Smoke and Standup

Here’s my table at Princeton Public Library’s Zine Fest! I was over the moon when I heard that my area had finally caught the zine (and comix) bug. For twenty years I’ve waited to share my work a show I can get to in half an hour. The March 16 event was well-organized and attended, and I hear it’s going to grow into an annual thing. The resurgence of interest in handmade books was inspiring to see, and I felt my creative tendrils reaching out so happily to my local community.

My tendrils really heated up when I spoke on a panel with conceptual artist and zine maker Christina Freeman at the fest about exploring the literary and visual possibilities of our different media. One of the more fascinating talks I’ve participated in, since our topics are so similar but our approaches diverge. You can watch our discussion here:

The same week as our first local zine fest, I had a chance to be interviewed on Autobiographix, the excellent Substack hosted by Nora Hickey and Amaris Ketcham that is a must-read for creators and appreciators of autobiographical comix. Every time I’m interviewed, something pops out of my mouth (or keyboard) to surprise me. This time? “Autobio comix share a lot with poetry and standup. it’s their bastard child. Sorta. Mine are, anyway.” Yeah. Okay, then. You can read the rest of it here: https://autobiographix.substack.com/p/an-interview-with-jennifer-hayden.

My French teacher took a photo in NYC of the French edition of The Story of My Tits making its way under its new name Néné Chéris. You can find it on the table at Albertine Books on Fifth Avenue, trembling next to a copy of the translation of Maus. If this photo were a video, you would see my book shaking.

And my drafting table is empty because I HAVE FINISHED MY ANTI-COOKBOOK FOR TOP SHELF!!! First conceived at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival in 2016 when my editor saw me haranguing my audience (who knows why) with my disastrous cooking stories and he said, “Hey, you ever thought of making a book about that?” Fleshed out after the Eisners that year in San Diego at the bar, where Top Shelf’s book designer was consoling me with alcohol for my loss and he asked, “So what book are you thinking of doing next?”

After a plague, an earthquake, and a couple of solar eclipses, not to mention family weddings and funerals, I bring you WHERE THERE’S SMOKE THERE’S DINNER. It’s a humor buffet of autobio food stories and fantasies from my life told in comix and recipes, each page a visual tribute to the cookbooks whose art I love to look at but whose food I am incapable of creating. Pub date is November 2025, just in time for the holidays. Put it on your gift list for all your kitchen-scarred friends. With each book I wrap up a period of life and put it, I don’t know, nearby. Not too far away. But where I don’t have to look at it anymore. So I can move on to the next phase. A book has a way of holding you in the same place, even over many years, until it’s done. Now I am relishing the emptiness. The quiet. And underneath, underneath, the already-beginning stirrings of restlessness.

Get these updates sent straight to your inbox by subscribing to my Substack!