Meredith Holmes

I'm primarily a writer -- a poet and a freelance writer/editor. I loved to draw as a kid and took classes at the Philadelphia College of Art from the time was 13 until I graduated from high school. I got discouraged about my drawing ability, and decided not to go to the Philadelphia College of Art for college. I did no drawing at all for many years, but recently I've been doing collage, something else I've always loved. I've also always admired botanical art, and took several botanical drawing classes at the Cleveland Botanical Garden. When I discovered graphic novels, I became excited about the possibility combining writing and drawing to tell stories. I'm still annoyed by the limitations of my drawing, but the only way to get better is to draw a lot. I grew up on the cartoons of George Price and the comics in the newspaper. My whole family loved, laughed at, and even framed cartoons from the New Yorker. I never get tired of looking at the work of William Steig. Contemporary artists/graphic novelists I like are Lynda Barry, Craig Thompson, and Alison Bechdel. I loved "Aya," by Marguerite Abouet and Clement Oubrerie. It expanded my idea of what a graphic novel can do.