One way some process trauma reflectively is by writing to their past self. In Natalie Norris’ debut graphic novel memoir, Dear Mini, she dives into a period of time in her adolescence as an act of self-healing and a way to show a familiar experience to so many others who have faced sexual assault. This first part of the duology (with part two coming in 2025) follows her time abroad in her late teens and is framed as a one-way correspondence to Mini, an Austrian student from her time in Europe.
Over email, I talked with Norris a bit about what it’s like opening up to tell her story through this format that is both framed like a letter and also feels like a personal diary. She told me,
Making Dear Mini has definitely brought me new perspectives on this period of my adolescence. Part of what makes comics such a unique medium for memoir is that it allows you to externalize your experiences and see them play out in front of you. Not only did this bring clarity about the events that happened but it also felt as if I was meeting my younger self for the first time. Drawing her on the page allowed me to learn what drove her and what she had needed at the time.
I’ve always made art that was very vulnerable which has made my relationship to an audience a little fraught. What I’m comfortable expressing through art is very different to how I engage with people in my daily life. Even though I knew I was creating this story to put it out into the world I wasn’t thinking about an audience while working. I had to pretend that it was just me and Mini otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to tell the story that I set out to tell.
Exclusive preview: Dear Mini
While sometimes their value is overlooked in favor of the more visual elements of artwork, typography and lettering are essential storytelling devices. This book breaks out of panels and is framed, via text, in a way that almost feels a stream of consciousness and yet is still organized. Norris drafted the scenes and wrote the text at the same time. She would quickly draw out a whole scene as the memories came to her, jumping around before later putting the sections of the story in order.
She explained how this allowed her to reflect on painful memories without “feeling trapped in them”:
One thing I really love about graphic memoirs is that the text allows you to have a conversation between your past and present selves. The dialogue and thought bubbles represent the perspective of my younger self, while the narrative text brings in my adult insights.
This preview is courtesy of Fantagraphics Books.
Readers of Dear Mini
We’ve reached a point in society where people are more aware that these things happen, and yet there is still a strong taboo around talking about the details of sexual abuse and assault. There are so many situational factors that come together to create an environment where sexual violence can flourish and I think that only through truly examining them will we be able to recognize and prevent predation.
My hope is that this book will help other victims of sexual violence to feel seen in a way they may not have before. And for people who haven’t had these experiences, I hope they can gain a deeper understanding of not just that this happens but how it does and what the impact looks like. Every survivor’s experience is different, but I think there is something powerful about bearing witness to someone else’s story and seeing parallels to your own. Hearing other survivors’ stories has been instrumental for me in reaching a place where I felt ready to tell my own.
Dear Mini releases on July 4, 2023. Pre-order this graphic novel up on Bookshop, at your local bookstore, or at your local comic book store.
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(featured image: Fantagraphics)
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