This week I’ve continued to work on data entry for media contacts and comic vendors statewide. However, I was also able to pivot towards a new task by helping my supervisor with grant writing. I did this primarily by finding academic research concerning comics, their use as educational tools across age ranges, and their value as literature. This was something which I had been working on periodically throughout my time at CXC, when I was able, but it became my main focus as I was informed of an upcoming grant deadline. Beforehand I had found relatively little academic literature concerning comic books, and nothing which I had considered to be useful, so I was essentially starting fresh with a looming deadline I was previously entirely unaware of.

However, I seem to do some of my best work under the pressure of a set deadline, and it was certainly refreshing to once again work in a way which I so strongly enjoy and am passionate about (albeit, about a topic which I have never worked with before). After searching without success for some time, I found an article which was seemingly perfect for our uses. From there, I was able to comb through references and CV’s, reading many articles, to find sources which I thought would be best used to support arguments about CXC’s value. From there, I organized these sources based on how I thought they should be used, providing summaries and my own notes, creating citations ready for use, and pulling many quotes to be integrated into the grant itself. While I won’t be involved in the actual writing of the grant, my work has certainly provided CXC with the tools to elevate their own grant-writing.

This weekend I will be participating in the Columbus Book Festival, manning the CXC table. I’ll be there both Saturday and Sunday. I hope we’ll have a great weekend!