Illustration Conversation

Briony Morrow-Cribbs was born in 1982 in Berkley, California. Briony’s early interest in art was nurtured by growing up on Whidbey Island, WA in a large family of artists. In 2005, Briony graduated from the Emily Carr institute of Art in Design in Vancover, BC with a BFA. Following a brief move back to Whidbey, Briony decided to move to Brattleboro, Vermont to open an etching studio. Twin Vixen Press, now in its 5th year of operation, provides classes and rental space to print artists in the Southern Vermont Area. In 2009 Briony worked with author Amy Stewart and Algonquin Books to illustrate New York Times bestseller, “Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln’s Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities.” The second book in the series, “Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon’s Army & Other Diabolical Insects” was published in the Spring 2011. Briony’s most recent book, "Unnatural Creatures" was published this last summer. Edited by Neil Gaiman and published by Harper Collins, the book is a collection of short stories about monsters for children. 

In 2009 Briony moved to Madison-Wisconsin to pursue her MFA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She graduated in the spring of 2012 and currently teaches printmaking at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Born 1956 on Hiway 14 in Richland Center, Wisconsin, daughter of an Irish/ Norwegian/ meat-cutter and an Irish/Filipina immigrant employed as a hospital housekeeper, Lynda Barry attended The Evergreen State College (Olympia, Washington) during its early experimental period (1974-78). She studied under painter and writing teacher Marilyn Frasca for two years, trying to answer this one question: What is an Image? This question has guided Barry’s work ever since.  In a career spanning nearly 35 years, Barry has authored 17 books, worked as a commentator for NPR, had a regular monthly feature in Esquire, Mother Jones Magazine, Mademoiselle, and on Salon.com. Barry is also a sought-after visiting artist and speaker. She teaches a popular writing workshop called “Writing the Unthinkable” all around the country and is known for her lively teaching style and strong dedication to her students.

Born to working-class parents in a small town in Italy, and reared in Chicago, Ivan Brunetti (b. 1967) was drawn to cartoons and comic strips from an early age. Finding inspiration in Spider-Man and Peanuts, he began crafting his own stories and gradually developed a unique style that he applied to imaginative, sometimes shocking subjects. The dark humor of his graphic novels earned him a cult following, yet his illustrations have had broad appeal. Now recognized as an award-winning cartoonist and illustrator, Brunetti has published his work in the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, and McSweeney’s, among others.

CHRIS WARE is the author of Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth and the annual progenitor of the amateur periodical the ACME Novelty Library. An irregular contributor to The New Yorker and The Virginia Quarterly Review, Ware was the first cartoonist chosen to regularly serialize an ongoing story in The New York Times Magazine, in 2005-2006. He edited the thirteenth issue of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern in 2004 as well as Houghton Mifflin's Best American Comics for 2007, and his work was the focus of an exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 2006. Ware lives in Oak Park, Illinois, with his wife, Marnie, a high-school science teacher, and their daughter, Clara.