Power Paola engages young New Orleans writers with the art of the graphic novel

Earlier this month, Colombian writer, visual artist, and filmmaker Power Paola participated in the Stone Center’s Latin American Writers Series. In addition to discussing her life, interests, and influences with the Tulane community, she visited the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) as a guest speaker. Engaging with youth aged 14 to 18, Paola talked about how she began her creative work, what her writing process looks like, and how she gravitated toward comics as a medium. Students were particularly interested in the relationship between image and text in her graphic novels and the process behind making her auto-biographical graphic novel Virus Tropical into a movie.

Powerpaola was born Paola Andrea Gaviria Silguero in Cali, Colombia. Writer, visual artist, and filmmaker, she has published the graphic novels Virus Tropical (2011), Por Dentro (2012), Diario (2013), qp (2014), Todo va a estar bien (2015), and Nos vamos (2016). She also collaborated on the film adaptation of Virus Tropical, which won the 2019 Quirino award for Best Ibero-American Animation Feature Film. Her artwork has been exhibited in museums and galleries in Europe, Austrialia, and the Americas.

The next and final installation of the Fall 2019 Latin American Writers Series takes place Thursday, November 21st with Alberto Barrera Tyszka, a Venezuelan author who has published over a dozen works of poetry, short story, chronicle, novel, and biography. Learn more and RSVP at the Facebook Event Page.