“The Bernhardt Prize promotes journalism that furthers the understanding of the history of working people. The event and the prize honor the vision of the late Debra E. Bernhardt, who worked in so many different realms to share the hidden histories of working people.” – Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives
Molly spoke with Democracy Now about her recent trip and illustrations of Ukraine, alongside Ukrainian journalist and motorcyclist Anna Grechishkina, about how the people there are living through the devastation of war.
Molly spent two weeks traveling through Ukraine this summer, drawing and documenting the ways war has changed the lives of Ukrainians.Read about it now in the New York Review.
“An irresistibly readable and humane exploration of the barbarities of class…readers are gifted that most precious of things in these muddled times: a clear lens through which to see the world.” —Naomi Klein, New York Times bestselling author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine
Molly illustrated five pieces for Earth Overshoot Day, to accompany a series of interviews by powerful women explaining how gender equality and healing our environment are linked.
An “Overshoot Day” is the date by which, per person, a country’s natural resource consumption surpasses the earth’s capacity to regenerate those resources in the space of one year.
This series of interviews was produced by The Heinrich Boell Foundation.
“On the occasion of Earth Overshoot Day 2022, the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Washington, DC is publishing a series of short interviews with feminist change-makers committed to fighting for people and the planet. We aim to elevate their views on what needs to change in global consumption patterns and how a structural feminist transformation to a more just and sustainable world can be achieved. The interviews feature not only feminist perspectives on economic, political, environmental, and social transformations, but also highlight approaches on how to maintain individual resilience and well-being in a time where many of us feel overburdened by the breadth of global challenges.”
Join Molly, Sanaa Seif, Rosaline Elbay, and Sharif Abdel Kouddous for a reading of “You Have Not Yet Been Defeated” by Alaa Abd el-Fattah at McNally Jackson Seaport on April 25th.
“A fiercely independent thinker who fuses politics and technology in powerful prose, an activist whose ideas represent a global generation which has only known struggle against a failing system, a public intellectual with the rare courage to offer personal, painful honesty, Alaa’s written voice came to symbolize much of what was fresh, inspiring and revolutionary about the uprisings that have defined the last decade”
LATimes Book Prize Finalist and professor of South Asian history at Emory University Ruby Lal’s TIGER SLAYER, a young reader’s edition of the author’s biography of Mughal empress Nur Jahan, often considered the Cleopatra of South Asia, is to be illustrated by National Book Award-nominated artist and journalist Molly Crabapple, to Simon Boughton at Norton Children’s, in an exclusive submission, by Bridget Wagner Matzie at Aevitas Creative Management for the author, and by Alice Whitwham at The Cheney Agency for the illustrator.
Molly’s story “How the Taxi Workers Won” in the Economic Hardship Project won Best in Show from the Society for News Design in the micro newsroom category.
Judges praised the “gorgeous, emotional portraits of the taxi drivers.” saying “Molly Crabapple’s work reminds me how much I have in common with every other human who shares this earth. In these images, she showed struggle and joy in one stroke.”
“Filled with stories of struggle and strength, fear and loss, love and rage, The Work of Living is a deeply human history of one of the defining events of the 21st century told by the people who lived it.”
Molly talks with the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights about her experience covering Guantanamo Bay for ECCHR’s video series “Guantánamo Images and Imaginaries: Engaging With the Prison Through Art”
In the quiet nights before New Years, I like to sit with my notebook and try to remember what I did in the twelve months prior — to pick out moments from the procession of meals cooked and phone calls made, of glasses of whisky emptied, drawings inked, words edited and ink spilled. Most of these memories stay in my notebook, but here is the place for a more professional accounting.
This year I wrote more of my book on the Jewish Labor Bund, which is made slower because I have to do so much for the research in Yiddish (bless you, CYCO books). I wrote less for publication, but here are a few favorite pieces:
I made a video about debt for The Intercept with my ever collaborators Kim Boekbinder and Jim Batt. Our video series Welcome to the Zowon an Edward R Murrow award, a gold medal from the Society for News Design, and a bunch of other awards I forgot. It was nominated for two Emmys.
My friends at Radix Media released Fanning the Flames, a coloring book of my old school burlesque drawings.
I’ve travelled little since COVID began. To make up for it, I had New York. I cooked for the Chinatown free fridge and left flowers at my great grandparents’ grave, and walked with BombaYo’s annual parranda in Bushwick, warmed by the joy of every old lady who stopped to dance. I went out to Hunts Point for the Teamsters strike. I hung with the taxi drivers since the first night of their sit-in at City Hall. I stayed up till dawn at the Chelsea Hotel, where a few old-school bohemians have held onto their apartments like fortresses. I made a million bottles of coquito. I had my friends, my man, my parents, my city… and though I miss the world terribly, these are enough.
Join Molly and cartoonist Ken Krimstein at The Strand in NYC for a conversation about his new book “When I Grow Up; The Lost Autobiographies of Six Yiddish Teens”
“A collaboration between The Intercept; artist Molly Crabapple and her creative partners at Sharp As Knives productions; and writer Astra Taylor, this short film invites us to understand our debt in new ways. Our monthly payments are a source of profit, a form of wealth transfer from struggling borrowers to the well-to-do. These profits are a source of power; debt is never just about money. In the United States, debt has long been used as a form of social control and a tool of white supremacy.”
Bluestockings and The Clemente are putting together an exciting event for Dec. 8th at 6:30pm! Both in-person (vax required) and online. Live musical performances by @chokedupnyc and Claudi of @pinclouds! Remarks from writers, artists, and organizers in our communities including @alokvmenon @ritaindianalamontra @yinq13 & @mollycrabapple! Raffle prizes! Community love!
