Dear Liza,
Last night we went to two activities. The first was a Belmont Business Association “Mixer”, which is like a party where you meet folks you might want to do business with. I am not in business, but Auntie Bridgett is, so we went along for dinner, drinks and conversation.
The Mixer was held at Crush, an informal bar/restaurant on Morrison. It is in a beautiful old building and the folks are friendly. We had fries, quesadillas, Absinthe, wine, and cider.
When folks started showing up, we chatted and met a real estate agent named Tina who loves Auntie Katie’s Books with Pictures and also loves Side Street Arts! Hooray for business camaraderie.
After the mixer, we headed (via Lyft) down to Division to see the release of the new Nib Cartoon books at Books with Pictures. I love the Nib because it is smart and funny, political and sharp, but not vulgar.
We got to met Matt Bors, Eleri Harris and Sarah Mirk, who are some of the many editors and artists for the magazine.
They walked us through the process of making a comic book…how they decide on, research, and write the stories, how they edit, illustrate and format them. The whole process showed me, once again, that one single mind can’t get things done. It takes different points of view and different areas of expertise. Understanding this helps me let other folks work on my story.
Since I’m not an artist, I was most interested in how the text, the writing, was worked on. It turns out, it is mostly written and then cut, cut, and cut again. Eleri’s story of turning a 1,600 word interview into eleven sentences was painful but familiar.
We got to hug Auntie Katie, whom we will see again on Mother’s Day. We will head over to her apartment for breakfast, then downstairs to the new shop to sweep, paint, and whatever else needs doing.
Love, Grandma Judy
Dear Liza 