>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, DC. >> Nora Krug: Thank you and welcome to the National Book
Festival, now in its 16th year. Sorry that I'm not Raina. I have to keep you two more
minutes until she comes out. But my name is Nora and I'm a
books editor at the Washington Post and we are a charter
sponsor of the festival. And what can I say? We all love Raina. This book, I just gave to my
daughter who's seven, last week, and we were in a bookstore and
she didn't have anything to say and I asked her how'd she like
the book, how was it going. She didn't say anything. And then I said, you know, next
weekend, I might be meeting that author, what do you think? Do you like her? She didn't say anything. And then I just was about to say
something else and she turned around and said those words that every
parent wants to hear, "Mom, stop asking me questions. I'm reading." So, I really want to thank Raina
for, you know, we're now already on, I think, her third or
fourth of this week and I've got more coming
in the mail, but anyway. So we have, of course, there's
"Smile," "Sisters" and "Ghosts" and "Baby-Sitters Club" and I bet
you've all experienced what I have and I know thousands of other people
feel this way because I just saw, noticed that Raina has, I think,
five books on the bestseller list, in the New York Times
bestseller list this week which is a pretty amazing
achievement and very, very much well-deserved. She's really inspired a lot
of young readers and I see-- love to see all of you out here. I just have one small
bit of housekeeping. It's that I hope you all were able to get your books signed
earlier today. She's not going to be able to
be signing after this event, so I hope you were able to do that. She loves to meet you all but
we've got a lot of you here. So, without further
ado, Raina Telgemeier. [ Cheering and Applause ] >> Raina Telgemeier: Hi, guys. How's everybody doing? [ Cheering and Applause ] Awesome. So, I'm Raina
and I think we're going to just quickly do a test to
make sure my clicker works. It does, excellent. So, I'm the creator of some graphic
novels, "Smile," "Sisters," "Drama," "The Baby-Sitters Club"
graphic novels, and my newest graphic
novel is called "Ghosts." And to introduce you
guys to this book, what I'd love to do is get a
couple of people to come up here and read a chapter with me on stage. So, we need two readers. We need somebody to play Cat who's
the older sister and she's kind of-- she's a little sarcastic and she's
a little like not happy to be here. So, I guess I need somebody
who's really not happy to be here at all today, like just
really having a horrible time. Are you having a horrible time
today, with a hat, my friend? Can you fake it? You're a good actor. Let's get you up on stage. All right. And now we need somebody to play
Maya who's the little sister and she is a ball of energy. She is excited about everything. You also need to be a very
good reader to play this role. Are you a good reader? >> Yes. >> Raina Telgemeier: OK. Let's get you up on stage. All right. Here's the thing though, I think
we need to stand off the stage so that we can see
the screen better. So, come on down. Now, I've gotten you up here. And I actually have a job
for the audience as well. So, what I want for you guys to do
is to do all of the sound effects. So, we need a rehearsal
very quickly. This doesn't require you guys
to yell because there are so many people in this room. But if we can do a sound effect for
a cellphone like this on the screen, like what would that sound like? It's good. And then what about this one? All right. You're going to see this sound
effect three times in this story. So the first time, I
want it to be very quiet. So let's try that real quiet. OK, then slightly louder. And then super loud. Is this going to be so good? OK, what about this one? How about this? All right. So this one's a little different. Maya has cystic fibrosis
and that means that she wears this special vest to
help kick the mucus out of her lungs and make it easier
for her to cough up. So for this one, I want this
half of the audience do the sound of Maya's vest which
you see on screen. So let's try that from here on over. OK. And you guys on this
side of the room get to pound on your chest while you sing. All right, now everybody
all together, please. Amazing. All right. So this story starts the
way every good story does, out of fake In-N-Out burger
because I can't use In-N-Out as copyright infringement
in my books. And now, Cat and Maya, you guys
are going to stand next to me. We have to share the microphone. We're going to read off the screen. Dad starts off by saying "One
Double-Back combo, one Cheese-Back with fries, a double Napoleon
shake," and then Maya says-- >> Don't forget my soda! >> Raina Telgemeier:
Here you go, girls. >> Do they have Double-Back
Burger in our new town, dad? >> Raina Telgemeier:
I don't think so, Cat. They only have them down
here in Southern California. >> What are we even going
to eat in our new town? >> Raina Telgemeier: We are moving. Up north and to the coast. Dad got a new job, but we all
know the real reason we're going. My little sister, Maya. She's not a healthy kid. I'm trying not to be selfish. The text says, "Hey Cat, my
bubbe is cooking dinner tonight. You want to come over? Oh, right, I forgot." But it's hard. You OK back there, Cat? >> Yeah. I'm OK. >> Raina Telgemeier:
Maya has cystic fibrosis. It's a thing you're born with. It affects breathing and digestion. How about a little music? Click. And this is the
part where I tell you guys that I could not use the
actual lyrics from "Frozen." So instead of using those lyrics,
we used "Let it out, let it out. Can't hold it in, got to shout." And there's no cure. Mom and dad are dragging
us to this gloomy place, Bahia de la Luna, California. They say the sun only shines
here 62 days of the year. When I heard that, I'd said. >> Ew, I'd rather die. >> Raina Telgemeier: Which
did not go over very well. >> I'm going to miss Ari
and Maddie and Hibah. >> Raina Telgemeier: Of course, I
don't want to die and I want Maya to be as healthy as possible. Duh! >> You mean all of my friends? What about your friends? >> They're my friends, too. >> Raina Telgemeier: Cat? >> Yes, Maya, they're
your friends, too. >> Raina Telgemeier:
This is it, girls. >> The green one? >> Raina Telgemeier:
No, the little red one. >> Cat, this place is so cool. >> Mmm. >> I can't believe
we get to live here. Look, look, look, the
ocean is so close. >> It's freezing. I'm going inside. So dark in here. >> Raina Telgemeier:
What do you think, Cat? >> It's dark. >> Raina Telgemeier: It's perfect. >> Ha. >> Cat! Gasp, pant. Come see my new-- come,
come downstairs. Come see my new room! >> OK, I'm coming. Hey, it's cozy in here. >> Watch this. Cannonball! Cough, cough, cough. >> Raina Telgemeier: It's about time
for your breathing treatment, Maya. Oh, oh, oh, yeah. The vest helps loosen
the mucus in her lungs. Her soul does not need
any loosening, though. >> Mom? >> Raina Telgemeier: Maya's
vest just blew a fuse, sweetie. You OK up there? >> Yeah, I just-- I just don't
know this house very well yet. >> Raina Telgemeier: Why
don't you take your sister to explore the town while we work
on getting the power back on? And so-- >> Oh, it's a secret pathway. >> Maya! We don't know
what's down there. Ha. >> Maybe this path will
lead us to-- kitty! >> Don't touch it! >> Why not? It's so cute. >> Because you know what they say about letting a black
cat cross your path. It's bad luck. And you had enough bad luck lately. Come on, let's see
where this thing leads. I'm actually feeling cold. >> Raina Telgemeier: Oh no. [ Inaudible Remark ] >> OK. Whoa. >> Raina Telgemeier:
Awesome job, you guys. Thank you. You can have a seat. [ Applause ] OK. Where's Sheila Marie? I missed-- there she is. OK. I forgot. I knew I was going to forget. I want to take a selfie with
you guys, can we do that? OK. We might have to take two
because it's such a big crowd. So, I've been doing this at every
event that I do and then I put them on Instagram and I'm goraina there. So, everybody here, it's best if
you hold up your books or your arms and look as amazing as possible. So, one, and then one
on this direction. Yeah. Right side of the room. OK. Thanks so much you guys. All right. So, quickly, I'm going to
talk a little bit about comics and about why I make
them, how I make them, starting with my influence
as in my inspiration because the number one
question that comics creators and writers get asked
is "What inspired you, what influenced your work?" And for me, it kind of
goes back to something kind of important, cartoons
on television. I love anything animated,
"The Smurfs" and "Scooby-Doo," anything Disney. I also love to read and some of my favorite books were
realistic and temporary fiction. That means books about kids
who where kind of like me. So a lot of my favorites were things
like the "The Baby-Sitters Club" and Judy Blume and "Ramona" books. And then I discovered comic strips when I was nine years
old in the newspaper. The first comic strip I fell in
love with was "Calvin and Hobbes" which is about a boy named
Calvin and his tiger, Hobbes. And these two have big
imaginations, they're very funny. I love reading this comic strip. So it was very interesting, but it
was also just super fun to look at. I love the drawings. It's just minds on paper and yet to meet these characters
felt like they were alive. My other favorite comic
was "For Better or for Worse" by Lynn Johnston. This is a comic about a very
average suburban family. There's a mom and a dad
and a brother and a sister and I also have a mom and a
dad and a brother and a sister. So it's kind of like reading about
my own life, except in comics. Uniquely about "For Better
or for Worse" is the fact that the characters
all age in real time. So every year, they would get
older and so with I and I was about the same age as the kids. So it was almost like we
were growing up together. It was almost like they were my next
door neighbors or my best friends and not comic strip characters. So the lines were very blurred between what was real
and what was fiction. And then when I was 10, my
dad gave me this book to read. It's called "Barefoot Gen" a
cartoon story of Hiroshima. So this was sort of
a true life account of the author's experience
living through the atomic bombing of Japan during World War II and
so I started to read this book. It was about these kids and they ran
around and they sing and they dance and they're very silly and I
was actually kind of enjoying it and at the end of the book, the
bomb falls and half the characters in the story actually die. And so when I read this,
three things happen. Number one, I was really mad at my
dad for giving me this book to read. Number two, I was mad
at such a horrible thing that happened in the world. And number three, I was mad because
I thought that comics were supposed to be fun, I thought they were
supposed to make you laugh and feel happy and this
book did the opposite. So, it was kind of like the rug
had been pulled out from under me but it made me aware of the fact that comics could be incredibly
powerful ways to tell stories, any kind of story you want. So I sort of filed that
away in my head for later. And this is what the
interior looked like. It was a manga. It was created in the 70s in Japan. It was in black and white. But I went back to
reading fun stuff. So, "Bone" by Jeff Smith
is something I discovered when I was in college. Anybody here read "Bone"
by Jeff Smith? Awesome. So, those of you that
have your hands in the air, did you guys read this book in
color or in black and white? I'm hearing mostly color,
a few black and whites. When I read "Bone" it looked like
this, it was a black and white comic and that's because Jeff Smith,
the artist and the writer, used to self-publish and that
means he was spending his own money to print and distribute it and it's
a lot cheaper to do that with black and white comics than it is
to do so with color ones. So that's how influences work. You put everything into the blender
inside of your brain and what comes out are the types of
things you like to draw, the kinds of stories
you like to tell. It's all influence going inside of
you and then what comes out is kind of your own stamp on things. And so now, I'm going to show
you some of my early work. Because another thing people always
want to know is were you always as good at drawing and I'm
like, "Yeah, obviously." So what you see on the
left there is a scribble from just before my second birthday. And just like most kids,
my parents gave me crayons and paper to play with. And I just really liked it. So I just kept going and
eventually, I got better. What you see on the right, I believe
from around my fourth birthday and I don't know why these
are people with pizza faces but I mean I was, you know,
they don't look like more than a scribble at that point. That's me and my sister Amara. She is five years younger than me. So, for a brief period I
was a better artist than her but she then very quickly
become a better artist than me. And you can see a few of my
drawings on the wall back there. It's, I believe, the Easter bunny
because it's a rabbit with a basket and then a mermaid there
on the right of my head. When I was in first grade, I had this amazing teacher named
Miss Stoopenkoff and she made up for her silly sounding
name by being one of the best teachers
I have ever had. She gave us this super
cool assignment where she gave us each a diary. And so one day, she'd
write us a letter and in the next day we'd write
her a letter in response. We did this for the entire year and
since I was just learning to write, I found this diary pretty recently and I could see my own
writing skills improve over the course of that year. But what I also realized and I
didn't even remember this part was that I used to make
comics in my little diary. So, as really as age
six I was making comics. I never even read a
comic at this point and yet somehow my brain was
just tuned to thinking in words and pictures together. So, this is my graduation
program from fifth grade. You can certainly see the influence
of "For Better or For Worse" on my work at this point and that's on the same time I started
making my own comic strips. And here is the thing, I
was not very good at it. In fact, I would say
I was terrible at it. I didn't know how to put
panel borders on things. I didn't really know how
to put dialog together and how to do punch lines. But the point is I stuck with
it and over the course of time, I got a little bit better. I'm not saying my comics
were funny at this point. I'm just saying that I kept with it and eventually I got
a little bit better. An illustration from my
seventh grade yearbook. At this point, my whole
goal was just to observe. So what were my friends wearing? What do they look like? How do they stand? What was there body language? All that stuff was
really important to me. And I kept a diary in comic
format just like I did in first grade pretty much all
the way to the end of college. So anything my friends and
I did, I would illustrate. This is us going to the
supermarket for lunch and talking about the gross types of
deli meats that they had. I was the illustrator for
my high school newspaper. This one was about prom dates,
which type of prom date you were. And eventually, I had to figure out
where I was going to go to college and I chose to go to a place called
the School of Visual Arts which is in New York City and I moved
there all the way from California. So, why that school in particular? Well, you can go there and you
can take painting and sculpture, photography, but you can also go
there and get a degree in cartooning which makes your mom really happy
that you have like a diploma for your wall that
says comics on it. But for some reason, oh, well, this
is another reason I wanted to go to New York is because
New York is awesome. "Sesame Street" told me that once
upon a time and then the movie "Oliver & Company" sold it to me
again when I was a little older. So, yes, you can take all
those usual art school things. This is a different
presentation than I usually get. It's kind of little rusty here. So here is the thing, I decided
to be an illustration major at the school and that just means
you're getting better at focusing on single images, painting
and drawing to make your single
images beautiful. But I'd go to my painting class,
for example, what you see here. The teacher would say
I would like a painting about a magical transformation
and I'd go, OK, well, that's cool. How about if I do two
paintings instead? And maybe after that painting
is done, I'll do three. Could I also maybe do four? I mean five? My teachers were like, "Raina,
just one painting," and I was like lots and lots of paintings. But what do they look like when you
line them all up against the wall? They look like a comic, right? That's all comics are. They are just words and pictures
and sequence that tell a story. So we did take a lot of cartooning
classes there and this is where I just had the most fun and I
made comics like this one which is about the fact that my college had a
lot of stairs and this one which is about my very first cup of tea, a
super fascinating subject, right? This is the entire comic,
just one page, and my goal is to capture a mood and a memory
on paper and that's what most of my short stories were about was
just these little memories I had on my head. So I took all these ideas, all these
short stories and collected them into something called minicomics
and that simply means a comic that you make yourself by hand. So I would go to the Xerox
machine, I would print my pages out and then fold them and staple them into these little booklets
called minicomics. I called my series "Take-Out." I did seven issues, each one was
12 pages long, black and white, short stories, mostly about my
childhood, and altogether I managed to print and distribute about 7000
copies of these little comics. And it's not like I just walked at
my front door and said, hey guys, I have comics, who wants them? I had to figure out how to
get them into people's hands. So, I would go to comic
bookstores and I would tell them that I was a creator and ask if
they wanted to sell my work there. And so they would take
half the commission and I would take the other half. I sold my books for a dollar
a piece, and that meant that sometimes I get
a check in the mail for like $2.50 and I was like yeah. But that's what's cool about comics since there is almost
no barrier for entry. So, anybody who wants
to do this can. You don't need that many tools. You can use a computer
or you can use a pencil. All you have to do is print
your books out and you can say that you're a self-publisher
which is really empowering. I also used to go to comic
conventions a lot and this is where, you know, 150,000 people
who love comics get together and gig out for a weekend. So it's like the National Book
Festival, only it's all comics. And you get a lot of people who
are fans, you get a lot of cosplay, you meet fellow creators, you meet
writers and artists and editors and all of the big publishers go. So it's Marvel Comics and
DC Comics and Archie Comics. And in the center of all
of that, self-publishers like me could also get a small table and sell my work to
that same audience. So one of the people I met at a comic convention was
a guy named David Saylor who was the editorial director
at Scholastic and was starting up something called
the graphics in print. And that means that Scholastic,
who's the publisher of, you know, the "Harry Potter" series
and "The Hunger Games" and all this other amazing stuff, was going to start
publishing comics, too, and the first comic they
published was "Bone" by Jeff Smith. So if you've read it in color it's because Scholastic
published it that way. And they asked me if I wanted to
work with them and I was like, oh my gosh, that's so exciting. But the problem is the longest story
I had ever written at that point in my life was eight pages long. Graphic novels tend to be
like a hundred pages long. So I was like what am I
going to do for these guys? And the answer was to go back
to something I was a huge fan of when I was a kid and that
would be "The Baby-Sitters Club" and this is a fan art I did of "The Baby-Sitters Club"
when I was 10 years old. So, I really have been a
fan for a very long time. So what I ended up doing was to take
this old-favorite series in mind and to adapt it into
graphic novel format. So what on earth does that
mean, to adapt something? Well, this is what the books used to
look like, just words, no pictures. But of course, these novels
were full of exposition and that means it was describing
what was happening in the scene. So it would say Claudia
is sitting on her bed, she is wearing this particular
outfit, she is eating Milk Duds and she turns to Kristy who is
sitting in the director's chair and she says-- so that's what
I would draw and then all of the dialog that was in the
books went right into the comics. So this is what they looked
like when I was done with them. And you might notice that something
is missing which is the color. All of my comics used to
be in black and white. So, we didn't think it was
too strange for me to publish "The Baby-Sitters Club"
comics in black and white. But, of course, 10 years later
we realize that kids really do like to read color comics so these
books have been republished in color by Scholastic just recently and it's
the same colorist who worked with me on "Sisters" and "Ghosts." His name is Braden Lamb
and he is fantastic. So it's been really amazing to see
these books get sort of a new life. And in fact, people always
want to know if there are more "Baby-Sitters Club" graphic
novels coming and I say there are but I'm not going to be
the person to draw them. So, but here's what's amazing. They're being drawn by an
artist named Gale Galligan. She used to be my assistant. So, she's somebody who's
very near and dear to me and she's an amazing artist and I think the first book
comes out next summer. So this is going to be done in the impossible three
BSC graphics number five. So I think you guys will
like that a lot too. So let me talk about "Smile." Thanks. [ Applause ] So "Smile" is kind of the book that changed my life
and it's a true story. And for those of you that
haven't read "Smile," I'm going to summarize it for you. So one evening, after a Girl Scout's
meeting, I was in sixth grade, I was running home with two of my
friends and I tripped and I fell and I knocked out my two front
permanent teeth and then I had to spend the rest of
middle school and half of high school without them. And that meant dealing with
surgery and braces and head gear and false teeth and
all sorts of things that made me feel like
I was a freak. And do you guys want to see a
photograph of what that looked like? If you don't, I'm really sorry,
I'm going to show it to you anyway. So, what happened was I fell and I
knocked one tooth completely out. It was lying on the pavement. And the other one got
shoved up into my gum. And then my dentist's
solution to that problem was to put them both back in place. But when he did so, as you can see,
suddenly my two front teeth sat up a little higher in my mouth
than they were supposed to. I think the bones above my
teeth had been damaged as well. So all of a sudden, I have
this weird gap in the front that made me look a little
bit like a vampire and that's where I got the name
Vampire Girl and that's when people started teasing me
and asking me what was wrong with my face and why
I look so weird. And I was already sort of a
self-conscious kid to begin with. I was very shy. So having people up in my face
all the time when I was already like going through puberty and stuff
was not exactly the way I wanted to spend sixth grade, but
I did not have a choice. So, the story has a
lot of dentistry in it. This scene, I'm getting an
impression of my mouth made which means that it's that tray
full of sticky stuff that they shove up into your mouth and
then you have to lie there and wait while it hardens and
it's horrible and you're gagging. But then when you spit it out, you
got a perfect mold of your teeth and that part is kind of cool. In this scene, I got a set
of false teeth on a retainer that looked really good normal when
I had it in, but when I popped it out I could scare my friends. That part was fun. And there's a flashback sequence to
the time I lost my first front tooth as a six-year-old kid in a
carnival in a bounce house and everything was great. I was bouncing. I was having a super fun
time until I got too close to the netting that's on the
side of the bounce house. So I bounced up and when I
bounced down my front tooth hooked on the net and went
flying into the air. And because it's happening in a gravel parking lot,
I never found my tooth. So people always want to
know if this is a true story. Did this thing really happen? Did that part really happen? Is your name really Raina? Do you really have brown hair? Oh my gosh! Everything is real. Everything is true. I do sometimes alter details. So for example, on--
in the first chapter of "Smile" I learn I need
braces in the afternoon. I go to a Girl Scout meeting. We talked about it and at
that night I trip and fall and knock out my two front teeth. That did not all happen
on the same day. So, for the sake of the
timeline of the story, sometimes I will compress details,
sometimes I change people's names to protect the guilty, as we say. But my family is real, so am I. And so this is us as
comic strip characters. They think that's pretty cool. My friends are a slightly
different story. Now these are the people who
teased me and called me names and bullied me just a little bit. But I managed to represent
almost all of them in the story. Like I said, some names were
changed to protect the guilty. And then after "Smile," oh,
well, before I talk about that, I'm going to tell you that the other
thing that's real is my clothing. So kids, ask your parents to
dig up their photos from 1991 and I guarantee you, they will
also have some acid washed denim and some scrunchies and
hopefully some mock turtlenecks. Oh yeah. So after "Smile" I
wrote a book called "Drama" and this was my first
stab at fiction, but it's only just so fictionalized. So, it's about a girl named
Callie and her two best friends, Jesse and Justin, who are
twin gay Filipino boys, and I happen to also
have best friends who are gay twin Filipino boys. So, I mean their names aren't
Jesse and Justin but it's basically like our friendship except
fictionalized and put into a book. And these kids are all on the
stage crew at their school and that means they are the ones who
are running the lights and the sound and making costumes and props. And I always like to stop here and
give props to the people over there who are running my tech because without them I would
not be standing here right now. Thank you, guys. [ Applause ] Stage crew is a really
important job. And these are the kids
who love to do it. So, I wanted to make a
story about those kids. And it's kind of inspired by my life and that I was definitely a musical
theater and stage kid when I was in high school and middle school,
but I was never the leading lady. I was always in the ensemble, which
is the kids who stand back here and like sing three lines in the
show and not the whole thing. So I get cast as like
aristocrat number seven or hobo number three or a child. So I'm not behind the podium because
I am almost the same height as it. I'm very short. So, I spent a lot of time
backstage just kind of observing and being aware of what
was going on during shows and that was always
really cool to me. I wanted to sort of
capture that essence. This is also one of the
things that inspired "Drama." I was in student government
in school and I was-- had a role called the art
commissioner which means that most of what my job was was to
paint big posters for dances. So this is me and my friend Jake
who's totally the inspiration for Jesse. I totally had a crush on him. He totally did not
have a crush on me. That was weird. It's a little awkward. But yeah, if you read
"Drama" you have a little bit of a sense of why that was. So-- and here's Callie painting. She's making a gigantic
tree prop for her school. And this is a tree prop I made
one time for my Girl Scout play. It's just like a little
cylinder tube of paper with like pipe cleaners and
leaves and stuff at the top. So after "Smile" and after "Drama,"
people were just like we want to hear more stories
about your life. And I realized that there was
one page in "Smile" that talked about a road trip my family
took when I was a kid. We drove from San Francisco
to Colorado. And what an eventful trip it was and I've realized I can
make an entire book based on that experience. So that's what "Sisters" is. It's about being stuck
in the back seat of your car with your little sister. And in my case, it was also a
chance to examine my relationship with Amara, which like I said
we're both artists and that's one of the only things
we have in common. We're very different people. And I wanted to understand
us a little bit better. So it goes back into our lives
and we talked about what it was like to have her as a baby. And then as we grew up, I guess one
of the things you could say we had in common was all of
our childhood pets and the misbegotten
ways that they've died. So, here's a picture where
you see how excited we are to get our first goldfish
and then a photo that tells you how exciting
goldfish actually are. Amara loves snakes
and I hate snakes. And the reason I hate them so
much is because when I was little, my family went camping and I was
picking blackberries and I was like in the middle of the patch
and then I accidentally stepped on something rubbery and looked out and there was a dead
snake under my sandal. So I ran out of there and I had all
scratched and scraped up by thorns. My family thought it was hilarious and I did not think
it was hilarious. But my sister was like "I am totally
getting a snake for a pet someday," and I was like "You
are totally not." And then my parents totally bought
it for her and they promised me that it would never bother me. I would never have to see
it or feed it or touch it. It would definitely never get out
of its cage or anything like that. Well, if you bought this book
you know the snake does get out of its cage and it
got into my family's car and then it stayed
there for six months. I didn't even know snakes could
do that but apparently they can. We thought maybe it had gotten out. We thought it must have died. No, it did not. And of course, the snake story
and the road trip story intersect in this delightful space. So I'm not going to say anymore
about that because I want to talk about my book "Ghosts" which
has just been out for a little over a week and it's already like
I'm meeting kids who were like "This is my favorite book
that you've written." I'm just like "Wow, did
you read it like today?" And they're like "Yeah, I've
read it in your signing line." So, that's supper awesome but it also took me two
years to make this book. So, it's the curse and the blessing
of being a graphic novelist. I'm grateful either ways. It's been a really fun week
and I've been on book tour and haven't been home
for about two weeks. So, it's really amazing
to be standing in front of you guys today talking about it. So this book has actually
existed longer than two years. It's been in my head for a very long
time and these sketches that are in the back of the
book, I did in 2008. And I have been thinking about
these characters for a lot longer. So it's about this girl Cat who's
11 and her little sister Maya who has cystic fibrosis and, of
course, they moved to the town of Bahia de la Luna because they
think that the sea air is going to better for Maya's lungs. And Bahia de la Luna is not a
real place but it's inspired by a place called Half Moon Bay, California which is not too
far from where I grew up. And it's this very
windswept beachy, foggy place. It's very cool and mysterious. They also have a lot
of pumpkin farms there. So it's where you go for Halloween
in order to get your pumpkins. And I always thought what a
cool place to set a story. What a cool place to set
a ghost story, in fact. So that's what I did and these
are just some of my old sketches, sort of trying to capture
the atmosphere of the place. So the girls moved there and
Cat is not happy about it. She doesn't want to
leave her friends behind. They're from Southern
California where it's much warmer so she doesn't like
the cold weather. That's another thing she and I have in common is I'm not
a huge fan of the fog. But one of the first thing that happens is they meet their
neighbor Carlos who explains to them that the town is haunted and
it is filled with ghosts. And Maya's really excited to
meet a ghost and that's probably because she's not a healthy kid. So, she wants to know
what's going to happen to her if she happens to die. And Cat, who's a little bit
more like me, is very anxious and she's worried and she doesn't
want to meet the ghosts at all because she's afraid that
they're going to harm her sister. So, they go anyway and they go up to this old mission that's
near their house and that's where they're looking for ghosts. Cat is completely losing her mind
and super afraid and then she ends up being the first
one to see a ghost. And then she gets to know
the ghost a little bit. And this is what happens when
you're scared of something. Sometimes if you confront your fear
or you get to know it a little bit, you might be surprised that it's not
quite as scary as you think it is. So Cat gets to know the ghost and
then the next thing she knows, they're becoming her friends
and they're having fun together. So, that's just one of the themes
in this story and it was inspired by a lot of different things in
my life, but it was definitely about confronting fear and anxiety. So here's a couple of
photographs that I took when I was researching the book
and doing my location scouting, just like you would for a film. I took lots and lots of photographs
of beach towns and, you know, the cliffs above the
ocean and really tried to get this atmosphere
into my stories. And this is me at one of missions. There are 21 missions in California and you can go and
visit most of them. And I believe this
is in Mission Carmel. And when you're there, you can almost feel history
everywhere around you. You can sort of feel the ghosts. And so again, that was something
I wanted to capture in this story. So, very quickly, I'm just going
to tell you about my process because this is something
people are very curious about. They want to talk to me about it. But it's actually easier
to show how I work because my entire process is visual. So when I write stories,
this is what they look like. Yes, that's right. I write in a visual
format called thumbnails which is what you see on the screen. So a thumbnail simply means like a
rough draft version or a blueprint or a sketch of every single page where you're indicating
the panel borders. The characters are stick figures. All of the dialog is there. All of the sound effects are there. And this is a great way for me
to see how comics are paced out. And as you guys saw
with the reading, there's a lot of silent panels and
there's a lot of sort of panels where a sound effect and the
pictures do a lot of the talking. So that's how write. This is how my ideas come out
off my head and onto the page. And then once I am done with
those, I've done an entire book of thumbnails, 250 pages. I send them to my editor
and we edit from this stage. So that's where I go to
make my corrections too. I just redraw my thumbnails. So depending on the book
that takes-- I've done-- I thumbnailed "Sisters"
in a month which is crazy. Most of the time, it takes
me anywhere between two and six months to create a script. And then once I'm done with
that, I move on to pencils. And for this, I'm using a type
of paper called Bristol board which is just a little
bit thicker and smoother and heavier than regular paper. And here, I'm simply spending
more time on the artwork. So, I'm going to go back a slide and show you guys what
my thumbnails look like and you can compare
that to the final art. It's all of the same information. It's just that I have spent
more time creating the art. And then directly over
that same piece of paper, I ink and I am still very
old school and traditional. I use a water color brush. For those who of you that are
like "What kind of brush is it," it's a Winsor & Newton Series
7 Sable brush number 2 size. And if you're like what, it's
on my website goraina.com, so you can check it out there. And type of India ink? It's waterproof that I really
like and then a small liner pen for things like eyeballs, shirt
buttons, really small details. And then everything looks like
that when all is set and done. So I told you that "Ghosts" took two
years and that's time at the desk. That's not time thinking about it. It's two years to actually
create the book. Each "Baby-Sitters Club"
book took one year to create and "Smile" took me five years
from start to finish to create. So I always tell people I hope
you're not an impatient person if you want to make comics because
it does require you to be patient. But for me, it's worthwhile. It's my art form. I love it the best. It's my favorite way
to tell stories. So everything got scanned into a
computer and now I bring the files into a program called Photoshop. This is where I make
all of my corrections. This is where the coloring
gets done. And I don't do my own color work. I work with a guy named Braden
Lamb, who does my colors and it's really awesome
seeing my pages kind of come to life once they get colored. And then everything gets
assembled digitally. So, the lettering gets put in and the page numbers
and stuff like that. And then, we also work
on the covers this way. I mean I do a sketch and
then the publisher picks one and then I work it up
into a finished sketch and then a finished piece art. We put all the title
font and somewhat in this great package the
whole thing is digital. We send the files to Asia and
they're printed in Singapore. And then the books come back on a
boat and that takes a while too. But holding your book for the first
time in your hands never gets old. I have created eight books
to this point in my career and every time a new one
comes out I'm just like wow. It's like I had a baby or something. No, it's nothing like that. I've actually never had
a baby, so I don't know. But I can only imagine that
you've put so much love and care into this thing, into making
this thing, and then it arrives and then it's kind of like--
it takes on a life of its own. Each of my books definitely
has a life of its own. People always want to know what is
my favorite book that I have created and it is like saying
taking your favorite child. Like you just-- how
could you do that? Some of you are like "No, I could
do that," but I don't think I could. You love them all. So what's next? I mean I've had a book
out for a week and a half. So, like shouldn't I take
a little bit of time off? Of course not, that's not how
it works in this business. We're always thinking
about what's next. So for me, it's going to be-- this
is just a big spoiler for you guys. I'm going to do another memoir and
this one's going to be about me and my dad and a certain
book that he gave me to read when I was 10 years old and how
that book changed my entire life. So, that's all I can
say about it for now. This is about as much
as I've got done, maybe 20, 25 pages of thumbnails. And so you can see us
going to the bookstore at San Francisco State
University where he used to teach. And then we're gigging out
together in the comic book section. And I don't have a
title for this book yet, but it should be out
some time in 2018. So, cross your fingers
for me that my hand hold out for you all this process. Yeah, and I plan to
never stop doing this. If I can do this my entire
life I absolutely plan to. It's an absolute joy. I'm so happy I get
to work for you guys. And it's just been a great ride. So, thank you so much. [ Applause ] What's the time? Five minutes. OK, we have time for
just a few questions. So if you've got questions
we're going to go this side and then this side. Make them as quick as
you can and I will try to answer as many as possible. >> What is your favorite
book that you wrote? >> Raina Telgemeier: I can't
answer that question because it's like choosing your favorite child. I like them all. Yes? >> What advice do you have for
younger artists and writers? >> Raina Telgemeier: It's the same
advice for any person of any age. Start small. Don't try to write
a long story first. Try writing a short story and seeing
what your characters interact like. And then, you can write longer and
longer stories as you pick up steam. Hi. >> I would like to know
what were your emotions when you were writing
the book "Smile." >> Raina Telgemeier: My emotions. Pretty much the same thing as what the character is
going through on the page. In fact, when I'm drawing
and if you look at me, I'm like making the same
faces as the characters and I'm feeling all this emotion. If it's a memoir, I'm like
remembering everything that happened to me and I'll be like really
depressed like, damn, my friends are so mean to me, but then you finish
the book and you feel great. So it's kind of like
living to it all over again but then I felt better
when I was done. >> Did you and your sister really
fight as much as in "Sisters"? >> Raina Telgemeier:
Do you have a sister? >> Yes. >> Raina Telgemeier: How
much do you guys fight? >> I have three sisters. >> Raina Telgemeier: And
do you guys fight as much as the characters in the story? >> Yes. >> Raina Telgemeier: Then yeah. Sisters have a way. Hi. >> So in your book "Ghosts," you had the little sister
who had cystic fibrosis. And my cousin has cystic fibrosis
and not many people know about it. So I was wondering
how did you like find out about cystic fibrosis and stuff. >> Raina Telgemeier: I have a friend
whose cousin has cystic fibrosis and systematically, it worked
really well with the story because the story is about a girl
who can't breathe and her sister who has anxiety and the sister has
to be reminded sometimes to like OK and it's Maya who's telling
her to stop and breathe. And then ghosts, and of course
this is fiction so I had to make my own mythology up here. It's like, well, ghosts
can't breathe either. So Maya finds that she has
something in common with the ghosts. But ghosts absorb the world around
them and that becomes their breath and I think Maya kind of breathes
emotionally for a lot of people. Hi. >> Hi. So, how did your friends
and family react to "Smile" like how you portrayed them in it? >> Raina Telgemeier: My dad will be
like, "That's not what happened." But the thing is like
it's my memories and since I'm the one
that's writing the story-- I sometimes confer with my
family on specific details, but every person is
going to remember it and say it a little bit differently. So, we get a jest of it, right? And what I like to tell
people is that even if the facts aren't 100% true,
what you remember and your emotions about that thing are always true. >> Would you ever consider
animating movie from your books? >> Raina Telgemeier: I
don't know how to animate. So if somebody else wanted to do it, if anybody in this room
is an animator and wants to animate it, we can
talk afterwards. That'd be amazing. >> Did any of the old friends that
you have that you wrote about in "Smile," did any of them
realize that it was about them and talk to you about it? >> Raina Telgemeier: Yes. I've gotten letters of
apology from a few of them. Some of them didn't realize it was
them though which is really awkward because we're still like
Facebook friends and stuff. Hi. >> Hi. Well, first, thank you for
inviting me up for the excerpt. >> Raina Telgemeier: You're amazing. >> Thank you. And for my question, at the end
of "Ghosts" you said that you were at the Day of the Dead celebration
and did you actually see ghosts like Cat did in the book? >> Raina Telgemeier: No, I
did not actually see ghosts. This is a fictional story. You can imagine them
being there for sure. >> OK. Is it fun? >> Raina Telgemeier: Absolutely. It's fun but it's also a
really respectful celebration where people are all there
for their own reasons but you're experiencing it together. So, I was not sad but I felt all of
these sort of togetherness and a lot of emotion from all
the people around me. So in fact, the scene
that's in the book, I waited until after I had been
to that celebration to draw it because I wanted to capture
my own experiences there. So you know how Cat's in the
story and she's just like "Whoa!" >> That makes perfect sense. >> Raina Telgemeier:
That's how I felt. Well, thanks. >> Interesting. >> Raina Telgemeier: Oh, thanks. Hi. >> Hi. So I was wondering, if
you were like any kind of food that is grown up that you
make, but if you were a food that was grown what kind
of food would you be? >> Raina Telgemeier: Food. Oh, I can't say pizza, can I? >> No. >> Raina Telgemeier: Asparagus. >> OK. >> Raina Telgemeier: It's like
some people's most hated vegetable but I love it. >> OK. Thank you. >> Raina Telgemeier: Hi. >> What was your favorite thing
when you were a Girl Scout? >> Raina Telgemeier:
About the Girl Scouts? >> Yeah. >> Raina Telgemeier: Can you guess? >> Cookies? >> Raina Telgemeier: Yup. Definitely. Hi. >> What was the most inspiring
comic you read as a kid? >> Raina Telgemeier: Oh, men, I mean
"For Better or For Worse," "Calvin and Hobbes," "Luann," "FoxTrot,"
"Bizarro," "Dennis the Menace." I didn't read "Peanuts" until
I was a little older but I find that to be very inspiring too. And then I started reading
indie comics like "Bone" and that one inspired
the heck out of me. Hi. >> Do you and Amara still get
along or do you get along? >> Raina Telgemeier: We don't live in the same city anymore,
so we get along great. Actually we do, we get
along really well now. I see now how much
we have in common. Hi. >> When you're drawing your comics, what's the hardest
detail you have to do? >> Raina Telgemeier: Cars. Cars are hard to draw
and that's why I don't like to write too many comics. Wait, I did write a
comic about being on a road trip, what was I thinking? I don't draw comics about horses. There's a reason for that. Hi. >> Is it a stressful
or a happy progress when you're making the comics? >> Raina Telgemeier: It can be both. Mostly, it's fun but
it's like any other job. You really do have to
show up and put in a lot of hours every day and
my hand gets tired. That's one of the most
stressful parts. And also, sometimes, if I'm trying
to like think of how a story ends and I can't do it, I'm just like,
oh no, what am I going to do? But then, you know, you
run of time and you just go with whatever comes
up in your brain. >> Hi. >> Raina Telgemeier: Hi. >> When you finish one
of your graphic novels, do you ever celebrate or
like rejoice or anything? >> Raina Telgemeier: I had an orange
soda when I finished "Ghosts." You are jumping up and down. >> How do you think of names for
people who didn't really exist? >> Raina Telgemeier:
That's a good question. Catrina is named after La
Catrina which is an illustration of a skeleton lady that was
done by a guy named Posada and so she's actually a
very famous paint or image. And then Maya's name comes from--
I've met a lot of kids named Maya and they're always
kind of like cute. They're usually jumping up and down. And I just think Maya
is an awesome name. And Callie comes from
the State of California, which is really embarrassing. I don't know if the adults will
notice this song "Going Back To Cali" by LL Cool J. I was--
When I was brainstorming that book, I was in the car like driving
around my parents' neighborhood and that song came on
the radio and I was like that's it, her name is Callie. >> Are you going to write any
more books about your life? >> Raina Telgemeier: Well,
the next one I'm working on is definitely going
to be about life. And then the two after that
that I have contracted, I can't talk too much about right
now, but I do have three more books that are going to be coming out from
Scholastic in the next six years. So at least one will be a memoir. Yeah. [ Applause ] See you guys in 2022. Hi. >> What happens when
you get writer's block? >> Raina Telgemeier: Good question. Probably the same thing that
happens when you get writer's block, you're just like what
am I going to do? So sometimes I just try to step
away from my desk for a while. So I go to the beach or I go hiking
in the mountains or I get in my car and I drive around and I listen
to LL Cool J. But you know what, inspiration is everywhere
and you'll never know when something is going
to inspire you. So, I try to read a lot of books, I
try to watch a lot of TV and movies, I try to meet lots of
people and go lots of places and things inspire me everywhere. >> Good to know. >> Are you afraid of ghosts? >> Raina Telgemeier: I don't know
if I believe that ghosts exist. So it's hard to be afraid of
something that doesn't exist. Yeah. If I knew they did exist,
I'd be extremely afraid of them. That's why they look like snakes. Did you notice the-- so maybe
there's a connection there. Hi. >> How much books have you wrote? >> Raina Telgemeier:
I've written eight books. That's four "Baby-Sitters Club"
books and then "Smile," "Drama," "Sisters," and, wait, "Ghosts." Did I say that one? Yeah, eight books total. >> That's a lot. >> Raina Telgemeier:
Thank you, thank you. Hi. >> Do you ever write out the script of what people are saying
before you draw the comics? >> Raina Telgemeier: Sometimes I do,
sometimes I will sit down and type out dialog just because
I can hear it in my head faster than
I can draw it. But for the most part, like I showed
you guys, my scripts are thumbnails. So they are just sort of
the grid of different panels and then the characters'
heads almost need to be there sometimes
before I could figure out what's coming out
of their mouths. I need to see it in order
to be able to hear it. But yes, I do have a notebook
and I'm always listening to people taking around
me and just the way that people talk sometimes
gives me ideas. So, you never know guys. >> Thank you. >> Raina Telgemeier: Sure. Hi. >> Other than in "Smile" and
"Sisters," which character in your book represents
you the best? >> Raina Telgemeier: So you mean in
my memoirs or in my fictional work? >> In your fictional work. >> Raina Telgemeier: Well, Callie is
a little bit like me but she's kind of more like who I wish I was, like
she is great at getting an idea and then seeing it all
the way to completion. And then Cat and I share anxiety. So, she is a lot-- she's worried
about stuff a lot and I admit that I am, too, but I'm trying to
work on getting better about that. >> Thank you. >> What inspired you to
write about your family? >> Raina Telgemeier: Them. We have so many stories and I
mean the reason I started writing about my life was I have
this horrible dental accident when I was 11 and it was a story
I was telling people constantly. So people would be like,
"What happened to your teeth," and I'd be like, "Let me tell
you what happened on my teeth." And then as I got older, the fake
teeth that I had in my mouth started to turn a little bit gray so
sometimes people are like, "What's wrong with the teeth
in front of your mouth? They look different." So I had to explain and every
time I saw a different dentist, I had to explain and I was like
I have explained this story so may times, what if I just
like wrote the whole thing down? Yeah. That way, I wouldn't
have to explain it so much. So I did. I just wrote my story down
and I realized that it's a great way to sort of deal with your memories and like stuff that's
troubling you even. You can write it down and then you
feel better about it afterwards, so. >> Thank you. >> Raina Telgemeier: Sure. >> Hi. >> Raina Telgemeier: Hi. >> If you're like writing a
story about your true life then if you're trying to
remember what they're saying, do you have to like write the exact
thing or do you just like make it up if you don't remember but you have a general
idea of what they said? >> Raina Telgemeier: Yes. That's exactly what I do. There is no way I could
possibly remember the exact words that we said to each other. Although, I mean you guys have
access, I'm sure, to like videos that your parents have been taking
since you're a little kid, right? And I have just a few of those. I only have one video
of myself as a kid because my grandfather
had this big video camera. It's like five minutes of video
of me in my entire childhood. But I have a lot of photographs and that's how the writer
brain works is you're just like I can imagine
what we were saying to each other when we were young. >> Oh, OK. Thanks. >> Raina Telgemeier: Sure. >> Do you plan on writing any
sequels to any of your books like "Ghosts" or "Drama"? >> Raina Telgemeier: Sequels
are tricky, and I'm not somebody who thinks in terms of series. I'm really somebody who thinks
in terms of individual stories. So, I feel like I say everything
I want to say about the characters and their lives and their situations
before the last page is turned. I don't like the idea
of cliffhangers. But that's not to say that
I would never write a story that had the same characters. So you know how "Smile" and
"Sisters" are companion books but it's not like exactly
what happened next. There's always a possibility
that I could do that with one of my
other stories too. >> OK. Thanks. >> Raina Telgemeier: Like
Callie in high school. Oh man, that is so cool. Somebody asked me today if Callie
would be a Hamilton fan and I was like Callie would be like
tweeting at Lin-Manuel like on a constant daily basis
trying to get him to like come to her school and hang out with her. >> What is your favorite
thing about Amara? >> Raina Telgemeier: No one's ever
asked me that question before, but I never had to think
about it before, so. She's one of the smartest
people I've ever met. She's one of the most
talented people I've ever met. And she's a really good
friend to her friends. She cares about her friends
more than just about anything. So, there's a lot I
admire about my sister. >> Thanks. >> Will you ever make
any movies about "Smile," "Sisters," "Drama," and everything? >> Raina Telgemeier:
Well, I'm not a filmmaker. So, if anybody here is a
filmmaker and they want to talk to me afterwards, that's fine. I would love that. That'd be awesome. You should become a
filmmaker, how about that? >> That's my dream. >> Raina Telgemeier: Awesome. OK. We'll talk afterwards,
handshakes and business cards. I love this. Hi. >> Hi. My parents said
I might get braces soon. Do you have any like
advice about that? >> Raina Telgemeier: If
it's OK with your parents, just take some pain reliever
before you go and then ask if they'll get you a
milkshake when it's all over. It's really not that bad. And my situation was
extremely unusual. I had a big accident so, of
course, my dentistry work was going to be a little bit more
extreme than most people's. Most people, and you guys can
confirm this, it's like you're sore for a few days and you kind of have
to get used to it but then you do and then it's just kind of
normal part of your mouth. >> Thanks. >> Hello. I just--
when I was standing, I have this weird idea
for a question. You should write a book about
how you are now, like because-- like your fans and everything. If you are [inaudible] with
me, they also want to-- [ Laughter ] I also would like to bring out how
much I enjoyed your book "Ghosts" because I feel like sort
of like me and my sister. I'm just full of energy
and she's not. [ Laughter ] >> Raina Telgemeier: Oh
men, I can relate to that. Thanks. >> Yeah. >> Raina Telgemeier: Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Raina Telgemeier: Well, there's
not much to say except thanks. Hi. >> Have you ever thought
about writing a book when you first published
your first comic? >> Raina Telgemeier: Oh,
yes, I did think about that. And I might be reading about that
at some point in the near future. >> OK. >> What would you be if
you couldn't be an author? >> Raina Telgemeier: I
have no idea to be honest. But this is kind of a shout
out and it's also kind of something I've realized is that
I work with people called publicists at my publisher, Scholastic. They are people whose job is to plan
out where authors are going to go and then make sure there's like
a car to get them there and they like book my flights and then
they talk to all the people at the bookstores about
like the logistics and stuff and that person is a
publicist and it's their job to make authors' lives easier
when they go out on stage, the National Book Festival
and stuff like this. So my amazing publicist is named
Sheila Marie and she's here. She's the one who took the picture. And Scholastic has really,
really great support. So, I think it would
actually be fun to do that job because I love writing emails to
people and I love looking at maps and I love like booking
hotel rooms and stuff. So I'm like, oh, that'd be so fun. They work super hard though. So, yeah, maybe a publicist,
I don't know. >> Thank you. >> Raina Telgemeier:
For other authors. I don't have to be
in this spotlight. That's the thing. Hi. >> So, in "Ghosts," Cat is
superstitious about the black cat. Did you get the superstitiousness
from you or somebody else? >> Raina Telgemeier: It's
sort of a common superstition that a black cat crossing
your path is bad luck. And because her name is Cat,
I think she has this idea that she's bad luck too in some way. So, yeah, I was working with
certain common superstitions but I was just also creating
her as a unique character. So, can I do one more question? OK, we can do one more question. I'm so sorry, guys. >> What is-- What do you think
the easiest thing to draw is? >> This is going to sound really
lame when I answer this question. The easiest thing for
me to draw is me. But I think that's because I look
at the mirror every single day and I'm used to the shape of my
face and I've been drawing stories about my life since
I was six years old. So, it's gotten to be very easy
for me to do that but I when I have to draw like a new
character, I'm like, whoa, this is really difficult
and challenging. But the more times
you draw a character, the easy it get-- easier it gets. So, yeah. All right. Thank you, guys, so much. [ Applause ] And thanks to the National Book
Festival for having me as a guest. [ Applause ] >> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.
