Literature Grant
2020 Summer Grantee
Danica Novgorodoff

Danica Novgorodoff is an artist, writer, and graphic novelist from Brooklyn, NY, with roots in Louisville, KY. Her graphic novels include Long Way Down (adapted from Jason Reynolds’ novel by the same name), The Undertaking of Lily Chen, Refresh Refresh, Slow Storm, and A Late Freeze.
She was awarded a 2015 New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in Literature, and was named Sarabande Books’ 2016 writer in residence. Her art and writing have been published in MoMA Magazine, Best American Comics, The Believer, Artforum, Esquire, VQR, Slate, Orion, Seneca Review, Ecotone Journal, The Arkansas International, and others. Danica’s works in progress include a graphic novel on climate change (Macmillan, in collaboration with journalist Meera Subramanian), a children’s book on the explorer Alexander von Humboldt (Penguin Random House), and a book on rice (Flatiron Books; in collaboration with Harlem chef JJ Johnson). She has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, Blue Mountain Center, VCCA, Willapa Bay and Brush Creek.

Danica’s project Me/Not Me is a hybrid-form memoir on the ways in which being an artist and a mother conflict and converge. It seeks answers to the questions: Can a woman be both a good artist and a good mother? Is there not some ferocity and single-mindedness necessary for art-making that is incompatible with the selfless generosity of a mother?

Through text and drawings, Me/Not Me explores themes of childbirth and choice, what it means to be an artist, and the mutability of the self. Danica searches for models of motherhood in art history and literature, in self-help and science, in family and chosen family. She explores gender and sexuality, the economics of motherhood, the terror of raising children in an age of climate crisis, and the artist’s need for solitude counterbalanced by a baby’s complete dependency.

Please visit Colter’s Twitter, Instagram and her website for more information.