Laura Gao () is a Chinese-American comics artist. Gao became famous when she released a short comic called "The Wuhan I Know" in response to the growing sinophobia due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The comic was later used as the basis for her graphic memoir called ''

Messy Roots ''Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese-American'' is a graphic novel and memoir written and illustrated by Laura Gao, with coloring by Weiwei Xu. It was published on March 8, 2022, by HarperCollins. It originates from the comic "The Wuhan ...

'', released in March 2022.

Life and career

Gao was born as Gao Yuyang, in

Wuhan Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the ninth-most populous Chinese city an ...

, China. While her parents moved to the United States to study, she stayed at Wuhan with her grandparents until she was four years old, after which her parents were able to earn enough money to bring the rest of the family to the US. Gao received the English name "Laura" in honor of Laura Bush. Gao grew up in Coppell, Texas, and later moved to Philadelphia to study at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, where she attended business school. After graduating, she was hired by Twitter as a

product manager A product manager (PM) is a professional role that is responsible for the development of products for an organization, known as the practice of product management. Product managers own the product strategy behind a product (physical or digital), ...

and moved to San Francisco.

"The Wuhan I Know"

Gao had planned to visit her family in Wuhan early 2020, but cancelled the trip when her family told her about the spread of

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

in the region. During that time, Gao noticed more people become aware of the city, mostly in a negative way, resulting in many people calling the new virus the "Wuhan virus". Wanting to show the positive aspects of the city and its culture, Gao published a comic called "The Wuhan I Know" in March 2020, which highlights the city's "history, architecture and economy", as well as some of the street foods. The comic quickly went viral, with people all around the world contacting Gao to show their appreciation. Following the release of the comic, an animation by Twitter's creative team was created based on Gao's comic, and in July 2020, it was announced that

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News ...

had acquired the rights to two books by her: one memoir called ''Messy Roots'' and another nonfiction book about her life as a product manager, an artist and being queer. After receiving the offer for her books, Gao decided to leave her position at Twitter to focus on her work as an artist.

Works

* ''

'' (graphics novel) * ''The Wuhan I Know'' (comic)

References

External links

"The Wuhan I Know" comic
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gao, Laura American women artists of Chinese descent Artists from Wuhan Living people People from Coppell, Texas Twitter, Inc. people University of Pennsylvania alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Chinese emigrants to the United States Chinese LGBT artists LGBT people from Texas 1990s births American LGBT people of Asian descent

Life and career

"The Wuhan I Know"

Works

See also

References

External links