Words Matter Spring 2012

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Literary Arts Pairs with PNCA for Inaugural Graphic Lit Prize

You Are a Writer

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The pencil has at least two functions: making words and making images. Both functions involve movement—sometimes a rapid and sometimes a more slow, drawn-out movement. Those two kinds of making, word and image, become visible through WKH PDJLF RI D VLQJOH LQĂ€QLWLYH “to draw.â€? Look up draw in the Oxford English Dictionary and you’ll discover some surprises. For one thing, beginning in the ninth FHQWXU\ LW LV Ă€UVW D YHUE OLYHO\ DQG full of movement, and means, quite 1VL :HJJV ^VU [OL 75*( .YHWOPJ 3P[LYH[\YL (^HYK H UL^ 6YLNVU )VVR (^HYK MVY OPZ IVVR -VV[UV[LZ PU .HaH simply and generally, to pull some stylus across the surface of a piece of paper or parchment. Chaucer uses draw, LQ WKH IRXUWHHQWK FHQWXU\ WR PHDQ ZULWLQJ ZRUGVÂłVSHFLĂ€FDOO\ SRHWU\ 1RW XQWLO some two hundred years later, in the late sixteenth century, does the word draw refer to images.

“PNCA is proud to forge this partnership with Literary Arts in offering the inaugural Graphic Literature Award.â€? To draw is thus a process; it implies a rendering and an unfolding—a drawing out—and thus inherently speaks of both narrating and sketching, but oddly HQRXJK RI QDUUDWLQJ Ă€UVW ,W WDNHV D ORQJ WLPH DOO WKH ZD\ IURP WKH QLQWK WR WKH sixteenth century, for the idea of drawing to become an object, a sketch, in need of a frame. By the twentieth century words and images meet in a most lively and radical, startlingly new way, one that encourages us to pause in our looking as we JVU[PU\LK VU WHNL

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Conversations with my son often veer along unpredictable lines. This morning, he asked, “Mom, have you been working on this book ever since you were a little JLUO"Âľ ´<HV , WKLQN , KDYH Âľ , VDLG +H SLSHG up from the back seat, clearly impressed. ´0RP Âľ KH VDLG ´,¡P D WHQ Ă€QJHUHG DOLHQ Âľ 0\ VRQ LV VL[ WKH VDPH DJH WKDW , ZDV ZKHQ P\ IDPLO\ Ă€UVW PRYHG WR +DLWL WR be missionaries at a small, under-funded JVU[PU\LK VU WHNL

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