Take a little walk to the edge of town, and go across the tracks to where the Schnappviecher looms like a… well, like a Schnappviecher, and you’ll find cartoonist Marie Enger binding that prickling shiver up the back of your neck into the shape of ink on paper.
Read moreConversations: Archie Bongiovanni with Greg Baldino
Mimosa, the new queer graphic novel from Archie Bongiovanni opens with middle aged queer people lamenting the state of their careers and sex lives and let me tell you I feel seen.
Read moreConversations: Michelle Ross with Jamie Thome
Last fall, we spoke with Michelle Ross, who is the Fiction Editor at Atticus Review.
Read moreEp 43: Maria Pisano with Jamie Thome
For this ABH Conversation, Jamie Lou Thome talked with international book artist and curator Maria Pisano.
Read moreConversations: Martha Meyer with Jamie Thome
The Blueberry Awards, including the 25 honor Books and the Blueberry Changemaker Books, are given to children’s books for 3 - 10 year olds in a certain year that help kids love nature and act on its behalf.
Read moreConversations: Jessi Zabarski with Greg Baldino
I first encountered Jessi Zabarsky's work when she tabled at the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo many years ago. I WANT TO EAT EVERYTHING said the cover, above a cartoon bunny flung over a pile of fruits and vegetables and pastries and--I had to buy it.
Read moreEp 42: Brandon Graham with Jamie Thome
For this ABH Conversation, Jamie Lou Thome talked with Brandon Graham about writing, making art, raising children, and life in general.
Read moreConversations: Karen Bonner with Eileen Madden
Karen Bonner’s debut novel, Witching Moon, is magical tale of healers and mysterious immortals living just the other side of our awareness.
Read moreConversations: Jamie Lou Thome with Kerry Littel
As a person who interacts with books in multiple ways, I’m constantly interested in the reasons why a person chooses to surround themselves with books, in whatever ways they do so. I’m fascinated by the variations of ways that books might show up in people’s lives: as escape through story, as art pieces, as objects of desire.
Read moreConversations: Todd Summar with Adam McOmber
The title of Adam McOmber’s latest novel, The Ghost Finders, is deceptively simple. Occult detectives Henry Coxton, Violet Asquith, and their not-quite-human associate Christopher X search for spirits, or what they call abnaturals, as Coxton & Co. in Edwardian-era London.
Read moreEp 41: Sarah Noreen
For this ABH Conversation, Jamie Lou Thome talked with Sarah Noreen about how cool her job is at the U.S. Government Publishing Office, about how identity and memory shapes her book artist work, about paper marbling, and more.
Read moreConversations: Carol Tilley with Marnie Galloway
In a class I teach at the University of Illinois for future librarians on helping readers find comics they’ll enjoy, I regularly share a two-page spread from Marnie Galloway’s mini-comic Medusa.
Read moreConversations: Shawn Sheehy with Emily Martin
Emily Martin is one of today’s most prolific book artists—and one of the few who consistently integrates paper-engineered structures into her projects. Enjoy reading about her process!
Read moreEp 40: Emily Martin
For this ABH Conversation, Jamie Lou Thome talked with book artist Emily Martin about the work she produced during shelter-in-place in 2020.
Read moreEp 39: Don Widmer
Don Widmer combines hand papermaking, bookbinding, and printing to create works inspired by storytelling and real and imagined histories.
Read moreConversations: Eileen Madden with Adam Morgan
You know when a friend visits from out of town, you can see your home town in a whole new light? You visit places you haven’t seen in a while, and you might even learn about hidden treasures you didn’t know where there. Adam Morgan is that friend to the Chicago book community.
Read moreConversations: Todd Summar with Julia Fine
Though it was just released on February 23, 2021, Julia Fine’s sophomore novel, The Upstairs House, has already garnered considerable praise. Sarah Lyall of The New York Times called it “bonkers, provocative...an assured, beautifully written book.”
Read moreEp 38: Helen Hiebert, Part One
This is PART One of our ABH Conversation with paper maker and artist Helen Hiebert! Helen Hiebert Studio’s mission is to share and expand the love of hand paper making and paper crafts with newcomers and to expand the knowledge of experienced artists through artwork, online and in-person classes, retreats, videos, how-to books, a blog and a podcast.
Read moreEp 38: Helen Hiebert, Part Two
This is PART TWO of our ABH Conversation with paper maker and artist Helen Hiebert! Helen Hiebert Studio’s mission is to share and expand the love of hand paper making and paper crafts with newcomers and to expand the knowledge of experienced artists through artwork, online and in-person classes, retreats, videos, how-to books, a blog and a podcast.
Read moreConversations: Lee Bey with Jamie Thome
I can’t remember which friend posted about the work of Lee Bey, a Chicago-based journalist and photographer, but I’m indebted to them. Paging through Mr. Bey’s book, Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side, has been revelatory.
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