Returning to what made her book How to Be Interesting so successful, artist Jessica Hagy has written HOW TO BE FEARLESS, an illustrated guide to going from stuck to unstoppable by banishing worry and becoming your best self.
HOW TO BE FEARLESS (In 7 Simple Steps)
by Jessica Hagy
Sasquatch Books, August 2021
(chez DeFiore and Co. – voir catalogue)
Full of energy and optimism, HOW TO BE FEARLESS takes readers by the hand and confidently sets them on the path to fulfilling their dreams. Anyone feeling unsure or hesitant — and that’s all of us at one time or another — will find the encouraging push they need to exceed their potential. For fans of Lee Crutchley’s How to Be Happy (Or at Least Less Sad) (TarcherPerigee), Elena Bower’s Practice You (Sounds True), and Mari Andrews’ Am I There Yet? (Clarkson Potter), HOW TO BE FEARLESS makes a great gift for oneself or anyone who needs a pick-me-up.
Jessica Hagy is an artist and writer best known for her Webby Award-winning blog, Indexed. Her book How to Be Interesting: (In 10 Simple Steps) (Workman, 2013) has sold more than 159,000 copies and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. It has been carried by various specialty retailers, from Urban Outfitters to FedEx. She has also illustrated others’ works, including Seth Godin’s Linchpin and Jason Oberholtzer’s The Hustle Economy.
Too tall. Too short. Too fat. Too thin. The message is everywhere—we need to pluck, wax, shrink, and hide ourselves, to not take up space, emotionally or literally; women are never “just right.” Well, Ariella Elovic, feminist and illustrator extraordinaire, has had enough. In her full-color graphic memoir CHEEKY, she takes an inspiring and exuberant head-to-toe look at her own body self-consciousness, and body part by body part, finds her way back to herself. How does Ariella learn not to see herself as a never-finished DIY project, but to accept and even love the physical attributes society taught her to hide? How does a mirror go from a “black hole of critique” to a “who’s that girl” moment? Essential to her journey is her posse of girlfriends, her “yentas.” Together, they discover that sharing “imperfections” and some of the gross and “unsightly” things our bodies produce can be a source of endless laughs and deep bonding. It helps to have a team with some outside perspectives to keep our inner bullies in check. Charming and hilarious, full of empathy and candor, and gorgeously illustrated, CHEEKY aims to inspire women everywhere to embrace their bodies, flaws and all, and also their respective bodies’ needs, desires, and inherent power.
Three vastly different women: Shizuka Satomi, an aging, Hell-damned violin prodigy and teacher; Katrina Nyugen, a young transgender runaway and aspiring violinist; and Lan Tran, a spaceship captain running from a faraway war. Each woman descends on California’s predominantly Asian and Hispanic San Gabriel Valley seeking to rewrite her doomed fate. Each secretly dreams, despite forces working against her and closing in, of belonging to someone, of becoming someone’s family. Yet each is resigned to a life of carrying her burden alone. The only chance for Shizuka, Katrina, and Lan to survive on Earth rests in their finally recognizing who they are to one another — before it’s too late. LIGHT FROM UNCOMMON STARS will pull you in with its sensory pleasures, transportive depiction of place, masterful storytelling, and the warmth with which Aoki welcomes you into a neighborhood, as if you are already family. Aoki uses genre tropes to push the boundaries of imagination on behalf of her protagonists — people who, at the novel’s start, barely thought they were permitted to dream at all. Aoki’s characters, like herself, are women, queer, people of color. They are violinists full of innocence and regret. They are mothers trying to preserve the family business. They are refugees fleeing a war from beyond the stars. And they have come to the San Gabriel Valley, just outside of Los Angeles, a place where many drive past without a second thought, yet where others find magic and previously unthinkable love.
Heico is an ornithologist fighting a losing battle to protect the birds in his beachside suburb. When a journalist asks for comment on a planned development, Heico exaggerates his reports on how many migratory birds use the site. Soon it is revealed that the proposed building is a mosque, and he finds himself embroiled in community resistance to the project. Still, he refuses to back down. As the delayed mosque project becomes a focal point for growing Islamophobia, Heico must confront his own ghosts, and the prejudices he insists he doesn’t have. Nahla is Heico’s house cleaner. Having recently arrived in Australia she is trying to find her place in a new country and a new marriage. Isolated and lonely, she sees the mosque as a symbol of what she hopes to find in Australia: community, familiarity, acceptance. But as resistance to the project intensifies, she must summon the courage and the language to speak out and claim her space in this new life.