Next, on to chilly Chicago for Limmud, an international Jewish cultural festival, where I

presented a talk on my graphic novel, “Lily Renee, Escape Artist,” and taught a

comics-writing workshop to teens. The only trouble with Limmud is that it’s a one-day

festival and entirely too many good things were crammed into that day, forcing me to

make some tough decisions about which presentations to take in. I decided on one about

secular Jewish music, and one about Jewish demonology, and I wasn’t disappointed –

fascinating stuff that I want to look into much further. And here I am with a talented

young man I met there: Darren Kwiatkowski has illustrated a charming book for younger

readers called “The Book of Roots,” and I predict we’ll be seeing more from him in the

future.