Sommer Browning

1 week ago | solrad.co | Sommer Browning

Kayla E.’s Precious Rubbish (Fantagraphics, 2025) is a graphic novel memoir about the author’s childhood marked by poverty, neglect, and tremendous abuse. Her approach to this intense subject matter is layered and complex, but also somehow unflinchingly direct. It’s almost enigmatic how she conveys the pain, loneliness, and fear little Kayla feels without ever contextualizing or intellectualizing it. I think that’s partially because there are no DPS reports, no court orders, no school records.

1 month ago | styleweekly.com | Sommer Browning

Several times before I could finish it, I had to put Kayla E.’s “Precious Rubbish” aside. Published this year by Fantagraphics Books, the new graphic novel memoir about a childhood of neglect and abuse is just that intense and powerful. The withering blurb, or rather the no-holds-barred guilt trip, on the back of the book from Kayla’s mother should have been a pretty good indication of what might be inside. But don’t judge a book by what the author’s mother has to say, right?

1 month ago | styleweekly.com | Sommer Browning

Alicia Díaz is a dancer and professor at the University of Richmond. She studied at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, New York University, and other schools, performed all over the world as a member of various dance companies, and co-founded her own, Agua Dulce Dance Theater.