My guest on this episode is Rachel Deutsch. Rachel is a writer, cartoonist, and illustrator whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, PRISM, The Pinch, McSweeney’s, Mother Tongue, Mutha Magazine, and in the popular newsletter ParentData by author Emily Oster. Her first book is the graphic memoir The Mother, published in 2025 by Douglas & McIntyre. Author Ashley Audrain called the book “profound, candid and wonderfully witty,” and “a tender self-reflection about the tumbling journey through early motherhood.”
Rachel and I talk about the creative tensions that sometimes arise between her illustrator side and her writer side, about why she has not re-read her graphic memoir since it was published, and about being surprised and a little heartened to discover that, even among her fellow New Yorker cartoonists, there is no shortage of imposter syndrome.
This podcast is produced and hosted by Nathan Whitlock, in partnership with The Walrus.
Music: "simple-hearted thing" by Alex Lukashevsky. Used with permission.
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