Sarah Mirk

After studying history at Grinnell College, Iowa, Sarah Mirk worked as a reporter for alternative weekly newspapers like »The Stranger« and »The Portland Mercury«, where she covered mostly political issues. From 2013 to 2017, she was online editor for the feminism and pop culture organization Bitch Media, then for The Nib, a graphic journalism website that focuses primarily on history, politics, and gender. At this website, she was, among other things, the author of the animated series »The Nib«, whose first season was viewed nine million times. The comics she published on this platform were nominated for two Eisner Awards in 2020.
Sarah Mirk is the author of several books, including »Oregon History Comics« (2012), a ten-volume set of small graphic books about little-known incidents in the 153-year history of the US state. Her humorous love and dating guide »Sex from Scratch: Making Your Own Relationship Rules« (2014) provides numerous tips for both singles and people in open relationships, parents, as well as people who don’t want to have children. In 2018, Sarah Mirk, together with Eva Cabrera and Claudia Aguirre, published the graphic novel »Open Earth«, a queer science fiction comic about a polyamorous relationship. »You Do You: Finding Out Your Body, Dating, and Sexuality« (2019) aims to help teens make decisions about their own bodies in an ever-changing world of identities, emotions, and expectations. The text asks questions about gender and sexual orientation and also reorders their conceptualizations. The graphic novel »Guantánamo Voices: True Accounts from the World’s Most Infamous Prison« was published in 2020. Together with visual artists, Sarah Mirk tells the story of ten people who were prisoners, lawyers, social workers, or military personnel in the U.S.-run notorious terrorist prison in a series of illustrated interviews. In 2019, Sarah Mirk created a zine a day, a selection of one hundred of which were self-published under the title »Year of Zines« (2020).
Sarah Mirk also works as a Digital Engagement Producer for »Reveal« at the Center for Investigative Reporting. She co-authored the comic series »In/Vulnerable« about the social consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic in the U.S., which won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in 2021. Sarah Mirk reviews graphic novels for »Publisher’s Weekly« and lectures at colleges nationwide on feminism, media, and activism. She is an associate professor in the MFA program in Arts and Social Practice at Portland State University, where she teaches a graduate seminar on writing and research. The author lives in Portland.

Sex from Scratch
Making Your Own Relationship Rules
Microcosm
Portland, 2014

Open Earth
[III. Eva Cabrera u. Claudia Aguirre]
Limerence Press
Portland, 2018

You Do You
Finding Out Your Body, Dating, and Sexuality
Lerner
Minneapolis, 2019

Guantánamo Voices
True Accounts from the World’s Most Infamous Prison
[Hg.]
Abrams
New York, 2020

Year of Zines
Eigenverlag, 2020

In/Vulnerable
[Mit Amanda Pike]
[Ill: Thi Bui]
The Nib/Reveal, 2020