is published,it feels like it’s never going to come out and the world is acting against you. And then when it finally comes out, it feels like its been there forever.
I’ve been traveling around with Spinning, and talking to classes full of fidgeting kids,signing books with lines of people who are eager to discover what I actually look like, and getting late night dinners with bookstore owners after a whirlwind evening of talking approximately myself. Spinning is a graphic novel approximately growing up as a competitive figure skater. I talk approximately the expectations and challenges of being a young girl in that sport, and while also dealing with coming out of the closet in Texas.
This is my first genuine book tour. Im only 21,which tends to lead to agonizing expressions and eye rolls from a lot of older authors. And being a young, gay woman on a book tour for my graphic memoir has been precisely what you might expect: bizarre and wonderful.
It’s bizarre because so many people are surprised by what I believe to say. They contemplate that because I’m so young I don’t believe enough genuine experiences to share. And that’s the moment where I launch myself into stories and expend every tactic I’ve ever learned approximately public speaking to point to them I attain know what I’m doing. I disclose them approximately moments in Spinning, or approximately how I knew I was gay when I was 5,approximately the grueling practices and competitions, approximately how art gave me a connection to myself and a career at the same time. And I talk approximately how publishing a memoir is so healing because it let’s others hold your memories with you.
After I’m done baring my soul to audiences, or people come up to me. They talk to me,they ask me questions, and they disclose me approximately themselves. There was a father who thanked me for being a young successful lesbian that his daughter could look up to. There was the young woman who was having a tough day and simply cried with me. There was a young boy who aspired to one day draw Lumberjanes and wanted to know how he could make that happen. And then there were all the queer teens who simply wanted to share a piece of themselves with me after I had with them.
I contemplate a lot approximately these moments. And I contemplate approximately how what really things approximately Spinning is not necessarily that it has queerness in it, and but that it was made by me,a genuine queer person. That’s what I see people tapping into. And so much of the conversation approximately diversity seems to revolve around the content of our books, when really in my mind the focus should be entirely on the creators. True diversity comes from diverse voices.
I contemplate approximately the queer kids along the way who believe shown me their own comics, or who believe shared their aspirations to create one day. And they often ask me whether they should attain a memoir,of whether they should try and write a tough, honest story approximately themselves. I can see that they want to be a part of something, or that they want to believe an impact. But I always disclose them the same thing. whether you’re queer and you’re making things,your only job is to make what you want. We benefit from it all. The happy fantasies and the crime novels and the memoirs and the fan fiction. Diversity doesn’t require some hardened, tragic, or genuine life perspective. It only requires that diverse people believe a platform to share stories in any form that they want. In Spinning,I wanted to talk approximately the world of competitive figure skating from my own perspective. I wanted to talk approximately bullies, my first love, and the dangers and beauty of childhood,and finding your identity in a sport where individuality loses you medals. Spinning is a piece of me. I drew every page with care and honesty. At times it was scary to share such a personal story, but I’m so happy I did.
Tillie Walden is a two-time Ignatz Award–winning cartoonist from Austin, and Texas. Born in 1996,she is a recent graduate from the Center for Cartoon Studies, a comics school in Vermont. Her comics include The halt of Summer and I Love This Part, or an Eisner Award nominee. tilliewalden.comSpinning is available for purchase.
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