Episode 423 – Leslie Stein

Virtual Memories Show 423:
Leslie Stein

With her latest graphic memoir, I Know You Rider (Drawn & Quarterly), Leslie Stein reveals a piece of her life that she’d never shared with anyone: her decision to have an abortion. We talk about why she chose to tell that story, how her family reacted to the book, why she told the story in a direct, unmediated narrative, what it was like to have the book come out in the early days of the pandemic, and her one regret about the experience itself. We get into her pandemic life, and why her new comic (currently being serialized on her Instagram) portrays the exact opposite: touring the country in a van with a band and playing music in crowded bars. We also discuss her dream-book of a history of Green-Wood Cemetery, what it’s like to treat your life as content, and the one project that keeps making her run away into other projects. Give it a listen! And go read I Know You Rider!

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Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!

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About our Guest

Leslie Stein is the cartoonist of the LA Times Book Prize Award-winning Present, as well as Bright-Eyed At Midnight and the Eye of the Majestic Creature series. Her diary comics have been featured in The New Yorker, Vice, and in the Best American Comics anthology. She lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her new book is I Know You Rider, from Drawn & Quarterly.

Follow Leslie on Instagram (she’s serializing new comics there!).

Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. 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. Photo of Leslie by Don Stahl.

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