It's an honor to be nominated...

...but winning feels really good, too :)

In another example of “you just never know,” a book that I was completely irresponsible about, fully didn’t think would move the needle in my career in any way, has become the one project to give me that delicious, and truly considered “out of my reach” title… award winner.

Thanks to some Young Men in Love.

None of that opening paragraph is meant to speak ill of the anthology or imply that I had low expectations for its release. When Joe Glass and Matt Miner reached out to me and asked if I’d want to participate, I was in a supremely distracted headspace. On top of being in the first 18 months of the pandemic, there were some personal things going on in my life that took up an exceptional amount of bandwidth. Matt, Joe, and Tyler Chin-Tanner were supremely gracious when I missed not one, two, three, but countless promises of “you’ll get something this week!” The missed deadlines went on until they were finally like, in incredibly professional terms, “this is the deadline where you really fuck us over.”

Not wanting to let my friends down, I set aside two or three days and barreled through the art at a speed I don’t ever want to think about. I kept the story to a limited color palette, winnowed the cast down to mostly the two main lovers, and just cranked. It. Out.

Here’s my only other regret, outside of not being my best self with deadlines: the rushed art. The story is one I am still narratively proud of, partly because it’s a secret sequel to my book Nothing Lasts Forever that lets readers know the protagonist and his on-again off-again Cash end up finding each other and pursue a “thing,” but also because it was an exploration of my anxious thinking, and how the person who could ruin a beautiful gesture is not my significant other, but actually me (cue Taylor Swift’s “Anti-hero”). Maybe there’s a charm to the quick n loose aesthetic of the art, but when I look at the final product and see how much my friends slayed- Josh Cornillon, Bradley Clayton, DJ Kirkland, I see you- I wish I’d have given just a little something extra to the visual storytelling. 

Now, here we are, present day. YMiL has won not ONE, but TWO rather iconic awards! GLAAD Media award for Outstanding Graphic Novel/ Anthology, and the Gayming Award for Best LGBTQ Comic Moment. That’s two for two in terms of nominations and wins! 

So much of the credit belongs to Joe and Matt for curating a beautiful collection and getting the stories across the finish line (and finding a fantastic letterer with Lucas Gattoni), there’s also a massive credit due to A Wave Blue World, not merely for agreeing to publish the book. They promoted and got YMiL to the markets and avenues that care about these kinds of stories. Making a great book is one huge accomplishment, but cutting through the noise and finding an audience for said book? That’s king status. 

I’m so glad that everybody stuck with me on this project. The contributors and editors truly deserve these feathers in our caps. Also, if it weren’t for this process, I’d have never received some truly sage wisdom from Matt Miner about taking care of Henry during his chemo process.

While the win is mainly Joe’s and Matt’s, it’s not gonna stop me from changing my bio to say “Award winning author Sina Grace.” :)

Here are a few pages of my story. Go buy the book and find out what happens to these two lovebirds!

"Thingaversary" pages, written and drawn by me, lettering by Lucas Gattoni