Allie Brosh

Allie Brosh has enjoyed writing ever since her mom tricked her into writing a story to distract her from her immediate goal of wrapping the cat in duct-tape. That first story was long and ramble-y and almost entirely comprised of climactic battle scenes with very little context or continuity, but over the next eighteen years, Brosh wrote more and got better at it. She also went through a preadolescent phase where her singular goal in life was to become the best person ever at drawing wolves. Normally, that is not the type of skill a person would expect to rely on at any point in their adult lives, but Brosh managed to find a way.

Brosh started blogging during the summer of 2009, and at first, it was just a hobby -- something used to distract herself from unemployment and the possibility of a future as a hobo. But then, in April of 2010, the internet serendipitously discovered her blog. In 2013, Advertising Age named Allie one of the 50 most influential creative figures in the world.

While she also covered everyday topics like family birthday parties and life with pets, some of Brosh’s most well-known work delved into her own struggle with depression, which she managed to depict artfully without deviating from her signature stick figures. But after the 2013 release of her first book, which became a bestseller and won critical acclaim, Brosh went silent for seven years: no tweets, no new posts, no status updates, nothing.

Now she’s back. The internet, and the world, has changed in her absence, but Brosh’s long-awaited second book, Solutions and Other Problems is as funny and sharply observed as ever. She writes sparingly but movingly about the major challenges she’s faced in the intervening years: her own divorce, her sister’s sudden death, and the subsequent dissolution of her parents’ marriage.