The Refugee Youth Project (RYP) helps school-aged youth develop the knowledge and skills required for academic success and positive integration. Programs include after-school support, summer school, college access, and community arts. After-school programs focus on homework help, social skills, and building and improving English language skills. 

Funding for RYP is provided through the generous support of the Maryland Office for Refugees and Asylees (MORA), as well as supplemental grant and fundraising dollars. All RYP program services are FREE for eligible students.

The RYP Zine is a 28 full color 8.5"x11" anthology zine made by the high school students in the Refugee Youth Project's summer art class. All proceeds go towards to future print runs of the zine and the students's snack budget.

A promotional comic talking about Refugee Youth Project. It duiscusses who they serve, the services they offer, and ways that people can sign up to volunteer.  16 pages made in graphite.

The Refugee Youth Project (RYP) school-aged youth develop the knowledge and skills required for academic success and positive integration. Programs include after-school support, summer school, college access, and community arts. After-school programs focus on homework help, social skills, and building and improving English language skills.  

Funding for RYP is provided through the generous support of the Maryland Office for Refugees and Asylees (MORA), as well as supplemental grant and fundraising dollars. All RYP program services are free for eligible students.  

RYP partners with local colleges, universities, and high schools to recruit more than 250 volunteers each year. Volunteers play a crucial role in providing extra academic support and guidance to youth participants. Community members are also encouraged to participate!  

Brittle is my in progress graphic novel. It's 159 pages in B&W. Here is a sample of some of the pages.

Overview

In 1997, 10 year old Anna chokes out her childhood bully, but she does not get in trouble as we learn that the school is aware of how this bully is tormenting her. Cut to 2017 where, in a Baltimore parking lot, 29 year old Anna declares her crush to Danni after an internal debate where she reassures herself that if Danni rejects her she never has to come back to Maryland. He agrees to go on a date with her. She then drives 3 hours back to Deleware and wakes her mother up at 3am telling her she needs to find a therapist. 

In her first session, Anna explains that she needs therapy to make sure she doesn’t blow her first romantic relationship. Turning go back to Christmas 1997, 10 year old Anna gets a fancy set of art supplies. After the gift exchange, the family immediately disperses and Anna goes to her room alone and uses the supplies to draw while watching the TV show Rhoda. Anna relates to the lead character for many reasons, including the fact that Rhoda says in her intro, “The first thing I remember liking that liked me back was food.” 

In 2020, we are introduced to Anna’s abstract avatar, who has a conversation with her therapist about how art became a coping mechanism to deal with her loneliness. At a comic convention panel in 2016, the moderator asks Anna why she uses this avatar to separate herself in her work, and we see that it was created in the middle of a previous bingeing episode. We cut to 2021, where Anna is in an eating disorder program. Anna is thankful that her boyfriend Danni doesn’t notice all of the weight she has gained while in recovery. The eating disorder therapist asks Anna whether she would leave Danni if he was upset by it and Anna doesn’t know. 

A breakdown of Anna's current emotional state reveals that the majority of it is rage. A flashback to Anna in middle school in 2002 reveals that she has become a bully herself. She regrets her outbursts as they happen, but can’t seem to control them or the rage that causes them. This is later reflected in a social media interaction with another ex-bully who wants to be friends. She also rages at a perceived rejection to one of her comics.

One of the reasons for Anna's mental state is that chronic pain is coloring everything as it gets worse and worse. Her physical therapist recommends treating "the whole person," as trauma and pain are often related.

Anna’s therapist recommends inner child therapy, which Anna thinks sounds stupid. It takes Anna weeks to try it, and in the beginning she can’t even envision herself as a child. When asked by her therapist to draw herself and her 4 year old self talking, it feels natural. Anna later buys a toy related to a happy childhood memory and finds talking to it healing.

In exploring what she wants to get out of art, she's frustrated by the idea that so many artists seem obsessed with legacy. What Anna actually wants to get out of her art is connection. She has lost sight of this, as she rages against being rejected by grants and the comics community in general. Danni reminds her of how a connection with one of her readers allowed her to help him with a severe crisis, and that appreciation comes in many forms.

She ends up talking it through with her therapist and even though she wants “praise and validation from every single person on the planet,” it’s impossible. She has actually made genuine connections with people through her work, which is what she has always wanted. 

35 year old Anna imagines visitng her 1997 childhood self in her fourth grade classroom. They have a conversation where Anna says that while she doesn’t get to be famous, but she isn’t lonely anymore. Child Anna is greatly comforted by this, and lets down some of the walls she is beginning to build around herself. These are the walls current-day Anna has to break down to find her community. This doesn’t really hit her until she sees the movie Marcel the Shell. She realizes she relates to Marcel (re)finding his community, after being alone for long. 

This is my submission to Dirty Diamonds: DEATH anthology. Dirty Diamonds is a series of anthologies of 4-page autobio-comics by femme and female creators on a particular topic. My submission to this anthology is about my mother's all consuming grief after losing my father. 

Here is the description from the anthology editors: Female & femme comic creators bare their souls and guide you to the other side in our final installment!

Our milestone 10th issue of Dirty Diamonds highlights the multitude thoughts, fears, hopes, and experiences our contributors have around the most universal theme of them all: DEATH.

Like all good things, Dirty Diamonds: an all-girl comic anthology must also come to an end. But we wanted to make sure we went out with a bang (never a whimper). Inside you will find unexpected, insightful, and soul-wrenching comics that our creators shared, showing unbelievable humanity, vulnerability, and authenticity.

Dirty Diamonds #10: Death features comics from 67 contributors in our largest collection about being true to yourself through struggles and failure, and believing in your own strength, resolve, and what you're able to be.

Edited by Kelly Phillips & Claire Folkman. Cover art by Shivana Sookdeo. Book design by Kelly Phillips.

244 pages

Ink and color pencil illustration on 8.5"x11" paper 

11"x17" ink illustration of a woman chubby dancing nude in various poses, celebrating her body in one of the most primal ways possible.