Sarah Mirk

Sarah Mirk
Portrait of a white woman with blonde hair. She is wearing a black beanie and a jean jacket.
Mirk in 2019
EducationGrinnell College
OccupationJournalist

Sarah Shay Mirk (she/they) is an American author, zinester, and journalist based in Portland, Oregon, in the United States.

Education

Mirk attended Grinnell College, graduating in 2008.

Career

Cover of "Why Wikipedia Matters", Mirk's zine about Wikipedia, 2022

She worked for the Portland Mercury from 2008 to 2013. She has also written for Bitch Media. Since 2017 Mirk has been a contributing editor at The Nib.

In 2019, they also undertook the enterprise of making one zine a day, and she then compiled a hundred of them in a self-published book, Year of Zines (2020). They make their zines freely available to "anyone, especially teachers and educators".

Guantanamo Voices was a New York Times pick for the Best Graphic Novels of 2020. Mirk also teaches a writing class for graduate students at Portland State University's Art + Design program.

Their comics have been featured in The Nib, The New Yorker, Bitch, and NPR.

In 2024, Sarah Mirk faced online criticism after publishing a satirical, "sanitized" version of the handkerchief code.

Works

Articles

  • Mirk, Sarah (March 26, 2014). "Open Source Feminism: An Intervention with Wikipedia". NTEN: The Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network.

Books

  • Oregon History Comics (Know Your City, 2012. Small comic books about Oregon history. Available for free for non-commercial purposes on Mirk's official website.)
  • Sex from Scratch: Making Your Own Relationship Rules (Microcosm, 2014)
  • Open Earth (Limerence Press, 2018. A queer sci-fi comic about polyamory, with art by Eva Cabrera and Claudia Aguirre)
  • Guantanamo Voices: True Accounts from the World’s Most Infamous Prison (Abrams, 2020. Anthology of nonfiction comics)
  • Year of Zines (self-published, 2020)
  • Making Nonfiction Comics (Abrams ComicArts, 2025. With Eleri Harris)

Interviews

References

  1. ↑ Ketcham, Amaris (2022-01-12). "An Interview with Sarah Mirk". Autobiographix. Retrieved 2023-11-16.
  2. ↑ "Exactly the Job She Wanted | Grinnell Magazine". magazine.grinnell.edu. Retrieved 2020-10-22.
  3. ↑ "Articles by Sarah Mirk". Portland Mercury. Retrieved 2018-11-25.
  4. 1 2 Sabatier, Julie (September 10, 2014). "Navigating Non-Monogamy". Oregon Public Broadcasting. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  5. ↑ Paul, Constant (6 November 2019). "Sarah Mirk is creating one zine a day, and she's bringing them to Short Run". The Seattle Review of Books. Retrieved 2019-11-09.
  6. ↑ Joshua, Amberson (10 April 2019). "Behind the Zines: Sarah Mirk is Making 365 Zines in 365 Days". Riot Fest. Retrieved 2019-04-10.
  7. ↑ Kaplan, Avery (July 4, 2020). "A Year of Free Comics: The many zines of SARAH MIRK". Comics Beat. Retrieved December 8, 2020.
  8. ↑ Chamberlain, Henry (2020-05-23). "Interview: Sarah Mirk, the World of Zines, and Visual Storytelling". Comics Grinder. Retrieved 2020-12-08.
  9. ↑ Ed Park and Hillary Chute (9 December 2020). "A New York Times pick for the Best Graphic Novels of 2020". The New York Times. Retrieved 2020-12-09.
  10. ↑ Cramer, Jude. "This "low-key" version of the hanky code completely misses the point". INTO. Retrieved 2024-10-07.
  11. ↑ Spitaleri, Ellen. "Oregon history gets a little comic twist". Retrieved 2020-12-19.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  12. ↑ Dieppa, Isabel Sophia. "Erotic Sci-Fi Graphic Novel "Open Earth" Explores Polyamory In Space". Bust. Archived from the original on 2019-01-30. Retrieved 2020-12-02.
  13. ↑ "Guantanamo Voices (an excerpt)". World Literature Today. Spring 2020.
  14. 1 2 Dueben, Alex (July 30, 2020). "Smash Pages Q&A: Sarah Mirk". Smash Pages. Retrieved December 8, 2020.
  15. ↑ Acena, TJ. "Portland writer Sarah Mirk's new illustrated book delves deep to tell the tales of lives in limbo at the prison built on the War on Terror". Oregon ArtsWatch. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  16. ↑ Lakshmi, Sarah (12 September 2020). "A New Graphic Novel Makes the Stories of Guantánamo Bay Visible". KQED. Retrieved 12 September 2020.
  17. ↑ Wang, Amy (5 September 2020). "Stories from Guantánamo get compelling comic-style treatment from Portland journalist". The Oregonian/OregonLive. Retrieved 14 September 2020.
  18. ↑ Smith, Suzette. "This New Graphic Novel Looks at Guantanamo Bay with Clear Eyes and a Sunset Palette". Portland Monthly. Retrieved 2020-09-03.
  19. ↑ Sabatier, Julie. "Portland author Sarah Mirk on 'Guantanamo Voices: True Accounts from the World's Most Infamous Prison'" (audio interview). Oregon Public Broadcasting. Retrieved 2020-09-08.
  20. ↑ James Amberson, Joshua (8 September 2020). "The Stories We Tell About Guantánamo". Propeller Books. Retrieved 2020-09-08.
  21. ↑ "4 nuvolette con : Sarah Mirk - autrice di Guantanamo Voices". ComixIsland (in Italian). 2020-09-19. Retrieved 2021-05-28.
  22. ↑ Erin, Polgreen. "How comics can enhance reader engagement, bring new audiences to narrative nonfiction". Nieman Reports. Retrieved 15 July 2014.