The Escondido Public Library’s livestreams are hosted on Facebook! To view and register for the event click here!
Join acclaimed panelists: Steve Ammidown, Sarah Kuhn, Sydney Heifler, Johnnie Christmas and moderator Jessica Buck, as they discuss romance in graphic novels and comics.
We will be taking questions from the viewers.
This event is brought to you by Escondido Public Library and Mysterious Galaxy.
View our virtual event code of conduct here. Please note that it applies to all attendees, authors, and moderators and is to ensure our event spaces stay a positive, welcoming place for respectful discussions and multiple perspectives.
About the Panelists
Steve Ammidown is an award-winning archivist who specializes in Romance novels, comic books, and 80s television. Awarded the 2019 Cathie Linz Librarian of the Year, Steve manages the popular site Romance Fiction Has a History.
Sarah Kuhn is the author of the popular Heroine Complex novels—a series starring Asian American superheroines. The first book is a Locus bestseller, an RT Reviewers’ Choice Award nominee, and one of the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog’s Best Books of 2016. Her YA debut, the beloved Japan-set romantic comedy I Love You So Mochi, is a Junior Library Guild selection and a nominee for YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults. She has also penned a variety of short fiction and comics, including the critically acclaimed graphic novel Shadow of the Batgirl for DC Comics and the Star Wars audiobook original Doctor Aphra. Her newest novel, From Little Tokyo, With Love—a modern fairy tale with a half-Japanese heroine—is due out in May 2021. Additionally, she was a finalist for both the CAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment) New Writers Award and the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. A third generation Japanese American, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and an overflowing closet of vintage treasures.
Sydney Heifler is a comic book historian, who specializes in romance comics created during the immediate post-war era in both United States and the United Kingdom. She is a graduate of the MSt in Women’s Studies from the University of Oxford and is currently working on several publication projects concerning women in comics. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in history at the Ohio State University with a Distinguished University Fellowship. Find her work here.
Johnnie Christmas is a #1 New York Times Best Selling graphic novelist. Writer of the Image Comics sci-fi series TARTARUS and CREMA, a haunted romance published by Comixology. He’s currently hard at work on three new middle-grade graphic novels for the HarperAlley imprint of HarperCollins. His book FIREBUG, received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly and it earned him a Joe Shuster Outstanding Cartoonist nomination. He’s perhaps best known for co-creating the series ANGEL CATBIRD with celebrated writer Margaret Atwood and adapting William Gibson’s lost screenplay for ALIEN 3 into a critically acclaimed graphic novel of the same name. His credits also include co-creating the pre-apocalyptic thriller SHELTERED. A graduate of the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, earning a BFA in Communication Design/Illustration. Johnnie makes Vancouver, BC his home.
