Contemporary Authors

• D C-T! - 2018 Penguin Press , New York, NY

• Amazon -

  Molly Young is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine. She has written features for GQ, Elle, New York magazine, n+1 and other publications, and has authored columns for the New York Times Book Review and the New York Times. She has also published crossword puzzles in the New York Times.

• Molly Young website - http://www.molly-young.com

  Hello.

  I live in New York City. I was born and raised in San Francisco.

  I work on branding projects for interesting companies.

  I have a design store with my husband Teddy.

  I am also contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine,
  and have written features for places like GQ, Elle and New York.
  I have written columns for the New York Times Book Review
  and New York Times Style Section.

  I made a book called D C-T! which came out in spring 2018
  from Penguin Press. It is co-written with Joana Avillez.

  I belong to the Newswomen's Club of New York.

  In my spare time I make art projects, play ping-pong, and
  make crossword puzzles for the New York Times. Here is
  one of them.

  I am the in-house crossword constructor for Kinfolk
  Magazine.

  If you're the podcast type, here's a podcast I did with
  Longform.

  Email: mollybethyoung [at] gmail [dot] com
  Instagram: @mollybethyoung
  Blog: @mollyyoung

• WWD - https://wwd.com/eye/lifestyle/life-in-d-c-t-joana-avillez-and-molly-young-on-book-of-cartoon-puzzles-1202662331/

  Life in ‘D C-T’: Joana Avillez and Molly Young on Book of Cartoon Puzzles
  Avillez, a fashion illustrator, and Young, a freelance writer, release a book of cartoon puzzles inspired by illustrator William Steig's "CDB!"
  By Leigh Nordstrom on May 1, 2018

  Joana Avillez and Molly Young
  Lexie Moreland/WWD

  It all started with a boy.

  Molly Young and Joana Avillez were each students in Providence, R.I., (Young at Brown and Avillez at RISD) and dated the same young man — a “handsome Colombian heartthrob,” as Young puts it — sequentially.
  “So we were both very aware of the other one,” Young says with a smile.
  Fast-forward six-plus years (during which time the two ditched the boy, though “we wish him all the best,” Avillez says dryly), and they were both living in New York City, running in overlapping social circles. At long last, Avillez and Brown properly met.
  “That’s a very specific kind of a relationship with another woman, where you’re, like, aware of them and you’re intrigued by them but also intimidated by them,” Young says across the table toward Avillez over iced coffees at The Odeon.

  “It’s a fun part of the story but it almost has nothing to do with it. Or everything, I don’t know,” Avillez says. “Maybe he had very good taste.”
  Early on in their friendship the two learned they are both avid fans of the illustrator William Steig, and whether they knew it at the moment or not, the idea was born; on Tuesday they release their book “D C-T!,” a collection of cheeky illustrated puzzles inspired by Steig’s book “CDB!”

  D C-T! by Joana Avillez and Molly Young Courtesy of Penguin
  The book, published by Penguin, is a love letter to New York City (the title, “D C-T!” is speak for “the city”). Avillez, a fashion illustrator whose work has appeared in just about every fashion and culture publication one can name (including WWD), is a New York native while Young, a freelance journalist with a similarly long list of clips, is from San Francisco. The two always knew New York would be the subject of their book.
  “We needed to find a world where we could manage situations and where people would bring some knowledge to it, so when they figure out the codes — which hopefully they do — there’s a ‘eureka’ moment,” Avillez says.
  “The things that we like about Steig, like his humor, his attention to detail, his looseness, those are things that we also love about New York City,” Young adds. “There are so many opportunities to find those little vignettes and interactions and to put them into drawings and words.”
  Both were introduced to Steig when they were children by their fathers.
  “It’s what sparked my love of words. I basically only saw the words and not the pictures,” Young says. “When I was little all the books I read with my dad were William Steig,” Avillez says. “We had every one. He’s my favorite illustrator.”
  “What about it?” Young asks her.
  “Because the drawings are so loose but so specific, and I wouldn’t know that when I was little, but if you look at the work from the Fifties they are very detailed,” Avillez responds. “He only started doing children’s books [later in his life]. By then, his line was so knowing and there is no trepidation. They’re delighting and beautiful and all the kids are kids of mischief.”

  Inside D C-T! by Joana Avillez and Molly Young Courtesy of Penguin
  Young initially e-mailed Avillez with the suggestion they do a ‘zine combining their talents and love for Steig, but after a dinner meeting at Café Loup, the concept of a book took over (impressive, considering the fact Young got food poisoning from the meal).

  The pages are filled with favorite moments of New York and little personal gems as well; Young’s favorite pair of Céline shoes made their way into one of Avillez’s illustrations, for one.
  “They’re cartoons, really, but it was about taking it another step where they’re really funny and satisfying,” Avillez says.
  “It’s a little narrative in each picture,” Young adds.
  The book, Avillez says, is not unlike Eloise (another favorite) in its ageless appeal. As Young puts it, theirs is for those who “enjoy untangling mysteries, and humor and aesthetic delights.”

• Into the Gloss - https://intothegloss.com/2016/08/molly-young-new-york-times/

  Molly Young, Writer

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  by Into The Gloss
  "I’m lucky because I always knew I wanted to be a writer. I know a lot of people who didn’t figure out what they wanted to do until much later in their lives. Some of them still don’t know. But for me, writing was always something that I was pursuing—in college I wrote for the newspaper and took classes that required me to write a lot of papers…nothing that required analytical thinking. [Laughs] Writing is also the one thing that robots can’t do well, so I feel slightly reassured in my job security. And I think of the skills that make a good writer—intelligence, empathy, and curiosity—they are things that pretty much apply to any job in the broader, non-technical realm. It’s much harder to find a good writer than it is to find a good marketing associate. Writing is also one of those things that requires a lot of self-discipline because you have understand what conditions allow you to work well so you can create those conditions for yourself. That takes a lot of self-awareness. And I think a lot of those qualities make for people who can also be really good technical thinkers and collaborators.
  My first freelance gig was writing metro pieces for the New York Observer. I had several friends who worked there, including one who sent me on an assignment to interview Sandra Lee about some kind of tuna sponsorship she was doing in the Flatiron District. It was a 100 degree day and I was there with 10 other reporters…I turned in the piece and and I got paid about $100 all told, which I was over the moon about. The thing with freelancing is all you need is that one clip, that one piece to be able to go to another editor and say, ‘Look! I write for this other place, so you should hire me!’ And you do that until you find editors you love. I’ve written for a lot of places—New York magazine, GQ, the New York Times... The Times is my favorite, particularly the magazine. It’s terrific in the tradition of old-school magazines. If you want to write features, it’s one of the very few places that will give you the resources and the breathing room to do that. And then I like writing for the Times Book Review because it gives my dad something to brag about.
  In general, I like writing about people who are really good at their jobs. I also realized that’s like my favorite kind of movie to watch, like The Martian where he’s just really good at planting things and living in space. I will say that the most successful pieces I’ve written tend to be ones in which I was passionate about the subject. When I get negative or really critical, those pieces don’t turn out as well. Two of my favorites are the Jenna Lyons profile I did with New York magazine and the Paul Rudd profile I wrote for the New York Times Magazine. In both those cases I got to see them actually doing their jobs, which is really important. Most people aren’t very good at talking about what they do for a living, but if you watch them do it you can see all the things they’ve internalized and wouldn’t necessarily describe well.
  When I’m writing, I have to get up every 15 minutes or so and do something with myself. I try not to check my phone at all—the apartment is covered in clocks so I can see what time it is without checking my phone. But I have all these other little tricks to maintain stasis throughout the day and not get too stressed. I'll get up from my desk and drink a seltzer, or make a snack, or go for a walk, or do like 20 bicep curls with my 10 pound weights—as a result my arms are fairly buff. Plants also make me really happy. Just having a fairly responsive living thing in the house that thrives with so little attention is really validating. It’s the opposite of my cat, who requires a lot of attention and doesn’t thrive. She breaks a lot of wine glasses–I don’t even buy them anymore.
  And I take a lot of baths–I’ll read in the bathtub for like 90 minutes. I use Kneipp bath oils, which are those colorful Bavarian tonics that have herbal scents. The bath is the place where I seriously don’t allow myself to use my phone because I’m afraid I’ll drop it in the water, so it’s become a sense deprivation zone for me. That’s important because my best advice for writers is to read a lot, specifically things that you like. I think writers need to trust their tastes and not read things that they feel they should read or should have read. You can only be influenced by what you remember and therefore what you enjoy, so read things you enjoy and will be influenced by. I look at reading as basically a part of my job and I do it for two hours a day, or however early I can manage to force myself up in the morning. My other advice is turn your shit in on time. It’s small, and it’s hard but just do it, because the benefits are huge.
  I will say, I’m looking forward to fall. I’m not ‘going back to school,’ but there are still all these rituals that I've maintained from those days. You know, getting desk supplies, and allowing myself to pay more attention to my tools in a way that’s fun. I always go on a little Etsy or Ebay spree in the fall and get a bunch of pens and books. It’s also easier to think when the weather’s not super hot. In the summer, I feel like 90 percent of my energy is used just regulating my temperature, which means it's energy I’m not using to have interesting thoughts. If you charted it, my output would probably be more prolific and also more interesting in the fall. It’s a fun time to start doing the little creative projects on the side. I’ve done a couple this year, like the Periodic Table of Trash. My boyfriend Teddy and I made that together. I made a list of trash that I associate with New York—very specific stuff—and then took a couple months and photographed it all. Then we organized it to be an exact copy of the Periodic Table of Elements. Except that it’s trash.
  Then I have devious little compliment cards that were inspired by Steve Martin’s business card. Apparently there's this business card he used to give out that says, ‘This is to certify that I’ve met Steve Martin and found him charming and intelligent, warm and gracious,’ and it’s signed by Steve Martin. I found that very funny, so my friend and I were like, ‘We should do a box of cards that have very specific, almost eerily specific compliments, and then people can give them to their friends and coworkers and stuff.’ They’re beautiful and printed on expensive cardstock. I’m not really design-oriented, but it's nice to get the chance to work with brilliant, design-oriented friends. I just come up with things and find people I enjoy working with to help me execute. Like, one day I took a selfie of myself myself yawning because I wanted to see what I looked like. I figured it was really hideous—and it was! I thought that when I’m in bed and I can’t sleep I can just look at this and then I’ll yawn and then I’ll get tired. So I told my friend Derek about this and he thought we should do something with the idea. We talked and he’s like, ‘We should take really nice close-up potraits of people yawning and then put them in a gallery. Everyone who goes in will start yawning, and it’ll be a non-stop yawning event that Sleepy Jones will host.' So we're doing it! I’m very excited for that one—we're taking the photos next week actually. So yeah, these things come to me in the bath usually. [Laughs] Or on walks. Anytime my body is doing something menial, my brain is wandering."
  —as told to ITG
  Molly Young photographed by Tom Newton at her home in New York on July 28, 2016.

• Huck - http://www.huckmagazine.com/art-and-culture/books-art-and-culture/illustrated-homage-chaos-new-york-city/

  Molly Young & Joana Avillez share their guide to New York
  An illustrated homage
  New York Times writer Molly Young and illustrator Joana Avillez team up for D C-T! – a new book celebrating the pandemonium of their hometown. We meet them to find out more about their love of the city, and how they managed to crack it.

  Power women Molly Young and Joana Avillez are part of a creative female circle that seems to be running New York. They are the kind of women who, despite only being in their 20s, have meticulously curated apartments which get featured in magazines, and immaculately stylish wardrobes.
  Illustrator Avillez graduated from the School of Visual Arts, where she then began to land clients such as the New Yorker, Vice, Vanity Fair and Vogue. Her pen and ink drawings have a childlike lilt, depicting street-spotted people, fashion and buildings that charmingly stand out from the crowd.
  When Young isn’t pursuing a myriad of creative projects such as cataloguing a periodic table of trash or concocting crosswords for Kinfolk magazine, she is a writer for publications like the New York Times and GQ, with a Woolf-like knack of crystallising the cultural resonance of her subjects.
  Now, the duo are combining their talents for a new book called D C-T!. The project, which is inspired by William Steig’s work CDB!, is packed full of illustrations which give clues to encrypted captions, made up of letters that make sense when verbalised (CDB translates to ‘See The Bee’, for example). In Young and Avillez’s version, D C-T! spells out a celebration of urban living in the key of New York.

  For many young people, New York is a code to be cracked; a city where if you make it, you can breathe easy anywhere else. Despite the expense and extreme weather, the metropolis continues to have a magnetic pull. With a sodden backdrop of flash flood warnings throughout the city’s subways, we meet up over Skype to puzzle over what makes New York so special.
  “It’s not boring to walk down the street ever,” Molly says. “You’ll always see something that makes you laugh or disgusts you or touches you in a soft place in the heart – it’s flavoury.”
  The city that never sleeps is kept wide awake from a sensory overload of people and cultures, sights and smells. Amongst the stimuli of 8.5 million people crammed into approximately 300 miles squared, New Yorkers have invented a whole new concept of personal space.
  “It’s very defined,” Avillez confirms. “I feel like I could cry very publicly and everyone would know to leave me alone. It’s not that New Yorkers don’t care; it’s that you have to give everyone a lot of room if you’re going to be in close proximity.”
  This emotional blanking of what’s right in front of you has bred a special New York attitude to deal with the city. Young poses the definition as “unflappable.”
  “You could be waiting for the subway at 8am, and a rat the size of a baby runs across your foot and you still have to go to work,” she says. “Or you look out your window to the apartment across the street and there’re people having sex with the windows open, and you just have to go about your day as though that weren’t peculiar at all.”
  From overflowing trash cans to someone clipping their nails on the subway, D C-T! evokes a combination of horror, dismissal, and private fondness for the trials of the city – particularly through its use of rats, an urban motif that shapes any early encounter with New York.
  Avillez, raised in Manhattan, falls to reminiscing. “My best friend grew up in the building next to me,” she says. “We would spend time leaning out of her window counting rats in one of the warehouses across the street. They were huge and her parents would hear us go ‘there’s one!’ – that was our pastime.”
  For San Francisco transfer Molly, she quickly saw the physical impact rats had on the city. “When I first moved to New York my apartment was near the Manhattan Bridge underneath which there was an underpass,” she remembers. “Someone pointed out to me there was a line of slightly darker concrete at the base of the bridge and that was where the oil from the rats brushing against it had rubbed off and discoloured the concrete because there was such a volume of vermin traffic under the bridge: commuters!”

  Even of rodents, the city demands hustle. “My quality of life is significantly lower than it would be if I lived literally anywhere else in the world,” Young acknowledges. “But what’s true about NYC that isn’t true of other cities is that there really is a palpable ambient sense of ambition. People walk faster and they do more things in a day.”
  However, the tide has turned on the trope of turning up penniless with no plans. “It is over,” Avillez says. “40 years ago there were no streetlights below Canal Street. People lived there because it was dark and young people could have great places to live and work and not pay a lot of money – that doesn’t exist at all now.”
  For young creatives especially, it can be tough. “If you want to move to New York and make your way as an artist you do have to be wealthy or deluded,” Young says. But for Avillez, perhaps fantasy is enough: “There’s a certain amount of delusion that young people luckily have.”
  “It’s a city that requires constant negotiating and navigating and decoding,” Young concludes.
  For these women at least, they seem to have cracked it.
  D C-T! by Joana Avillez and Molly Young, is published on May 1 by Penguin Press.

• Monogram - https://monogramstudio.com/blogs/women-and-t-shirts/molly-young

  "Iffy with a twist."
  MONOGRAM: List your full name, profession, and place of residence:
  MOLLY YOUNG, writer and creative director, Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
  MONOGRAM: Let’s get this interview started off right. Please tell us about your obsession with escape rooms.
  MOLLY: I was initially dragooned into an escape room for my 30th birthday, and was convinced that I would dislike it. In fact, it was so fun that I went back the following night. And then I kept going, and going…and now it’s a line item in my life’s budget. Gathering clues and solving mysteries is a very primitive human pleasure. It’s like being inside a video game. I sound like an insane person when I evangelize about it, but I can’t help it. Some people have religion; I have escape rooms.
  MONOGRAM: You’ve written so many types of stories, from celebrity profiles to shopping to book reviews. Do you have a favorite genre?
  MOLLY: I like reporting profiles because I get to burrow into people’s lives. It’s the closest you can get to obtaining an invisibility cloak.
  MONOGRAM: Who would you most like to interview, and why?
  MOLLY: Steve Martin, because he is catholic in his tastes and rigorous in exercising them. And because he’s a recluse, like me.
  MONOGRAM: We absolutely love the Periodic Table of NYC Trash that you created with your partner and fellow owner of our Erotic sweatshirt, Teddy Blanks. Tell us about how that idea became a reality.
  MOLLY: Over years of traveling, we noticed that every city on earth has a unique “litter thumbprint”. If you pay close enough attention to garbage — and why WOULDN’T you — you can identify any place on earth by its trash. Fascinating! We liked the challenge of photographing and organizing the trash of New York City into a science-inspired framework. Teddy is the true genius of the project; I just took the photographs.
  MONOGRAM: You’re about to release a book called D C-T with artist Joana Avillez. Care to share a little bit about the contents or concept?
  MOLLY: The book is a love song to New York in the form of encrypted illustrations. It is designed for adults, but some very smart children might be able to enjoy it, too. It will be published next year by Penguin.
  MONOGRAM: So to make sure we have this straight — you work a full-time job; make posters; create stickers apps; write stories for NY Mag, GQ, and Elle; review books; and contribute crossword puzzles to the NY Times. Do you have plans to run for President in 2020?
  MOLLY: I did too many drugs as a youth to run for President!
  MONOGRAM: Your home is filled with so many weird and wonderful treasures - we were so distracted by all of your inspiring objects! Any tips to share on acquiring awesome stuff?
  MOLLY: Set eBay alerts like your lifestyle depends on it, because it does!
  MONOGRAM: You and your cat Helen have the exact same color hair. Was that part of your selection criteria or a happy accident?
  MOLLY: That was my sole criterion for selecting a pet.
  MONOGRAM: Who’s your all-time favorite artist or designer, and why?
  MOLLY: “Walter Robinson is a Manet of hot babes and a Morandi of McDonald’s french fries,” wrote Peter Schjeldahl in the New Yorker, and he was right. Walter Robinson is my favorite painter, and I am lucky to own a few of his works.
  MONOGRAM: How would you describe your personal style?
  MOLLY: Iffy with a twist.
  MONOGRAM: Do you have a favorite vintage t-shirt? How and when did you acquire it?
  MOLLY: Mad magazine was the most important piece of media in my life from ages 6 to 14. My sense of humor was forged at that age and has never advanced, thank god. “Spy vs. Spy” was a comic strip that came in every issue of the magazine, and I snatched this shirt on eBay in 2002 as a commemoration of my wasted youth. (Whenever I invoice anyone for freelance work, I use letterhead with the signature Mad “M” at the top. It reduces my professional credibility but increases my personal satisfaction!)
  MONOGRAM: What’s your favorite way to style a t-shirt?
  MOLLY: I like a boxy tee with a roomy trouser. I always get my t-shirts hemmed an inch or two because I’m 5’4” and have the figure of a baby carrot.
  MONOGRAM: Do you use graphic t-shirts to articulate your point of view? How so?
  MOLLY: I don’t even know what my own point of view is, much less how to articulate it. I pick and wear t-shirts that tickle my fancy bone. That’s the truth.
  MONOGRAM: Lightning round: describe yourself in terms of the following…
  COLOR: Off-white
  ERA: The near future
  FETISH: Accuracy
  SYMBOL: Squiggle
  LOCATION: Northern California
  OBJECT: Lint remover
  BEVERAGE: Bitter tea
  VEHICLE: Dented Volvo station wagon
  RITUAL: Bath time
  TAGLINE: “Cozy does it”
  PHOTOGRAPHY: Clement Pascal

• Quarterlane - http://theedit.quarterlanebooks.com/quarterlane-journal-molly-young-joana-avillez/

  February 8, 2017 By Samantha Hahn
  quarterlane Journal: Molly Young + Joana Avillez
  Joana above, Molly below.
  Joana Avillez is an illustrator who moonlights as a writer. Molly Young is an writer who moonlights as a creative director. They’re collaborating on a book. It’s going to be good.
  I’m excited to bring you an interview I conducted with these two talented jack-of-all-trades women: You have most likely seen Joana’s illustrations on the wall at The Wing or in New York Magazine. Molly may have recently stumped you on the latest New York Times crossword she designed. I am curious to know who is doing what and what the process has been working on a book together. Photos of Molly (her own), photos of Joana by Atisha Paulson.
  Read on…

  QL: You’re both visual and literary. Is there one area that feels more like catharsis and one that feels more like work to you?
  JA: I think the pleasure of both is what you can’t say with the other. Visually, you can show something so subtle that may seem heavy handed to describe. I read an interview with the creators of Ren & Stimpy who said they actively tried to animate indescribable facial expressions. I thought that was incredible. Secretly, I love writing so much because I feel I can get something “right” more than I can with drawing.
  MY: When I’m in a good mood they are both fun and when I’m in a bad mood they are both torture.

  Molly’s table above, Joana’s below.

  QL: How did you meet each other?
  MY: We dated the same dude in college (*NOT AT THE SAME TIME), so we have been “aware” of each other for many years. The common boyfriend has long since vanished into the ether but we gradually migrated towards each other and are now firmly in the same orbit.
  JA: Yes, boyfriend exited stage left and made room for Act II, and the rest is herstory. (Sorry.)
  QL: Your upcoming book, titled The City, will be published by Penguin Press, fall 2017. That’s exciting. Congratulations. How did that come about? Did you think up the idea and flesh it out a bit and then work on a proposal? Do you have an agent? Did the publisher come to you?
  MY: Publishing is a byzantine world where everything takes a long time and many processes are shrouded in mystery. Coming from a workplace that is tech-centric (Warby Parker), I’m always intrigued by the ceremonial rites and secret handshakes of publishing. Here’s how it worked for us:
  We thought up the idea for The City together and drafted a proposal, which we showed to our individual agents. The book proposal included a few pages of writing—a description of the book, its origin story, some ideas for how we would promote it—and dozens of sample drawings. Our friend Teddy Blanks, who is a partner at CHIPS, designed the proposal so that it had appropriate visual dazzle.
  Our agents gave us feedback on the proposal. Since there are two authors and two agents, one of the agents acted as “lead agent”. In this case, it was my agent, Seth (of The Gernert Company). Seth sent out the proposal to publishers and scheduled meetings with all of the publishers who were interested. Then Joana and I went on a little tour of publishers, meeting with editors and talking about the book. After the tour was over, Seth held an auction where publishers bid on the book. We landed on Penguin Press, where an editor named Will Heyward acquired it. We love Will. He Gets It.
  JA: What she said.
  MY: Now we just have to finish writing and illustrating it.

  Molly’s table (I’m obsessed with the pink and green palette throughout her space)
  QL: What is the collaborative process like? How did you know that you’d work well together? Do you each feel clear and delineated about what you are supposed to do? Do you feel everything is even Steven?
  JA: I think early on we established a level of openness that lets us be effectively unselfconscious. I’m always charmed and tantalized by where Molly’s mind will go, and I think we’re both entranced by the other’s knowledge, so that it truly does feel like two minds are better than one. We’re each whoring our own talents for the benefit of the other.
  QL: Can you give us a little glimpse into your book? What should we expect to see/read? What do you want readers to get from it? Do you see this as a one off or perhaps the beginning of a long collaborative book making partnership?
  MY: The City is an illustrated puzzle book in the key of New York. It’s hard to describe but (hopefully) a delight to experience. It is brain-tickling and smile-inducing. As for the partnership, I like to think we’ll continue our tandem mischief-making for years to come.
  JA: The book we’re making is almost like a game, you can read/play/do it alone or in a group. I feel like it gives a lot of confidence to the value of what a book still is and still can be today. It may bring about a level of engagement that could make you forget entirely about your iPhone.
  QL: Ok, let’s go back in time a bit. You are both city girls. Joana you were raised in NY and Molly, SF. How do you feel being raised in an urban setting influenced the way you think and see? Any favorite local bookshops to mention?
  JA: I don’t think I realized what a New Yorker I was until a few years ago. The city gave me everything I’m interested in, in terms of style and humor. I was people-watching from my stroller! There used to be an outpost of The Strand in an old building in The Seaport, where I grew up. We were there all the time. But trolling my parents’ bookshelves were where I learned everything.
  MY: Being raised in a city gave me an appetite for sensory clutter: noises, smells, sights, loudly competing stimuli, etc.
  I learned everything I know about sex from the dirty books in the upstairs annex at San Francisco’s legendary Green Apple bookstore.

  QL: Let’s stay back in time for a minute. Can you recall some books you looked at and read as kids? Please list some favorites here. Any favorite characters or authors?
  MY: Canonical youth-era books of my past include The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg, and Uncle Fedya, His Dog and His Cat by Eduard Uspensky. What these titles have in common is that they are all about kids who are bizarrely adultlike in their decisions, mannerisms and affinities. I think all kids enjoy stories about omnipotent kids. I still do.
  JA: Molly, I have to get some of your titles immediately! My parents each had their favorites to read with me. My mom was all Beatrix Potter, Margaret Wise Brown (Little Fur Family, Wait Till The Moon Is Full, The Sailor Dog), all books illustrated by Garth Williams. My dad read me every William Steig picture book, Petunia by Roger Duvoisin, and the German proto-comicbook Max & Moritz. He also gifted me a Little Lulu collection when I was around seven that was very important.

  Joana’s book stack on top, Molly’s below
  QL: What are your current reading habits? How do you carve out space and time for reading with your hectic creative lives.

  JA: I’ve been reading more than ever lately because TV, frankly, isn’t enough of an escape.
  MY: Lol at “carving out space for reading” because all I want to do is read and it takes 100% my self-control not to evade my work and reread Henry James novels, which ultimately feels like the most productive use of my lifespan. Thank GOD I have a modicum of restraint.
  QL: What do you like to read/look at now? Can you list some favorite genres and books we’d see on your shelves and nightstands?
  MY: Every title by Henry James, Edith Wharton, Jane Austen, Agota Kristof and Iris Murdoch; most titles by Herman Melville, Charles Dickens, Margaret Drabble, Evan S. Connell, and Amelie Nothomb.
  JA: Last night I read the compendium of the webcomic Super Mutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki which is so hilarious, smart and deft. I’m rereading Mrs. Dalloway because I think I’ll get more out of it at thirty than I did at eighteen. I’m always in some state of reading Nabokov, because the perfection of his writing flummoxes me to near irritation. Sometimes I’ll just place a Maira Kalman book near my bed, even if I’m not reading it, because the power of her bending every rule just radiates from the book as an object.
  QL: Which quarterlane box suits you the best? Usually I feel I would be able to guess but with you two it could be Aesthete, Fiction or you could totally surprise me.
  MY: The Classics Revisited because nothing is better than a woman with a funny mind, and Elaine Dundy + Nora Ephron are two of the greats in that category.
  JA: Since I’m always in a Dud Avocado state of mind, I think I deserve the Fiction box.

  Molly’s cat and bookshelf

D C-T!

Publishers Weekly. 265.6 (Feb. 5, 2018): p50.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
DC-T!
Joana Avillezand Molly Young. Penguin Press,
$20 (95p) ISBN 978-Q-7352-2319-6
Visually and textually witty, D C-T (pronounced, with implied humorous accent, "The City") is a riff on William Steig's 1968 collection of word puzzles, CDB. Avillez's cunning vignettes depict sights that will be familiar to New Yorker readers as well as actual New Yorkers: fire escapes, subways, restaurants, Fran Lebowitz. The collection is a mix of old and new. On one hand, it's a minimally colored, self-proclaimed paean ("P-N") to Steig and perhaps to a form of wordplay not often indulged outside of Will Shortz's universe. On the other, the premise inherently invokes text culture and its Twitterverse renaissance. The fast-paced C-T is always looking for shortcuts, even as Avillez and coauthor Young take time to appreciate small urban moments, from a rat watching a video on a smartphone (it's a big-screen TV for him) to a young skateboarder telling skeptical cops that the drink in his hand is iced tea ("S I-S T"). Like a sticky song, these puzzle comics evoke both delight and mild annoyance, and there's a key in the back if the latter overwhelms. But it's hard to stay mad when there's a rat or pigeon in a dapper hat on every other page of this breezy charmer. Agent: David Kuhn, Aevitas Creative Management. (May)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"D C-T!" Publishers Weekly, 5 Feb. 2018, p. 50. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A526810415/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=839a581e. Accessed 28 June 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A526810415