26 Facts About Lynda Barry

Lynda Barry garnered attention with her 1988 illustrated novel The Good Times are Killing Me, about an interracial friendship between two young girls, which was adapted into a play.

Lynda Barry's second illustrated novel, Cruddy, first appeared in 1999.

Lynda Barry was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship as part of the Class of 2019.

Lynda Barry's father was a meat-cutter of Irish and Norwegian descent, and her mother, a hospital housekeeper, was of Irish and Filipino descent.

Lynda Barry grew up in Seattle, Washington in a racially mixed working-class neighborhood, and recalls her childhood as difficult and awkward.

At The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, Lynda Barry met fellow cartoonist Matt Groening.

Lynda Barry's career began in 1977 when Groening and University of Washington Daily student editor John Keister each published her work without her knowledge in their respective student newspapers, titling it Ernie Pook's Comeek.

Lynda Barry was known as the class cartoonist in her grade school.

In 1989 Lynda Barry's strip appeared weekly in more than 50 publications, mostly alternative newspapers in large cities.

Lynda Barry has described her process as developing a story while working, not planning it out in advance.

Commercially published collections of Lynda Barry's comics began appearing in 1981.

Lynda Barry has written two illustrated novels, The Good Times are Killing Me and Cruddy, known as Cruddy: An Illustrated Novel.

Lynda Barry addressed the violence in the book in an interview with Hillary Chute in The Believer, saying:.

Lynda Barry adapted The Good Times are Killing Me as an Off-Broadway play.

The demons Lynda Barry wrestles with in this book include regret, abusive relationships, self-consciousness, the prohibition against feeling hate, and her response to the results of the 2000 US presidential election.

Lynda Barry has published four books about the creative processes of writing and drawing.

Lynda Barry adapted her illustrated novel The Good Times are Killing Me as an off-Broadway play that had 106 performances from March 26 to June 23,1991, at the McGinn-Cazale Theatre at 2162 Broadway, and 136 performances from July 30 to November 24,1991, at the Minetta Lane Theatre.

Lynda Barry was nominated for the 1992 Outer Critics Circle's John Gassner Award.

Lynda Barry offers a workshop titled "Writing the Unthinkable" through the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, and The Crossings in Austin, Texas, in which she teaches the process she uses to create all of her work.

Lynda Barry conducts approximately 15 writing workshops around the country each year.

Lynda Barry taught a class, What It Is: Manually Shifting the Image.

Lynda Barry briefly joined him in Washington, DC, but a few months later, in the summer of 1989, she moved to Chicago to be near fellow cartoonists.

Lynda Barry is married to Kevin Kawula, a prairie restoration expert.

Lynda Barry is an outspoken critic of wind turbines and has lobbied the Wisconsin government for clearer zoning regulations for turbines being built in residential areas.

Lynda Barry has spoken out about wind power's problems with noise pollution, human health, and efficiency as related to variability.

In 1994, Lynda Barry suffered a near-fatal case of dengue fever.