Current Grantees
2025 Will Eisner Graphic Novel Growth Grant Recipient
"My Journey, My Voice"
- The 2025 Will Eisner Graphic Novel Growth Grant is awarded to Monica Heath, Julianne Bedel, Morgan Fryar, Kelly Haleen, Sean Rapacki, Larrissa Rudd, and Catie Taylor of the Medina County District Library in Medina, OH. Their project “My Journey, My Voice” will allow youth to learn to express their emotions via sequential art and will have the library partnering with the Medina County Juvenile Detention Center, OutSupport, and their local Battered Women's Shelter. This opportunity to create, channel emotion and concern into a physical art form, to see themselves in art of their own making, and to engage with a wider selection of graphic novels will be a huge boon to their community.
2025 Will Eisner Graphic Novel Innovation Grant Recipient
"Graphic Adventures: Empowering Young Readers"
- The 2025 Will Eisner Graphic Novel Innovation Grant is awarded to The Friends of the Round Valley Public Library and Patricia Sobrero of the Round Valley Branch of the Mendocino County Library in Covelo, CA. Their project “Graphic Adventures: Empowering Young Readers” will have the students engaging with comics and graphic novels to support and elevate reading levels and comprehension. They will work closely with elementary and middle school teachers and classrooms to show the value of graphic novels and how they promote literacy. Their focus on struggling and reluctant readers in a "comics desert" will encourage reading, art, education, and graphic novels, and will be of huge value to their patrons.
