Lynda Barry has worked as a painter, cartoonist, writer, illustrator, playwright, editor, commentator and teacher and found they are very much alike. She is the inimitable creator behind Ernie Pook’s Comeek, the seminal comic strip that was syndicated scross North America in alternative weeklies for two decades. She is the author of the books One! Hundred! Demons!, The! Greatest! of! Marlys!, Cruddy: An Illustrated Novel, Naked Ladies! Naked Ladies! Naked Ladies!, and The Good Times are Killing Me. She invented a genre with the bestselling and acclaimed creative how to-graphic novels What It Is (for which she received Eisner and R.R. Donnelly awards) and Picture This.
What It Is and Picture This are based on Barry’s workshop “Writing the Unthinkable” which is a tried-and-true creative method that is playful, powerful, and accessible to anyone with an inquisitive wish to write or remember. Lynda explores the depths of the inner and outer realms of creation and imagination, where play can be serious, monsters have purpose, and not knowing is an answer unto itself. Barry currently offers her workshop “Writing the Unthinkable” all over the place.
Born in Wisconsin in 1956, Lynda studied at Evergreen State College.