Biographical Statements
Judy Karasik
Judy Karasik was born and raised in the Washington, DC area. From
the late 1970s through mid-1980s she was an editor at Holt, Rinehart
and Winston where writers she worked with included Louise Erdrich--she
acquired and edited Love Medicine as well as Ms. Erdrich's first
book of poetry-- Julius Lester, and Edward Whittemore. After she
left publishing, Ms. Karasik raised money for Amherst College,
and freelanced as an editor, writer, and fund raising consultant.
She has been a judge for the National Book Award in Poetry and
the National Endowment for the Arts Prose Panel. She has written
commissioned reports for several foundations and non-profits,
including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Her
articles have appeared in The New York Times Book Review and The
New York Times' op-ed page, The Boston Globe Magazine, The Chronicle
of Philanthropy, and the Agni Review, among others.
She has written extensively on the subject of youth service and
was Senior Training Officer at the federal Corporation for National
Service. Her responsibilities included supervision of the training
and technical assistance for integration of people with disabilities
in AmeriCorps. In 1996 she started a family and moved to Tuscany,
where she freelanced as a writer and editor. Presently, she and
her family live in Maryland.
Paul Karasik
Upon graduating from Pratt Institute in 1981, Paul Karasik studied
at the School of Visual Arts with cartoonists Will Eisner, Harvey
Kurtzman, and Art Spiegelman. He was Associate Editor of Spiegelman
and Francoise Mouly's avant garde international comics and graphics
review, RAW. In addition he published his own magazine, Bad News,
which was among the first to run the work of cartoonists Ben Katchor,
Gary Panter, and others.
In collaboration with artist David Mazzucchelli, he adapted Paul
Auster's novel City of Glass as a graphic novel. In a full-page
review, Newsweek acclaimed the work as "the first time the
[cartoon] form has tried to interpret serious contemporary literature."
The New York Times Book Review commented that "the many layers
of Mr. Auster's speculations about existence are pulled back to
reveal a deft mystery." The graphic novel has been translated
into French, Italian, German, Japanese, and Spanish, was named
one of the best 100 comics of the century by Comics Journal, awarded
Best Foreign Comic of the Year 1999 in Spain, and included in
excerpt in The Norton Anthology of Post-Modern Literature.
Mr. Karasik's cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker and Nickelodeon
magazines. He has taught cartooning at the School of Visual Arts
in New York City, Packer Collegiate in Brooklyn, and, for the
past three years, at the Scuola de Comics in Florence, Italy.
He presently lives on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts with his
family.
Joan Pascal Karasik
Joan Pascal Karasik was born in New York City in 1918, was educated
at Swarthmore and Columbia University, and moved to Washington,
DC during the Second World War, where her work on several congressional
committees included investigation of migratory labor in the Everglades
and war mobilization issues. After she started a family and it
became clear that the oldest of her four children had a serious
cognitive disability, Ms. Karasik became involved in advocacy,
education, and volunteer work in childhood education and disability.
She was joined in this work by her husband, Monroe Karasik. She
has served on numerous state and local studies and commissions
and is the recipient of many awards including recognition as one
of Maryland's Outstanding Women. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.
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