Amy Kurzweil (born October 23, 1986) is an American cartoonist and writer. In 2016, she published the

graphic Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of the data, as in design and manufa ...

memoir ''Flying Couch''. Her second graphic novel, ''Artificial: A Love Story'' was released in 2023. She draws cartoons for ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

''.

Life and career

Kurzweil was born in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

in 1986. Her mother, Sonya, is a psychotherapist, and her father is the futurist and inventor

Ray Kurzweil Raymond Kurzweil ( ; born February 12, 1948) is an American computer scientist, author, entrepreneur, futurist, and inventor. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), speech synthesis, text-to-speech synthesis, spee ...

. She graduated from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

in 2009 and earned a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

creative writing Creative writing is any writing that goes beyond the boundaries of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on craft and technique, such as narrative structure, character ...

from

the New School The New School is a Private university, private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for p ...

in New York City in 2013. She had multiple teaching jobs in the city, including dance at public schools and English at the

Fashion Institute of Technology The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) is a public college under the State University of New York, in New York City. It focuses on art, business, design, mass communication, and technology connected to the fashion industry. It was founded in ...

. She aspired to a career in fiction writing, but in her twenties found "how much I loved to draw". An early cartooning influence was the work of

Alison Bechdel Alison Bechdel ( ; born September 10, 1960) is an American cartoonist. Originally known for the long-running comic strip ''Dykes to Watch Out For'', she came to critical and commercial success in 2006 with her Graphic novel, graphic memoir ''Fun ...

. A graphic novel-cum-memoir by Kurzweil, ''Flying Couch'', was published in 2016. Inspired by graphic novels such as Bechdel's ''

Fun Home ''Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic'' is a 2006 graphic memoir by the American cartoonist Alison Bechdel, author of the comic strip '' Dykes to Watch Out For''. It chronicles the author's childhood and youth in rural Pennsylvania, United States, ...

'',

Art Spiegelman Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev Spiegelman ( ; born February 15, 1948), professionally known as Art Spiegelman, is an American cartoonist, editor, and comics advocate best known for his graphic novel ''Maus''. His work as co-editor on the comics magazin ...

's ''

Maus ''Maus'', often published as ''Maus: A Survivor's Tale'', is a graphic novel by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman, serialized from 1980 to 1991. It depicts Spiegelman interviewing his father about his experiences as a History of the Jews in P ...

'', and

Marjane Satrapi Marjane Satrapi (; ; born 22 November 1969) is a French-Iranian graphic novelist, cartoonist, illustrator, film director, and children's book author. Her best-known works include the graphic novel ''Persepolis (comics), Persepolis'' and Persepo ...

's ''

Persepolis Persepolis (; ; ) was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire (). It is situated in the plains of Marvdasht, encircled by the southern Zagros mountains, Fars province of Iran. It is one of the key Iranian cultural heritage sites and ...

'', it tells the family history of her '' bubbe'' (grandmother) as a

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

survivor, her mother as a psychologist, and herself as a young woman. The project began as Kurzweil's (non-cartoon) senior thesis at Stanford, and she continued to research, write, and eventually illustrate it over eight years. Kurzweil drew significantly from an archive at the

University of Michigan–Dearborn The University of Michigan–Dearborn (UM-Dearborn) is a public university in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1959 with a gift from the Ford Motor Company, it was initially known as the Dearborn Center, operating as a remote branc ...

of oral histories of Holocaust survivors, including an interview with her grandmother. Reviews of the book were largely positive. Kurzweil's cartoons regularly appear in ''

'' and other outlets. Her second book, ''Artificial: A Love Story'', follows the life of her father and her grandfather, another survivor of the Holocaust.

Bibliography

* *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kurzweil, Amy 1986 births Living people Writers from Boston American graphic novelists American editorial cartoonists American women editorial cartoonists American comics artists American female comics artists American comics writers American female comics writers American women memoirists 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American memoirists 21st-century American women writers Jewish American editorial cartoonists Jewish American comics writers Jewish American comics artists Jewish American memoirists Jewish women writers Stanford University alumni The New School alumni The New Yorker cartoonists Ray Kurzweil