This project started when someone asked me the question, “What was the most dangerous thing that you did as a teenager?” When I started to write, I found the angry voice of a young woman I had almost forgotten about, and it really made me think about the risks that I took and why – and how hard but exciting those years were!
The three stories I have written are really about the hazardous journey we take when we realise that our parents are not the heroes that we would like them to be. To survive this disappointment we need to establish our own sense of empowerment, and to form our own communities. In many ways this book is a thank you to those people – parents, friends, strangers – who saved me from myself in those years.
At fifteen my mother married a Canadian and moved us to rural Ontario. Her carefully planned new beginning was not as ideal as she had hoped…but this book is not really about all that drama.
Its about being an outsider…
The desperate need to be noticed…
The amazing generosity of the people we meet along the way…
and how important it is to embrace the pretentiousness of self-discovery…
So far I have printed the first two stories as short comics to sell at comic arts events, but with this Kickstarter I will illustrate the final story and print all three as one longer book. I also hope to be able to extend my audience beyond the lovely people that I meet at comic conventions,
I would love to reach the goal of £750 – then I can send out hardback copies.
The only possible risk with this Kickstarter is that it can be hard to find time to work on personal projects. This is my biggest book project to date, but I have successfully produced a book each year for the past three years, so I am pretty confident that I will be able to complete the project by the target date.