“Arranging Pretty: Piecing Together Medicine Dreams” Keynote address by Lisa Boivin, Friday July 14, 7pm ET Lisa Boivin is a member of the Deninu Kue First Nation in Denendeh (Northwest Territories). She is an interdisciplinary artist and the first Indigenous PhD candidate at the Rehabilitation Sciences Institute at University of Toronto, Temerty Faculty of Medicine. Lisa uses images as a pedagogical tool to bridge gaps between medical ethics and aspects of Indigenous cultures and worldviews. She paints, collages and orates image-based stories that address the colonial barriers Indigenous patients navigate in the current healthcare system. Lisa strives to humanize clinical medicine as… Read More

“Sex Is a Funny Word: The Power of Comics to Hold Bodies, Intimacy, Trauma, and Joy” keynote presentation by Cory Silverberg & Fiona Smyth, Friday July 14, 9am In this interactive keynote address and conversation, cartoonist/educator Fiona Smyth and sex educator and author Cory Silverberg will talk about their 10+ year collaboration on their award winning series of books about sex and gender for young people. Cory Silverberg: Raised in the 1970s by a children’s librarian and a sex therapist, Cory grew up to be a sex educator, author, and queer person who smiles a lot when they talk. Cory… Read More

The opening evening of this year’s Graphic Medicine conference will feature Michael DeForge in conversation with Alex Thomas. Michael DeForge lives in Toronto, Ontario. He worked as a designer on Adventure Time for six seasons. His illustrations have been featured in Jacobin, The New York Times, The Believer, The LA Times, and The Walrus. His published books include Ant Colony, Dressing, Big Kids, Brat, Sticks Angelica, Folk Hero, Stunt, Familiar Face, Leaving Richard’s Valley, Heaven No Hell and Birds of Maine. He’s written for SSENSE and Lux Magazine. His Instagram is @michaeldeforgecomics  

The Drawing Together community convened again on Sunday, March 26. Our session was led by Heidi Breuer. Heidi’s day-job involves teaching medieval and early modern literature, speculative fiction, and comics, but her free time is filled with writing and drawing. Check her out on IG (@iliketododrawrings) or at her website:  https://comicsbyheidi.weebly.com/. You can draw along with the prompts on the video below, pausing to do the writing and drawing, setting your own timer. If you’d like to share your work from this session, please tag your drawings #DrawingTogetherGM on social media.

Own Your Health Data Hungry Ghost Impossible People: A Completely Average Recovery Story Jewish Women in Comics: Bodies and Borders

This session was not recorded. It was led by Dakota Lane. Dakota is a transmedia artist, young adult author, former NY Times videographer, and maker of music videos. She directs a creative and mindful program for high risk youth in an emergency residential agency as part of an anti-gun violence initiative. She and her clients work with word and image, using comics, simple animation, observing and fantasy exercises. You can find more about Dakota’s work at Dakotalane.org and on Instagram @paperartword and @forestmeditations Dakota offered several exercises based on the creative and mindful work she does with at-risk kids, including a multi-panel… Read More

The schedule for next month’s Toronto Graphic Medicine conference is now live! It includes announcements of our keynote events about which we will be sharing more details in the coming days. You can get the full program and conference details here. It is subject to change, so please keep checking back for updates. And don’t forget to get your conference merch! CONFERENCE COUNTDOWN STARTS TODAY!  

I Want to Eat Your Pancreas Radium Girls In Limbo Graphic Public Health: A Comics Anthology and Road Map