Cartoonist Lynda Barry was the subject of a full-page profile by Carol Kino in the “Arts and Leisure” section of Sunday’s New York Times.  In addition to contrasting Barry’s bucolic current existence on a Wisconsin farm with her angst-ridden childhood, the article discusses the workshops she gives at various colleges and cities around the country in which she urges members of her audience to unleash their inner creativity.

Barry details her own creative process in her latest publication, What It Is ($24.95), which explains her highly personal method of creating drawings and stories and is due out from Drawn & Quarterly this week.  What It Is is described in The Times article as “a picture book for adults… an activity book (with instructions and activities)”…interspersed with “passages of purely autobiographical writing in which Ms. Barry recounts her own journey to making art.”

Drawn & Quarterly has a number of other Lynda Barry projects on tap including a collection of her Ernie Pook comic strip, and a new original work, The Nearsighted Monkey, which is due out in early 2009.