Mari Naomi

MariNaomi (they/them) is the award-winning banned-book author and illustrator of: Kiss & Tell: A Romantic Resume, Ages 0 to 22 (Harper Perennial, 2011), Dragon’s Breath and Other True Stories (2dcloud/Uncivilized Books, 2014), Turning Japanese (2dcloud, 2016; Extended edition Oni Press, 2023), I Thought YOU Hated ME (Retrofit Comics, 2016), the Life on Earth trilogy (Graphic Universe, 2018-2020), Dirty Produce (Workman Publishing, 2021), and I Thought You Loved Me (Fieldmouse Press, 2023). Their work has appeared in nearly 100 print publications and has been featured on websites such as The New Yorker’s Daily Shouts, The Washington Post, LA Times, The Rumpus, LA Review of Books, Midnight Breakfast, SF Examiner, and BuzzFeed. Their comics have been translated into French (Devenir Japonaise, Editions IMHO, 2021), Japanese, German, and Russian.

MariNaomi’s comics and paintings have been featured in the Smithsonian, the de Young Museum, the Cartoon Art Museum, the Asian Art Museum, and the Japanese American National Museum.

In 2011 and 2018, Mari toured with the literary roadshow Sister Spit. They are the founder and administrator of the Cartoonists of Color Database, the Queer Cartoonists Database, and the Disabled Cartoonists Database. They are the California Chapter Leader of Authors Against Book Bans. Mari has taught classes for the California College of the Arts Comics MFA program, and was a guest editor for PEN Illustrated. They were cohost of the Ask Bi Grlz podcast with author Myriam Gurba.

MariNaomi lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with their partner and a menagerie of beloved rescue animals.