We are thrilled to welcome the extraordinary Tessa Hulls to the Port Townsend Writers Conference for the first time—an artist whose singular vision and fearless storytelling are reshaping the literary landscape. Just this year, Tessa received the Pulitzer Prize for her debut graphic memoir, Feeding Ghosts, a groundbreaking work that has also won the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Award for Memoir, and the Libby Award for best graphic novel, among other honors. Her presence at the conference is not only timely, but deeply meaningful as we gather to celebrate the diverse voices shaping the future of literature. 

Feeding Ghosts is a luminous excavation of generational trauma, identity, memory, and resilience. With both ink and insight, Hulls traces her matrilineal lineage across China and the United States, illuminating the often-silenced histories of her mother and grandmother. Her drawings, meticulously rendered and emotionally saturated, breathe life into archival silences, blurring the boundary between personal and political. The book is a feat of storytelling and a triumph of form—an eloquent argument for the graphic novel as serious literature, capable of holding complexity and nuance in a hybrid language of word and image. 

Hulls is not merely a memoirist; she’s a cultural cartographer. A compulsive genre-hopper and lifelong adventurer, her work is fueled by research, solitude, and radical curiosity. She once rode a bike solo across the country, bartended in Antarctica, painted murals in Ghana, and lived off-grid in the woods of Oregon while drafting Feeding Ghosts. These experiences are not side notes, but vital threads in her practice—a multidisciplinary life that reflects the boundless potential of the graphic narrative form. 

In today’s literary and visual culture, graphic novels are no longer on the margins—they are essential. Artists like Hulls remind us that stories live not just in words, but in gesture, pacing, negative space, and brushstroke. Graphic memoirs expand the narrative palette and allow for forms of emotional resonance that prose alone often cannot access. In Hulls’ hands, the medium becomes a mirror, a map, and a magnifying glass, drawing readers into histories that are deeply intimate yet universally felt. 

At a moment when the publishing world is grappling with questions of voice, genre, and inclusivity, Hulls stands at the forefront, offering work that is not only artistically daring but historically necessary. We are honored that she has chosen to share her time and voice with the writers, readers, and thinkers of Port Townsend. Her presence here is more than a highlight—it’s a testament to what storytelling can become when boundaries are not just crossed, but obliterated.