2023 Guests and Exhibitors — The Non-Fiction Comics Festival

Special Guests and Featured Creators

Dan Nott

2023 NFCF Poster Artist
*Dan will not be in attendance due to being honored at the National Book Awards!*
Dan’s nonfiction work uses comics to explore and untangle complex topics, and create a basis for understanding current events. His debut nonfiction graphic novel, Hidden Systems (Random House Graphic, March 2023) was selected as an Indies Next and Indies Introduce pick by the American Booksellers Association. He has released two comic books with the Center for Cartoon Studies, This is What Democracy Looks Like: A Graphic Guide to Governance, and Freedom and Unity: A Graphic Guide to Civics and Democracy in Vermont.
www.dannott.com
Janet Biehl

Janet Biehl is the creator of "Their Blood Got Mixed: Revolutionary Rojava and the War on ISIS" (2022). This graphic memoir is her account of her monthlong visit to the Kurdish-led society that has been under construction in Northeastern Syria since 2012--a society that is secular, supports and even requires equality for women, aspires to democracy, and is consciously multiethnic.
https://blog.pmpress.org/authors-artists-comrades/janet-biehl/
Stephen R. Bissette

Signing at Phoenix Books Table: 11:30am
Best known for his multi-award-winning tenure on SWAMP THING, Stephen Bissette also co-founded, edited, and co-published the Eisner Award-winning controversial horror anthology Taboo, collaborated with Alan Moore on 1963, and wrote, drew, and self-published four issues of S.R. Bissette's Tyrant. Bissette's film criticism, articles, and short fiction have appeared in over two dozen periodicals and book anthologies.
http://srbissette.com/
Matt Bors / The Nib

Matt Bors is an Eisner-winning comics editor and two time Pulitzer Prize Finalist in cartooning. He is the founder of The Nib, a publication for nonfiction comics that has put out 15 issues of a print magazine and three book collections.
https://thenib.com/
James Sturm

Signing at Phoenix Books Table: 2:30pm
James Sturm is a cartoonist and the cofounder of The Center for Cartoon Studies. He is the editor of CCS’s graphic guide series and his writings and illustrations have appeared in publications that include The Chronicle of Higher Education, Slate, The Paris Review, The Onion, The New York Times and on the cover of The New Yorker. James was a 2020-21 Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellow and a 2008 and 2015 MacDowell Colony Fellow.
instagram.com/james_sturmish/
Jarad Greene

Jarad Greene is a cartoonist originally from Lutz, Florida, who now lives in the curious village of White River Junction, Vermont. In addition to his own comics, Jarad works on staff at the Center for Cartoon Studies and has helped color many graphic novels for younger readers. He is the author and illustrator of the graphic novels A-Okay, A for Effort, and Scullion: A Dishwasher’s Guide to Mistaken Identity.
www.jaradgreene.com
Jason Lutes

Signing at Phoenix Books Table: 1:30pm
Jason Lutes is a Vermont-based cartoonist and game designer who teaches at the Center for Cartoon Studies. Among his published work is the award-winning graphic novel Berlin, a portrait of the German city during the rise of fascism and Houdini: The Handcuff King, a "snapshot" of Houdini's life, centering on one of his most famous jumps.
https://drawnandquarterly.com/author/jason-lutes/
Keith Knight

Keith Knight is the prolific cartoonist behind the comic strips (th)ink, the K Chronicles, and the Knight Life. His work has appeared in MAD, the New Yorker, the Funny Times, and various newspapers nationwide (including Burlington's Seven Days). His work and life inspired the Hulu sitcom Woke, in which Knight serves as an executive producer and co-creator. His latest book, "I Was a Teenage Michael Jackson Impersonator", is a graphic memoir about Knight's experiences in high school.
www.keithknightart.com
Rachel Lindsay

"Rachel Lindsay is a Burlington, Vermont-based cartoonist. Her comic strip, ""Rachel Lives Here Now,"" appears in Seven Days every other week. Her book, RX: A Graphic Memoir, was the featured book for US National Network of Libraries of Medicine's mental health month 2019, and was included on the American Association of Medical Colleges' top ten summer reads list 2019. Its pages were also featured in the Billy Ireland Library’s “Drawing Blood” exhibition, The Naughton Gallery’s “Sorry I’ve Been A Stranger Lately” exhibition in Northern Ireland, and other comics shows internationally.
www.rachellivesherenow.com
Natalie Norris

Natalie Norris is a cartoonist, teacher, and comics librarian. She has taught and lectured about depicting trauma in graphic memoirs at the 2020 Graphic Medicine Conference, The Larner College of Medicine, the Sequential Artists Workshop, and the Center for Cartoon Studies where she graduated in 2020. Dear Mini (2023) is her first book. She currently resides in Vermont with her chihuahua-poodle rescue, Gwen.
https://linktr.ee/natalie_norris
Robyn Smith

Signing at Phoenix Books Table: 4:30pm
Robyn Smith is a Jamaican cartoonist known for her mini-comic The Saddest Angriest Black Girl in Town, illustrating DC Comics' Nubia: Real One (written by L.L. McKinney) and Black Josei Press' Wash Day (written by Jamila Rowser). She has an MFA from the Center for Cartoon Studies and has also worked on comics for College Humor, Nike, and The Nib. She loves cake and her cat, Benson, and holds onto dreams of returning home to the ocean.
https://www.robrosmo.com/
Bill Tulp

Bill Tulp is a cartoonist and educator who published his first graphic novel, “El Salvador: A House Divided” (Eclipse Comics) in 1989 and has since created and published a number of shorter visual stories.
In 2020 he received a grant through the Old Stone House Museum in Brownington, Vermont to create a graphic biography of Alexander Twilight, to tell the story of the much beloved Vermont Educator and the first African American to graduate from an American College. In 2023, “The Life and Times of Alexander Twilight” was published by Onion River Press.
billtulpfineart.weebly.com
Rick Veitch

Rick Veitch was born in Bellows Falls, Vermont and felt the calling of comics at an early age. In 1973. Rick enrolled in the Joe Kubert School in 1976 and was part of the school’s first graduating class in 1978.
His extensive bibliography includes work in HEAVY METAL and EPIC magazines, NEXUS, SCOUT and MIRACLEMAN, DC’s AQUAMAN, SGT. ROCK and SWAMP THING among many other titles. Rick’s self-published comics include the dream diary comic book, RARE BIT FIENDS, and his PANEL VISION series.
Rick is co-founder, with Steve Conley, of Eureka Comics, specializing in creating comics for learning and literacy. In 2020 he was named Vermont’s fourth official Cartoonist Laureate. He lives in West Townshend, Vermont with his wife Cindy.
https://rickveitch.com/
Tillie Walden

Cartoonist Laureate of Vermont
Signing at Phoenix Books Table: 12:30pm

Tillie Walden is a prolific cartoonist and illustrator from Austin, TX. She is a graduate of the Center for Cartoon Studies, where she now teaches. In addition to publishing three graphic novellas with the London based Avery Hill Publishing and three with First Second Books, including her Eisner Award-winning memoir “Spinning”, she is currently working on a graphic novel series based on The Walking Dead’s “Clementine”, and a graphic novel duology co-authored by Tegan and Sara Quin. She currently lives in Norwich with her wife, newborn, and cats.
https://www.tilliewalden.com/