Join book editor and Drexel University Associate Professor of Creative Arts Therapies Natalie Carlton, along with contributing authors and artists, for a panel discussion and book signing celebrating their newly released book, Illustrating Stories.

This hybrid event invites participants into the ongoing conversations and possibilities that emerge when visual storytelling within creative and therapeutic practices converge.

Panelists will discuss related themes, including:

• Graphic and sequential storytelling as methods of reflection, sense-making, and witnessing
• Visual + graphic narratives as embodied, relational, and relevant contemporary practices
• Innovative applications of comics and zines within self-inquiry, clinical, community-based, and educational contexts
• The possibilities of sequential art to support dialogue, learning, creativity, historical discourse and social connections

Following the discussion, guests are invited to enjoy light refreshments and continue the conversation with book contributors. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing.

Hosted by the Drexel University Libraries in partnership with the College of Nursing & Health Professions Department of Creative Arts Therapies.

Who Should Attend

This event is free and open to the public. This event may be of particular interest to students, faculty, clinicians, artists, educators, researchers, and community members interested in art therapy, graphic medicine, visual culture, narrative practices, and creative approaches to learning and arts-based research and therapy. 

About the Book

Comics, Zines, and Graphic Novel in Art Therapy: Illustrating Stories brings together art therapists, educators, researchers, and artists working at the intersections of graphic narrative, embodied meaning-making, graduate teaching, and social justice. Through sequential art media study essays, graphic chapters, and reflective therapeutic and educational practices, contributors explore how comics, zines, and graphic novels function not only as expressive media but also as powerful tools for group processes, self-education, grief response, artistic inquiry, and trauma recovery.