You are invited to join writing group members for a talk on resilience and art to inspire us all!

Guest Speaker and Heights resident Mary Lawton is a cartoonist whose work has appeared in a wide variety of publications including The New Yorker magazine, Reader's Digest, Ms., The San Francisco Chronicle, Funny Times, Narrative, and The American Bystander.

During the past three decades despite facing many obstacles to reaching her dream of being published in The New Yorker magazine, Mary persisted and eventually sold her first cartoon to them in 2017.  

Her collection of letters weighs four and a half pounds and includes many encouragements from editors.These mostly hand-written rejection slips saved over the course of her career are a testament to her resilience. 

She will discuss her process of cartooning and the successes, mentors, friends and family that kept her going. The talk will be approximately thirty minutes with Q&A and encouraged audience discussion to follow. 

Mary appears weekly in the King Features syndicated strip Six Chix. Her cartoons and paintings have been exhibited in Houston, Boston, Berkeley, the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, and The Society of Illustrators in New York City. You can find her on Instagram at #marstoonz.