We're very used to having words and images integrated. It's just like completely natural,

right? But somehow in books there's been this like segregation of words and images in adult

books. And I guess I combined more in some images because I didn't think I should it.

Welcome back to working. I'm your host, June Thomas. And I'm your other host, Isaac Butler.

Isaac, how are you? And whose voice did we hear at the top of the show?

Things are going pretty well right now, Jude. I think my big challenges for whatever reason

I don't seem to want to sleep past 5.30 in the morning. And so this week I'm trying a new

thing of not fighting it. And instead I'm just getting up at 5.30 and, you know, walking the

dog or exercising or whatever, just to see what that is like. And what that is like is by lunch,

I need an app. But anyway, back to our show. Our guest this week is the writer and artist Lauren

Redness, who has been a trailblazer in a career of doing what she calls illustrated nonfiction.

So you just called it illustrated nonfiction. I've read a couple of her earlier books and it's

clear that they're not graphic novels and they're not comics, but art and illustration and images

are absolutely central to the way they work. It is a really interesting but kind of Sui generous

format, right? Yeah, I mean, it's funny as you'll hear in the interview, you know, to her,

she's just sort of like, well, this always made sense to me. I don't understand what's so weird

about it. And that's part of why I wanted to talk to her because they aren't comics. It's not what,

you know, to use some of our previous guests, it's not what Mira Jacob or Josack or Alison Bechtel

are doing because the images aren't in sequence. The key to comics is that the images exist in

sequence with one another. It's called sequential art. Her art is not sequential. But the way that I

think about it is that the pages are highly composed, you know, the text is another graphical

element along with the image. And so you're thinking about how the text and images interplay with

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