The Prince and the Dressmaker

Jen Wang is a writer, illustrator, and cartoonist born in California in 1984. She began drawing a webcomic while still in high school, and went on to publish her first graphic novel, Koko Be Good, in 2010 with First Second Books. In 2014, Wang collaborated with writer Cory Doctorow on the graphic novel In Real Life, which won the 2014 Cybils Award. (Cybils stands for Children’s and Young Adult Book Lovers’ Literary Awards.) The Prince and the Dressmaker was her third published graphic novel and boosted Wang to a new level of prominence. All of these books, as well as Wang’s 2019 middle grade graphic novel Stargazing, depict coming-of-age narratives with expressive illustrations and character-driven empathy. Wang credits her sensitivity to her use of her own experiences as inspiration, sharing that in The Prince and the Dressmaker, she wanted to create a book that her “younger, more questioning self” would love (Martin, Brittany. “This L.A. Illustrator Just Created the Gender-Fluid Fairy Tale We All Need.” Los Angeles Magazine, 16 Mar. 2018). In Stargazing, Wang channeled her experience as the child of Taiwanese immigrants, and included a character being diagnosed with a brain tumor, just as Wang was at age six.