Anya Davidson
Anya Davidson is a cartoonist, printmaker and musician living in Chicago. Her debut book, School Spirits, was excerpted in Best American Comics 2015, edited by Jonathan Lethem and Bill Kartalopoulos. Her sophomore graphic novel, Band for Life, (2016, Fantagraphics books) based on her experiences fronting a noise-rock band, was nominated for an Ignatz award in the Outstanding Graphic Novel category. Her comics journalism has been published in the Chicago Reader, Newcity Magazine and The Nib, and she writes comics criticism for The Comics Journal. Davidson is a professor in the Painting and Drawing department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Interview
What was your favorite book when you were a child?
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George and and A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle were favorites. Grendel by John Gardner was my favorite book in adolescence, and I loved Christopher Pike’s The Midnight Club.
What’s your favorite line from a book?
That’s impossible to answer because there are so many, but I love Lynda Barry’s short story “Dancing,” from the book One! Hundred! Demons!, which is about feeling self-conscious in adolescence. This line, near the end of the story, is a great summation: “I spent too long either wishing I could dance in a way that always looked cool or wishing I was cool enough to not care about what other people thought. Mainly I didn’t dance.”
Who are your top three favorite authors or illustrators?
It feels painful to have to winnow it down to only three! Olga Tokarczuk, Lynda Barry, Leonora Carrington
Why did you want to become an author or illustrator?
I can’t remember it ever being a conscious choice. I’m an only child and I spent a lot of time at solitary play, reading stories and drawing pictures.
Do you have any advice for future authors or illustrators?
No matter what field you pursue, the most important thing is to find and engage with a community. It’s like the political scientist Naomi Marakawa says: “Why be a star when you can be part of a constellation?”
