Readers' Choice Award Nomination: Ariel Schrag

Ariel Schrag has created graphic memoirs for years that tell queer stories--such as Awkward,Definition, Potential, and Likewise--and she was also a writer for seasons 3 and 4 of Showtime's The L Word. This summer, the Brooklyn-based writer and artist published her first novel, titled Adam, which surprised many of her fans. Not only did focus on a privileged, cisgender white boy, it also offered a searing critique of "oppression Olympics" among those same privileged queer groups.

"I found the idea that somebody would have a feeling of power and superiority because of a marginalized status really interesting," she told The Advocate. "I did that all the time when I was in my early twenties -- I would just spout off some rhetoric verbatim that someone else had told me and then act really self-righteous about it. A lot of the book is me making fun of myself."

Schrag, who identifies as a cisgender, lesbian woman, also explained that she was interested in what happens when "the most privileged person intersects with a group of marginalized people," referring to Adam as "this privileged, white, straight, cisgender boy." The book, which received many accolades, opened up the lesbian and trans world of New York City to many cisgender readers, while also concluding with a poignant tribute to queer 21st-century quandaries.

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