Graphic novelist Rana Telgemire has been described as like the Beatles for teenagers.

The public appearances are young fans have been known to stand on chairs, jump up and down,

and wait in long lines for her autograph.

She's so popular because young people, especially middle schoolers, find her books so relatable.

She writes about feelings and emotions they may not want to or even know how to talk about with adults

adolescent anxiety

Loneliness embarrassment I recently sat down with Telgemire to talk about her work and her legion of fans who

know her by a single name, Reyna.

That's also the name of her book's main character.

The young Reyna in the books is me. There are three books with the character Rayna in them.

They're all memoirs, they're all short stories about things that have happened to me in my life.

And so I'm not editing out you know my

feelings I'm not editing out stuff that happened to me I'm just leaving it all

in there for good or for bad so if it happens to Reyna the book, it has happened to me in real life.

I read about how you started drawing. You were a small girl and you would, it sounds of almost like

self-prescribe therapy, you would draw your nightmares.

I would.

Yeah, my mother tells the story that she made this blanket for me

when I was a child, and she took all of my drawings

and she did a transfer process where she would put the

drawings onto a big quilt.

And so the quilt maybe had 12 images on it.

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