French Comics Festival Here I Come, With My New Translation Nénés Chéris!

So I was meditating the other day and when I opened my eyes I saw this in the corner of my studio. Wow, I thought. Even if I had arranged it on purpose, I could not have made it express more perfectly how I feel about my upcoming trip to France.

Sunday evening, Jan 22, I’ll be flying out to Paris, heading down a couple of days later by train to Angoulême for its 50th annual international comics festival. I will be there in support of the French translation of my breast cancer memoir The Story of My Tits. In French it is Nénés Chéris, out this fall from Presses de la Cité and shortlisted—scream!—for Elle France Magazine’s 2022 comics grand prix.

The cool thing about this trip is that I basically manifested it (to use a witchy word, and yes, I do tend that way) with a trip I took to the same festival in 2019. My book had been translated into Italian and Spanish and I was determined to find a French publisher too, so I flew to the international festival with great nervousness (NOT a seasoned traveler, though a lover of France) and undying hope. I spent my visit in the wrong tent with the wrong publishers, submitted my book and got rejected faster than you can say “putain”. BUT I did meet the wonderful woman who became my agent. Two and a half years later, she sold the French rights to an excellent Paris publisher. And this summer I started taking French lessons. Just in case…

What I am seeing in this photo is me in a French maid’s uniform, dancing like the Fool in Tarot with my happy face turned blindly up to the sky, suitcase and book at the ready. The artwork isn’t mine–I found it in a barn along with some of my grandmother’s old watercolors. The suitcase isn’t mine–it holds a haul of old family photographs. But the still-life is just right. It’s about dancing into the future, supported by the weight of the past. I hope to dance with all of you soon.