Spinning

Walden is one of my favorite pure artists—one of those people whose drawings I look at and say to myself: “I could never draw like that even if I practiced for the rest of my life.”

She combines her jaw-dropping artwork with sensitive, nuanced writing. While her work is consistently brilliant, this book—a memoir of her time coming-of-age as a queer person while being a competitive figure skater—was one of my foremost inspirations for my book, which started as a similar queer sports memoir before morphing into semi-autobiographical fiction.

Spinning is a memoir of the author starting from when she was in fifth grade, when her family moved from New Jersey to Texas.

Tillie had been training as a figure skater and her training changed along with her school, friends, and entire life. It’s a coming-of-age story, fully based in reality, about letting go of some things in order to grow into your true self.

The art is spare and honest. It’s mostly line work in a kind of grey mauve hue with pops of yellow.

I received a copy of Spinning as a birthday gift a few years ago. It’s always great to get a book from a friend that they personally pick out for you based on what they think you’ll like. I find this to be one of the most relatable memoirs that I’ve picked up in the last few years. I think the author’s experiences – although unique to their life – speaks deeply to many young women growing up with the pressure to embody the ideal of their gender and the punishing isolation that can come from those expectations. I return… show more.

This graphic novel memoir is a special favorite of mine because it depicts two areas that don’t get a lot of coverage in the figure skating world: synchronized skating and girl-girl romance. Though the book is ultimately about Tillie’s decision to leave the skating world, her years of experience in it mean that her gorgeous graphic work depicts a reality that will resonate with other skaters.