Alison Bechdel

Alison Bechdel, born September 10, 1960, in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, is an American cartoonist and author who earned degrees from Bard College at Simon's Rock and Oberlin College. She is recognized for pioneering work in graphic narrative, initially gaining attention through a long-running comic strip before achieving mainstream recognition with the 2006 graphic memoir Fun Home, which examines her relationship with her father and her own coming of age; the book was adapted into a Broadway musical that won five Tony Awards including Best Musical in 2015. Her 2012 graphic memoir Are You My Mother? focuses on her relationship with her mother, and she released a further memoir on fitness and personal development in 2021. Bechdel received the MacArthur Fellowship, known as the Genius Award, in 2014, serves as Vermont's Cartoonist Laureate, and became a professor at Yale University teaching comics and autobiography beginning in 2024.