Oh Brother Updates
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Oh Brother Updates 〰️
Oh Brother - Graphic Novel
IT’S NOT ALWAYS EASY BEING GINA. AND THIS YEAR MIGHT JUST BE TOO MUCH!
New house. New school. New best friend?
For a nervous kid who doesn’t like change, it’s a lot to deal with. And that’s before Gina’s brother Rob gets involved!
From stealing Gina’s treats to climbing on the neighbors’ garage roof, Rob has a knack for causing chaos. Gina knows he doesn’t mean it, but it can still be tough to live in a house with locks on every door and to wonder whether Rob’s quirks might scare off her new friend, Callie. Then again, maybe Gina’s own quirks are enough to drive Callie away!
This heartfelt and irresistible graphic memoir debut captures the complicated feelings that come from growing up with an autistic sibling who requires substantial support. It’s a story about friendship, family, disability, and the power of Vegemite toast.
Preorders
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Preorders 〰️
You can now preorder your very own copy of Oh Brother (woo!). There are a few different versions of book and lots of ways to preorder (and preordering is super important for the success of any book). Here are a few ways you can preorder your copy of Oh Brother:
And you can always preorder your copy through a local bookstore or comics book store (having worked in both bookstores and comic shops, I highly recommend supporting local).
Or you could request that you public library orders in a copy of the book (which means that lots of people can have access to the book!).
Oh Brother Background
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Oh Brother Background 〰️
The current big project I'm working hard on is my very first graphic novel, Oh, Brother. The book is a memoir about growing up with my younger brother Robert, who is autistic and has an intellectual disability. It is a story of friendship, family and love between siblings, aimed at middle-grade readers. I'm writing it for 12-year-old me, who just wanted to know there were other siblings like me out there going through the same stuff.
Penguin Random House (PRH) Australia has acquired world rights to Oh, Brother in a joint deal between PRH Australia, Random House Graphic (US), PRH Children’s (UK) and Tundra Books (Canada), via Annabel Barker at Annabel Barker Agency and Daniel Lazar at Writers House. Oh, Brother will be published simultaneously in Australia, the US, the UK and Canada in 2026.
You can read about my initial progress on Oh, Brother (along with stories about my autistic experience, what it's like making comics, the process of writing long-form work and other things like that) on the blog I kept in the first year of working on the project. A lot has changed since I first began working on the book (my writing and drawing level, how the world talks about autism and even who I am), and it’s been a really interesting, difficult and satisfying process (in mostly equal measures). The book has also evolved a lot over the 9 years (hopefully for the better!) and that is thanks to mentorship and support from fellow cartoonists Mandy Ord and Pat Grant, various workshopping sessions at the Comic Art Workshop, and now the wonderful editors at PRH. I really want Oh, Brother to be the best it can be, and can’t wait for you to read the final result.
Acknowledgements
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Acknowledgements 〰️
During the 9 years I have been working on Oh, Brother, I have been fortunate to receive support from several sources to develop it. I began writing this book with the support of the 2016 Colin Thiele Scholarship for Creative Writing, and received the 2017 Ian Wilson Memorial Fellowship through the May Gibbs Children’s Literature Trust the continue working on it. In 2020 I received an Arts and Culture grant from Arts South Australia, which financially supported me to further develop the manuscript and prepare it for shopping to publishers. In 2024 I received grants from Arts South Australia and Creative Australia to support me while I inked and coloured the 280 pages of the final book.
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