Maggie McKnight

A native of northern California, Maggie McKnight now lives in Iowa City with her partner, their cats, and some Calphalon pots. Her interests include food writing, book arts, and visual artistry. She is a past recipient of the Harry A. Bell Grant for Food Writers and the Iowa Arts scholarship. To prepare for becoming a writer, she spent numerous years employed as a carpenter, firefighter, bookseller, and pastry guru.

MISS CONCEPTION
This is an excerpt from a graphic seriocomic essay, also known as my thesis. The longer work addresses issues of nontraditional parenting, reckoning with family history, and the funny things you do for love.

I first tried to write this story in traditional prose, but it just felt like too many words. Adding visual elements to my writing allows me to capitalize on my already-spare prose style. Additionally, the images help break up the linearity of written text; telling a story in images helps me incorporate multiple threads of the story in a way that feels natural and compelling to me, and, hopefully, to my readers.