Jessica Abel

Jessica Abel is the author of a dozen books, including the graphic novel La Perdida (winner of the 2002 “Best New Series” Harvey Award), as well as two collections of stories from her 1990s omnibus comic book Artbabe. She co-authored the graphic novel Life Sucks, and is the author of the graphic documentary (and podcast), Out on the Wire, about how the best radio producers in the world use story to keep us listening. Her latest work of fiction is the Eisner-nominated Trish Trash: Rollergirl of Mars.

Abel and her husband, the cartoonist Matt Madden, were series editors for The Best American Comics from 2007 to 2013. Together they created two textbooks about making comics, Drawing Words & Writing Pictures and Mastering Comics.

Abel is also the author of Growing Gills: How to Find Creative Focus When You're Drowning in Your Daily Life, the founder of the Creative Focus Workshop, and works as a coach with ambitious mid-career creative pros and businesses to stop grinding and start carving out deep focus time to finish—and launch—their major, game-changing projects.

Abel was awarded a four-year residency at the Maison des Auteurs in Angoulême, France, ending in 2016. She has been teaching comics, narrative, illustration, and professional practice at the university level for 25 years, and is currently chair of the Illustration Program at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She lives with her family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.