The following piece was commissioned as part of the Illustrated PEN‘s State of Emergency feature, intended to bring forward the voices and stories of communities whose concerns and lives may be most at risk under the new administration. Our hope is that the stories created for this series will help empower and inspire people to stand up and speak out and to begin to repair what’s been so thoroughly broken.

REVOLUTION

 

3 of Swords

 

6 of Wands

Cristy C. Road is a Cuban-American artist, writer, and musician who’s been supplying creativity for punk rock, publishing, and social justice movements since she was a teenager in Miami, circa 1997. Road self-published Green’zine for 10 years, and has since released three illustrated novels which tackle gender, sexuality, mental health, and cultural identity (with a tinge of bathroom humor and curse words): Indestructible (2005), Bad Habits (2008) and her most recent work, Spit and Passion (2013), a graphic queer-coming-out memoir (about staying in the closet and listening to Green Day). C. Road’s work has been featured in the Baby Remember My Name: New Queer Girl Writing Anthology, Live Through This Anthology, Maximumrocknroll, Razorcake, New York Magazine, The Advocate, The Progressive, and countless other published works. As a musician, Road fronted The Homewreckers for eight years, and continues to perform and write music. She’s toured nationally and internationally on her own, and with Sister Spit: The Next Generation. She is currently illustrating the NEXT WORLD TAROT Card Deck and writing pop-punk songs in Brooklyn, NY.