Amanda Stern’s Happy Endings Music and Reading Series is an institution in New York. She has received numerous positive reviews and awards for her funny, entertaining monthly event. She brings together three authors and a musical group each month to Joe’s Pub, and it is a wonderful evening. I met Amanda last year, and we talked about doing a New Yorker cartoonist evening, and it’s finally coming to fruition this month. I helped her find three cartoonists, and she found a musical guest.  It should be a wild evening. The unexpected thing is that each author has to do a “risk” of some sort. Stay tuned: I will hopefully post a video of what happens.

Cartoonists: Drew Dernavich, Carolita Johnson, myself

Musical guest: Jeffrey Lewis

link:  http://www.joespub.com/component/option,com_shows/task,view/Itemid,40/id,5165

The Hall of exhibitors

Drew Dernavich, Michael Kupperman, Liza

Ward Sutton and Drew Dernavich

I enjoyed being at the 2010 Festival sponsored by the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York City. Met some new cartoonists and saw some old friends. Saw a lot of interesting art as well.

Bill Plimpton and Signe Baumane

Lucy Knisely

Liza and Jen Vaughn

Liza at sketch table, drawing to benefit MoCCA

When I was in Paris in early 2010, I was interviewed by some very nice women for a French online magazine.  Here is the video:

http://www.terrafemina.com/culture-a-societe/femmes-dans-le-monde/videos/1036-l-on-nencourage-pas-les-femmes-a-etre-droles-r-.html

I was interviewed by a friend who blogs for Planet Green. Very nice interview!  Thanks, Ronnie!

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/work-connect/interview-cartoonist-liza-donnelly.html

Here is a blog post I wrote about my trip to France for the cartoon festival, RIDEP. The New Yorker’s cartoonbank.com, which is the site that promotes and sells all things cartoon, kindly posted this entry. Hope to do more in the future.

http://blog.cartoonbank.com/2010/02/17/cartoonist-in-france/

Our New Yorker colleague, cartoonist Matt Diffee, hosts a regular music/comedy evening in New York City. It’s called The Steam Powered Hour, and features contemporary bluegrass music and comedy and cartoons. This Valentines Day, he invited my husband Michael and I to “perform”, whatever that means!  Come join us!  Featuring music by Reckon So and The Sassy Jenkins, and Colbert writer, Frank Lesser.

For more info:

http://www.villagevoice.com/events/steam-powered-hour-matinee-valentines-day-edition-hosted-by-matthew-diffee-1643159/

On Tuesday, January 19th, I participated in a press conference at the headquarters of Amnesty International in Paris to speak about RIDEP, the well-known cartoon conference that is held annually in Carquefou, France. What was unusual about this was that it was a press conference of cartoonists who are women, talking about what it means in their countries to be women cartoonists.  The women participating in the festival (although not all were at the press conference) were: Hana Hajjar from Saudi Arabia, Caroline Rutz from Switzerland, Firoozeh Muzaffari from Iran, Marlene Pohle from Germany (and also Argentina), Cathy Wilcox from Australia, Dominique LeMarie and  Corrine Rey from France.

Beth Arnold, a writer friend who lives in Paris and who writes a blog for Huffingtonpost.com, was at the conference and posted two items on the conference and festival:

video

article

Elena Rossini, Haley Hogan, Lindsey, me, Beth Arnold in Paris!

Had the pleasure to meet up with these wonderful new friends in Paris and we had drinks together. Elena, a filmaker, is producing a film called The Illusionists. and her blog is No Country for Young Women.  Lindsey’s blog Lost in Cheeseland, is here. Beth writes a blog for Huffington Post, called Letter from Paris.

Inspiring women!

Tomorrow, I was invited to travel  to another French cartoon festival, this time in Carquefou.  They are honoring women cartoonists this year, and I look forward to meeting cartoonists from around the world who are women. Much of the work is political, and while I work for The New Yorker, my work is often political–either socially or culturally.  I hope to blog for The New Yorker about the events. I will also write about it for Women’s Enews and blog for the Cartoonbank.com

The 11th Rencontres Internationales du Dessins de Presse (RIDEP)

Facebook page

website

I have been doing drawings and some writing for a new site, dscriber.com for a few months. Last week, I wrote about the Danish Cartoon Controversy, and the recent events that were in the news. You can read the post here.

The post is titled “Recast”.   It will be a regular feature on dscriber, and the name comes from the fact that the cartoons that will be posted there will always be cartoons of mine that The New Yorker choose not to buy. I do around six every week, so I have a lot of work that does not get published by them. Dscriber is a wonderful site and I am happy to have them there.  If so moved, please comment!

http://dscriber.com/home/980-a-few-thoughts-on-provocative-cartoons-from-a-cartoonist.html