COVID Check-In with Jennifer Hayden

Virtual Memories Show
COVID Check-In: Jennifer Hayden

Cartoonist Jennifer Hayden checks in from central NJ. We talk about the need to micro-vent during self-isolation with her family, the graphic memoir she finds herself immersed in (and which keeps growing in scale), her changing understanding of aspects of the Goddess, and how this situation is bringing her to terms with herself. Give it a listen! And go read her great graphic memoir, The Story of My Tits!

Listen to the conversation! Then check out the archives for more conversations from The Before Times.

You can listen to all these COVID Check-In episodes at The COVID-19 Sessions.

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About our Guest

Jennifer Hayden writes and draws original graphic novels. Her most recent book, The Story of My Tits, is a memoir about her life and her experience with breast cancer. Published in 2015 by IDW/Top Shelf, The Story of My Tits was nominated for an Eisner Award and named one of the best graphic novels of the year by The New York Times, Library Journal, GQ, Comic Book Resources, Paste, Mental Floss, Forbes, and NPR.

A politically incorrect mother of two, Jennifer arrived on the comics stage at the age of forty-three, after a skirmish with breast cancer. Formerly a writer, children’s book illustrator, and acclaimed kitchen storyteller, she took to the medium immediately. She shares the heartbreak, joy, and messiness of life with the honesty, wit, and Goddess-infused wisdom of a woman in her prime.

The Story of My Tits has been translated into Italian and Spanish. Jennifer has appeared at San Diego and New York Comic Cons, The Miami Book Fair, The Brooklyn Book Festival, and Small Press Expo. She has given talks to students at The Center for Cartoon Studies, as well as Harvard, Princeton and Columbia universities, and speaks frequently to breast cancer groups.

Her recent online comix can be found on Spiralbound. She is currently finishing a graphic anti-cookbook for Top Shelf called Where There’s Smoke There’s Dinner, and is distracting herself by also creating a long-form minicomic about her dicey relationship with France.

Jennifer lives in New Jersey with her husband, very old cat, and daughter, a recent college graduate. Their son has grown and flown.

Credits: The conversation was recorded remotely via Zencastr. I used a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Proof-of-life photo of Jennifer by someone else, but it’s on my instagram. Nicer pic by Jen Davis.

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