Zoe Ward, Staff Writer–
Writer and illustrator Martha Park visited Denison University on Nov. 6 to engage students in the hybrid work of graphic journalism.
Park grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and began drawing at a young age; she describes how her mother put her in drawing classes at age nine after Park repeatedly drew an identical orca whale. Originally a printmaking major, she took creative writing courses during her senior year at Ohio Wesleyan. Park describes her “internal resistance to specializing” as she became determined to not have to choose between art and writing. Park received her MFA from Hollins University.
Park’s connection to Denison stems from creative writing professor Amy Butcher, who discovered Park through Instagram. Butcher admired Park’s illustrations and writings and reached out to her about writing a graphic essay. The result, “Consolation Puppies,” a piece based on Butcher’s experiences of fostering needy beagles while reflecting on the results of the 2016 election, was only Park’s second graphic essay. Neither author was familiar with the process of creating graphic personal narratives. Butcher stressed the importance of writers “winging it,” “failing,” and then “writing into the solution.” The two authors also reflected on their literary friendship, made possible through technology and mutual admiration.
Park discussed her first sequential comic, “Washed Away,” which combines the “flashy story about landslides and how they’re increasing” and the deeper story of insurance struggles. “Washed Away” journalistically follows a family financially devastated by a landslide crashing into their house. The piece was eventually printed and distributed by Appalachians for Appalachia with the goal of helping Kentuckians understand insurance issues and access resources.
Park has published several other pieces in notable publications such as Guernica and The Rumpus. She has done graphic, illustrated, and comic journalism. Her topics include “the final days of Memphis’s last public housing project” and “the history and struggles of Cairo, Illinois.” Her 2025 book “World Without End” is a series of illustrated essays that explore the intersections of faith, climate change, and parenting.
Park’s initial process of creating graphic essays was a “taxing back-and-forth” of uploading each layer that had been completed on paper. When Park became pregnant with her son in 2019, she threw out all of her art supplies and got an iPad, because she knew that her studio would become his room. Park gave Denison students a tutorial on how she now completes her graphic journalism, explaining that she writes before illustrating as her words influence the color palette and artistic style.
One student asked Park how combining art and writing has changed her writing style. Park explained that when she’s writing a graphic essay, she knows that it needs to be under 2,000 words, so she has to remain brief. When she’s writing without illustrations, she knows that she needs to bridge the gap left in the reader’s mind between the words and the images. She explains that graphic journalism has changed her initial process of ‘spewing’ in a first draft; at the beginning of her writing career, she was focused on making the reader feel what she wanted them to feel. Now, she tries to pull back and allow the reader to feel whatever emotion the work creates in them.
Park encouraged student writers to live interesting lives, rather than become “monkish” about the practice of writing. “Make good food,” she urged the class, “read stuff that doesn’t fit in your workshop.”
“You don’t need as much time to write as you think you do.”