Hey ✌️

Laura Gao is the award-winning author and illustrator of Messy Roots and Kirby’s Lessons for Falling (In Love), and living proof that doodling on your homework can—in fact—“get you somewhere” (take that Mr.Dutton!).

Their work explores hilariously messy queer immigrant stories and has been featured by the Library of Congress, the Museum of Chinese in America, NPR, and Graphic Medicine. They’ve also received honors from the Goodreads Choice Awards, Harvey Awards, Cybil Awards, New York Public Library, CALIBA, and the Texas Mavericks List.

Beyond books, Gao is a professor of comics at California College of the Arts and the co-organizer of the San Francisco’s premier LGBTQ+ comics festival, Pride in Panels. Their greatest achievements, however, still live on their parents’ fridge and in their 2004 Nintendo DS.

Laura is agented by Brenda Bowen at The Book Group.

Send bakery recs!

Love letters, doodles, cat pics, hot takes, side quests, and business opportunities are also welcome.

Hey Ma, I made it!

“How a viral tweet turned into a queer coming-of-age graphic novel” - Input Mag

“A Doc About Wuhan's Lockdown Was 'Too Real' For My Wuhan-Born Dad. I'm Glad I Watched” - NPR

“How 3 Women From Wuhan Cope With COVID-19: Rap, Poetry And Mooncakes” - NPR

My book deal with HarperCollins - Publishers Weekly

“'The Wuhan I Know': A Comic About The City Behind The Coronavirus Headlines” - NPR

“Artist Illustrates What Her Hometown Of Wuhan Is Really Like” - Huffington Post

“The flight attendant meme is here to shame your career choice” - Mashable

“Students create 'anti-resumes' to normalize failure at Penn” - The Daily Pennsylvanian

“2018 Best & Brightest 50 Business Undergrads in the U.S.” - Poets and Quants, Forbes

“Penn students’ design to reach new heights aboard the ISS” - Penn Engineering

“The Signal is combatting pre–professionalism one card game at a time” - 34st Street

“Student Spotlight Q&A: Laptop decal designer and Wharton sophomore” - The Daily Pennsylvanian