Comedy Festival Director, Producer and Author Coree Spence
Coree Spencer is a comedian based in California who organized the Cinder Block Comedy Festival, which received press coverage in the New York Times, Huffington Post, and the Village Voice for its empowerment of marginalized groups. Her illustrator collaborator Emily Niland is a Brooklyn-based illustrator whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, Cosmopolitan, BuzzFeed, Jezebel, the Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, and Thrillist.
Where did you get your idea for writing I’m Not Okay, You’re Not Okay, an activity book that offers laughs for days when you are anxious, depressed, or feeling down?
My therapist always gave me these handouts that were originally intended for children. Things like emotions, stress and positivity. They were filled with good information, but they always earned an eye roll with me because it didn’t match the same language in my head. I’ve always loved dark comedy and I wished my therapist had something to give me something that I clicked with. Around this time, an illustrator I had recently met at a party, Emily Niland, had contacted me and said that she’d love to work with me sometime. We went to lunch a few days later and I showed her some of the work I was doing. At this point, it was crude drawings on a notebook and one liners and she immediately started offering more ideas. It turns out, like me, Emily had the same experience with her therapists and also like me had suffered from depression and anxiety. This is when I knew that Emily would be more than an illustrator, I think the next day I messaged her and said this is a 50/50 deal, you in? She was.
What is your creative process like? Any special rituals or practices?
Once we started working with Abrams, I knew my plan was to self discipline, but not burn out. I bought a sketchbook and told myself I had to make three new ideas every weekday. Weekends were optional. This means every week, I was able to send Emily fifteen ideas a week, sixty ideas a month. This kept my ideas fresh. I never revisited old ideas to polish, I just created new every day and let Emily decide which ones made her laugh.
Coree Spencer & Emily Niland’s I’m Not Okay, You’re Not Okay (Abrams Books)
“I had a teacher in the fifth grade, Mrs. Wood who not only knew and understood the hard situation I had at home but also encouraged more writing.”
How did you get your start in writing books? In understanding the human condition through comedy, do you feel as though your background in comedy helped in this process?
I was a writer first, but with undiagnosed ADHD (I was actually diagnosed late May 2021,) I have so many unfinished books and stories. When I was a kid I used to write and draw my own comic books and Freddy Krueger fan fiction. I had a teacher in the fifth grade, Mrs. Wood who not only knew and understood the hard situation I had at home but also encouraged more writing. I started writing poetry and was acting in high school plays but struggled with remembering my lines so I would hide prompts on props. I had heard that Marlon Brando used to forget his lines and this is something he did. I made sketch comedy and short films in the 2000’s. I started meeting comedians this way who encouraged me to try stand up in 2008. I had a panic attack in the parking lot but it felt empowering to perform alone. Now that it seems things are opening again, I’m not sure if I’ll do stand up again. Ask me tomorrow.
How excited were you to find out that Target would be carrying your book?
That’s awesome! I was banned for life from Target when I was fifteen for shoplifting an almost empty tester of Aspen Cologne so…they might want to rethink that! I knew I’d find my way back in!
Interior image of I’m Not Okay, You’re Not Okay (Abrams Books)
“We needed to make sure that our literary agent, and our publishing team weren’t going to push back on our lived experiences.”
Emily Niland, the illustrator of I’m Not Okay, You’re Not Okay (Abrams Books)
What has it been like to make your major debut in book publishing and was it fun to get to work with one of the foremost illustrated book publishers, Abrams?
It was really important to both Emily and I that everyone we allow to touch our project understood it. To some, our book might look harsh and dark and they should just be grateful they didn’t see the stuff that was cut! Seriously, depression is so isolating and you feel like no one understands or tries to “fix” you. We needed to make sure that our literary agent, and our publishing team weren’t going to push back on our lived experiences. This is not a book for your friend that tells you depression and trauma can be healed by fresh air and yoga. Samantha Weiner and the whole team were easy to talk to and it was really cool to hear what pages they personally loved.
How was it in collaborating with illustrator Emily Niland on INOYNO?
Emily has a way of not only reading my mind when I send her a crude drawing, but adding to the idea and polishing it until it shines. She is incredibly professional and can speak business language. I’m much more unprofessional and blunt and I needed someone like her because it was like she was a translator.
Cinder Block Comedy Festival, which received press coverage in the New York Times, Huffington Post, and the Village Voice for its empowerment of marginalized groups. Where did you get the idea for the festival?
I was dealing with a combination of undiagnosed ailments, including ADHD and hypothyroidism and my hormones were out of whack. I got very sick and didn’t understand why, so then that started my deepest depression. During this time, the last thing I wanted was for people to see me sick, so I stopped doing stand up. Leaving the comedy community wasn’t what I wanted because that was my entire world. So I wanted to create a festival to support women. Then after showing interested volunteers my PowerPoint presentation, we decided to not only highlight women, but also include other represented groups such as LGBTQIA+, people of color and people with disabilities. We didn’t say we weren’t including straight white men, but judging from the reaction, they were quite upset to not be mentioned as our priority.
The first festival (2016) was forty shows in four days, the second year (2017) was eighty shows in four days. The first year it was all about proving our idea would work and creating the conversation around the lack of inclusion in comedy lineups. The second year, I think I was just trying to prove to myself that I could double the size and somehow prove I was “OK.” A month after the second year, I went on antidepressants and started to change my life, by understanding how my body and mind works and making changes for the better.
Interior image of I’m Not Okay, You’re Not Okay (Abrams Books)
How did you go about finding your current literary agency and then go on to get published?
Emily did that, she’s the professional side of this team.
“My dad was diagnosed with cancer last year and my mom went out and bought six copies for the hospital he gets treatment at. They put it in the chemo room and patients read it while they’re getting infusions.”
Do you think your book should be a mainstay of every shrink coffee table? A cure for millennial ennui? What other uses do you see for your book?
My dad was diagnosed with cancer last year and my mom went out and bought six copies for the hospital he gets treatment at. They put it in the chemo room and patients read it while they’re getting infusions. My dad said people gave him compliments like he wrote it. It’s really cool.
If you don’t have a dad with cancer, other possible uses for our book include:
Book end for your smarter books
Colorful kindling for your fireplace
Really uncomfortable tissue paper
Crime scene evidence
Heavy Pride flag
What are you thinking of writing next?
I wanted to make a follow up activity book that was workplace specific. I’ve worked a variety of jobs and thought it would be fun to make an employee handbook that was satire. In the past year or so, day jobs and what that looks like has been changing a lot so that idea hit the back burner. My main focus right now, in addition to my constant work on my mental and physical health (that I ignored for decades) is my new podcast, You’re Fine. I get to host this with one of my best friends Elsa Eli Waithe and every week we talk about mental health in a funny way that I hope also helps. We documented my ADHD journey from suspicion to diagnosis to feeling the effects of my first few days on Adderall on air. It’s a lot like my book because we’re talking about real things but we’re also comedians that have a dark sense of humor from our own traumas.
Can you finish this sentence? I love reading because...
I feel like I can be my own teacher!