Raina Telgemeier

About

Raina Telgemeier (; born May 26, 1977) is an American cartoonist. Her works include the autobiographical webcomic Smile, which was published as a full-color middle grade graphic novel in February 2010, and the follow-up Sisters and the fiction graphic novel Drama, all of which have been on The New York Times Best Seller lists. She has also written and illustrated the graphic novels Ghosts and Guts as well as four graphic novels adapted from The Baby-Sitters Club stories by Ann M. Martin.

Raina Diane Telgemeier was born on May 26, 1977, in San Francisco, California, and grew up there. She has two younger siblings, Amara and Will. According to her memoir Smile, she knocked out two front teeth while in sixth grade and needed braces and multiple surgeries as a result. She attended Aptos Middle School and Lowell High School, both in San Francisco.
Telgemeier studied illustration at New York’s School of Visual Arts; she graduated in 2002.

After graduating from the School of Visual Arts, Telgemeier began attending small-press festivals such as the MoCCA Festival, selling self-published autobiographical stories and vignettes from her life. She produced seven mini…