Kate Lavut is a teacher of creative writing, a creator of graphic memoirs, a theatre producer, and a playwright, and she is happy to be QWF’s latest featured member. A Little Bit Pregnant, her first play, won Best Drama at the New York City Fringe Festival in 2024. Chico, her debut graphic novel, almost won Best Book for Young Adults at the QWF gala. It was the first graphic novel ever to be shortlisted. Dude, Where’s My Boob?, is her current work in progress. She blends dark humor writing with naïve style watercolour painting to bring her graphic memoir to life. On April 29, she will be an invited panelist at YES Employment and Entrepreneurship’s annual conference, Business Skills for Creative Souls. If you want to connect with Kate or are curious to see her new graphic memoir unfold, visit thekatelavut.com.
QWF Membership Services Coordinator Riley Palanca spoke to Kate about her recent work, her influences and career as an artist, and what’s next for her. Here are Five Questions for Kate Lavut:
1. What was the magic ingredient in the success of your play A Little Bit Pregnant?
I could not have brought A Little Bit Pregnant to life, were it not for my incredible team.
I fell in love with playwriting in university, but I had no idea what went into actually producing a play. I was used to being a solitary playwright; suddenly, I was a producer with seven people to coordinate.
Through crowdfunding, a live auction, and a Canada Council for the Arts grant, we toured internationally. In Montreal, we had sold-out shows. In Toronto, we got fantastic reviews. In New York City, we won Best Drama. My biggest thrill was seeing the words I had written come to life. Sitting in the dark with an audience who was laughing, crying, and watching the drama unfold is magic.
The actors, director, stage manager, producer, playwright, venue, audience, and community came together to make the play a success, and I got really lucky to be a part of it.
2. Why did you decide to found your own business, Paper Dog Press?
I started making mini-comics because of a neighbourhood collective that printed underground art and distributed it at no cost. Now, if there’s one thing I love, it’s something free.
At fairs, they started selling the books, and mine was a bestseller. Well, if there’s anything I love more than free, it’s money.
I started publishing my own comics plus several children’s books by various authors, including one by a 14-year-old, whose story about a Black girl learning to love her natural hair became a nationwide sensation.
I am sad to share that I closed Paper Dog Press earlier this year. I did it with no fanfare and no media. I had to make a choice between publishing other people’s work or concentrating on my own because I could no longer do both. I love free things, and I enjoy money, but right now what I really value is time.
3. What is the biggest skill you’ve developed as a full-time freelance artist?
Being a freelance artist is like running my own business, except I am the product, and what I sell are my side-hustles. Whether as a teaching artist, guest speaker, book designer, theatre producer, or artisan selling my crocheted dolls, I am always juggling several projects.
Sometimes I drop one, and the skill is learning whether I should pick it up and try again, or let it roll away and concentrate on the others. For many years, I did my hustles on the side. Slowly, the balance shifted, and I was able to quit my job and take on freelance work full time. This is a gift, because on top of loving my jobs, I am now able to carve out time dedicated to my writing and artistic practices.
I am grateful to be part of such a strong English-language creative community in Montreal. It also helps to have a great support system at home and a spouse who can do my taxes!
4. How has being a teaching artist influenced your artistic practice?
When I am writing, I like to start by hand. I use a yellow legal pad and my felt-tipped pen. When I illustrate, I expand to pencils and watercolour paint. When I’m just ranting, I use my journal.
I encourage my students to also work on paper. Since our hands are so busy keeping up with our brains, we don’t have time to be judgmental about our work. That is a very liberating feeling.
Whether I’m teaching a workshop with marginalized youth, disabled adults, or multigenerational families, I always encourage the art of telling your own story. Almost all my work is an autobiographical mixture of comedy and tragedy, because that is the voice that comes naturally to me. When my students express themselves for who they are and claim their narrative, it also inspires me to be brave in my own artistic practice.
5. Are you planning a follow-up to Chico, your Janet Savage Blachford Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature-nominated book?
Chico, my first graphic novel about when I dressed as a boy, jumped on a bus, and went to Mexico, was released in 2015. I was featured at the Toronto Comics Art Festival and nominated for awards both through Expozine and the Quebec Writers’ Federation. I was about to go on a book tour when I was diagnosed with breast cancer.
I tell my stories to make sense of what I’m living, and having a life-threatening disease was no exception. I drew comics, took notes, and made sketches of the experience as I lived it.
This past fall, it metastasized. To cope with the news, I went on the hunt for a creative project. I started a TV pilot based on A Little Bit Pregnant, a screenplay adapted from Chico, and a solo show called Dating my Mother. But nothing stuck. That’s when I opened my drawer and found my decade-old stack of drawings from the first time I was sick. I’m happy to share that I’ve begun writing and painting my experiences into a new graphic memoir, Dude, Where’s My Boob?
Thank you, Kate!
To see more of Kate’s work, visit thekatelavut.com.
Kate will be appearing on the Inspiring Artists panel at YES Employment and Entrepreneurship’s Business Skills for Creative Souls Artists’ Conference on Tuesday, March 29, 2025. Get your tickets on Eventbrite.