📌Making the choice to protect each other 📌
I had expected to wait in a long line for my COVID vaccine; I’d even brought a book to read. But instead, volunteers in neon vests briskly waved me through a route of arrows and check-in points at the Oregon Convention Center. In past years in this fluorescently lit room, I’ve sold zines, bought cute mugs, and heard authors speak. But now the room is full of 200 tables staffed by people in scrubs and camo uniforms—doctors, nurses, the Coast Guard, and the National Guard all checking people in and asking them to roll up their sleeves. At the Convention Center, 1,000 people an hour are getting the shot.
The news these past weeks has been full of warnings that Americans are refusing to get vaccinated. While people around the world can’t even get the life-saving vaccines, half of Republican men in the United States say they will not get vaccinated. People have joked for years about the Republican party being a death cult, but now it seems tragically literal.
As I waited a few moments for an open vaccination table, I looked around me. The room was full of more people than I’d seen in over a year. In front of me was a family, what I took to be a daughter and mom helping grandma, who used a walker, slowly step toward a waiting nurse. Behind me were two young friends or maybe siblings wearing stylish hoodies and cool sneakers. All around me were hundreds of people from all walks of life. It’s these people who get lost in the headlines about the difficulty of vaccine efforts—the regular majority of people who want to do the right and reasonable thing for themselves and their community. Nobody was shouting or parading or protesting, there was no music or songs or flag-waving. The scene felt quiet and mundane. Like an airport, where we’re all going to the same destination. I felt my eyes sting with tears. 1,000 people an hour, all making the choice to protect each other.
Stuff I Made
Pro-vaccine patch and stickers - I made this sticker and patch design to celebrate getting vaccinated, but also to help fundraise for vaccine access around the world. So far, 75% of COVID vaccines have been sent to just 10 countries. I’m donating all the profits from these stickers and patches to the vaccine access campaign run by Partners in Health.
Comic on Preschool for All ballot measure - I helped Oregon Humanities magazine create a series of four comics about civic engagement. Check out Lucy Bellwood’s comic about who’s left out of voting in Oregon and mine about the ballot measure that passed universal preschool in the county.
Interview with Nate Powell - For The Nib, I got to talk to absolutely wonderful and talented cartoonist Nate Powell, who is the illustrator of the March series, about his new book Save it for Later: Promises, Parenthood, and the Urgency of Protest. You can listen to the interview on Youtube.
Big award, huzzah! Guantanamo Voices won an award from the Penn State University Library system. The Lynd Ward graphic novel prize is presented annually to the best graphic novel, fiction or nonfiction, published in the past year by a living U.S. or Canadian author.
Upcoming Events
Conversation on mass incarceration myths: Today (Sunday, May 9th) at 6:30pmEST/3:30pm PST I’m talking to author Victoria Law about her new book “‘Prisons Make Us Safer’ and 20 Other Myths About Mass Incarceration.” The event is hosted by Charis Books, the country’s oldest feminist bookstore.
Teen zine camp - If you live in Portland and have a human child between 11-13, I’m helping lead a three-day after-school zines and comics camp for the IPRC this month. Check out the IPRC’s Show/Tell camps.
Stuff I Love
My new puppy - I am writing this newsletter from a dark hole of sleep deprivation. After applying for many dogs over many months, Ben and I were finally approved to adopt a fresh 11-week-old pup from Texas through Western Australian Shepard Rescue. She is not an Australian Shepard, but some kind of coonhound-lab mix. We named her Twyla and are in love but also would very much like her to sleep through the night.
Adorable “Slow Down” signs - Portland artist Mike Bennet made these super cute traffic calming signs. I got the turtle, but I love all three options.
New season of Shrill - The third and final season of Shrill, based on Lindy West’s memoir, is here and it is so much fun to watch. I love every single actor in this show.
Friday night comics workshops with The Believer - Every Friday at 4pm PST, the Believer has been hosting free comics and zines workshops, each week with a different wonderful artist. This is the perfect way for me to feel inspired instead of burned out at the end of a long week.
Bright orange overalls - These overalls from Duluth Trading Company are truly the outfit of my dreams. I bought a pair and am absolutely making them my summer uniform.
What I’m Reading
The Undocumented Americans - This searing mix of reporting and memoir from Karla Cornejo Villavicencio burns through all the myths and stereotypes about the lives of undocumented people in America to present an empathetic, honest portrait of life without papers.
Know My Name - I put off reading Chanel Miller’s memoir because I didn’t really want to pick up a story detailing sexual violence. But the book is surprisingly joyful, funny, and heart-poundingly resilient. I cried at least five times reading this, all at moments of tenderness and love.
A Hundred Little Hitlers - Ben makes fun of me for reading this at night. Just a little light bedtime reading! Reporter Elinor Langer’s in-depth account of the rise of white supremacy on the west coast during the 1970s and 80s—culminating in the murder of an Ethiopian man in Portland—is astonishingly prescient to our current moment. I keep having to double-check that this book was written in 2003 and not 2016.
Wizard of Earthsea series - I’m still working my way through this six-book series, loving it more with each book. I am dying to talk to people about the fourth book, Tehanu, which turns the series on its head: women point out all the hypocrisies and inequalities of living in a patriarchal wizarding world. Imagine if the fourth book of Harry Potter was told from the perspective of muggle women.
Something to Do
Donate to support COVID relief in India - People in the United States are quickly planning for a post-COVID summer. There’s nothing wrong with reveling in “hot vax summer,” but I’m also feeling the terrible disparity between countries my current situation and parts of the world where COVID is still raging. If you can, pitch in to help support people working on the ground in India, where cases have reached record levels.
I'll send out another update soon. In the meantime, you can follow me on Instagram and Twitter. You can also support my work on Patreon and receive wonderful things in the mail. The archive of past newsletters is right here.