“I am an artist, writer and adventurer, and the library is one of my favorite places in the world,” said Tessa Hulls while at the International District-Chinatown Branch recently.
You might know Tessa as the (sometimes) Seattle-based author and illustrator of the graphic memoir, “Feeding Ghosts,” which was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Memoir/Autobiography earlier this year, much to the delight of the Library – and all of Seattle.
Just this week, it was announced that “Feeding Ghosts” won a Washington State Book Award. Tessa was also our 2021 Book Bingo artist!
To help us celebrate Library Card Sign-Up Month, Tessa was kind enough to spend time with us at one of her “home” branches, the International District-Chinatown Branch.
In this Instagram Reel and the Q&A below, she shared how SPL helped her on her journey to writing “Feeding Ghosts,” what a perfect library day is for her, and why her go-to for small talk is little-known library services.
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Tell us about your early connection to libraries.
I grew up in a town of 350 people and I had my childhood library card number memorized. I was back in that town recently and was telling the librarian that I had memorized my childhood library card. He said he could reassign it to me, so I actually have my childhood library card number back.
What is your earliest Seattle Public Library memory?
It’s almost like osmosis. I’ve spent so much time in Seattle’s libraries that I can’t remember the origin, but for me a perfect day is biking to four different library branches and working out of all of them.
When I first moved to town, the Ballard Branch was my home branch. I loved that green roof. Then for a while it was Capitol Hill and then Rainier Beach. Now I’m sort of split between Douglass-Truth and the CID [International District – Chinatown Branch].
How has the Library been part of your journey as an artist, writer, chef and educator?
When I started “Feeding Ghosts,” I’d never really read comics and I had no idea how to make them. So I would go to the Central Library and I would just check out about a linear foot of graphic novels at random.
I would take them home and I would do little sketchbook critiques, and I would draw in the style of each maker and sort of figure out what worked, what didn’t, what I wanted to use. It was completely how I taught myself the form.
In my other, other, other life, I’m a seasonal chef. I also teach a cooking class for Coyote Central over in the Central District, based on the history of the spice trade. When I was researching that class, I went hog wild in the cookbook section of the Central Library, and I got all of these fascinating, beautiful coffee table cookbooks, to learn about the history of ginger and cardamom and the Spice Islands. It was one of the most fun things to research.
Why does having a library card matter?
More so than anywhere else in the world, the Library is the place that makes your world bigger. If you have a library card, you can go anywhere.
There are so many underutilized services that the library has. You don’t even want me to start because I will go off for 20 minutes. One time I was at a barbecue and I was talking about little-known library services as I often do in social settings. And I was like, “Did you know about Your Next Five? Where you can email a librarian and you can just say like, this is what I’ve been reading, and they’ll give you personally tailored book recommendations along with links to them in the catalog?”
You were our 2021 Book Bingo artist, which is so great! How did that happen?
I was asked to draw the Book Bingo board in 2021 and that was a dream come true because I loved doing anything for the library and was basically told I could do whatever I wanted. I’m basically a five foot seven raccoon and decided that I would just draw racoons reading books. And that kind of expanded to living creatures being bibliophiles.
I’m sure you get asked this question a lot, but what was it like winning the Pulitzer?
I spent nine years of my life on the book and it feels really validating to have that work recognized. But beyond that, I feel really excited for the way that winning the Pulitzer means I can now get other people past gatekeepers and I’m excited about using this idea of access in a community-oriented way. I think there are some doors opening that are going to be really fun and that I want to use in ways that I am getting other people access to books and reading.
Thank you for talking with us, Tessa! We are huge fans of your work and love that you use the Library in so many interesting ways!
Caption for top photo: At the International District – Chinatown Branch Tessa holds “Feeding Ghosts” and a stack of books she recommends by authors she admires and knows. They are, from top to bottom, “Feeding Ghosts,” “Fire Season,” by Manjula Martin; “The Lucky Ones,” by Zara Chowdhary; “Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City,” by Jane Wong; “Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History,” by Margaret Juhae Lee; “Ma and Me,” by Putsata Reang; and “Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire,” by Michelle Peñaloza.
Find out more about Tessa and her work at www.tessahulls.com.