{"id":18701,"date":"2026-10-20T18:52:42","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T18:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/?p=18701"},"modified":"2026-10-20T18:54:58","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T18:54:58","slug":"co-author-of-appalachia-comic-book-islands-in-the-sky-a-peoples-history-of-hurricane-helene-andrew-aydin-to-speak-at-wcu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/blog\/2026\/10\/20\/co-author-of-appalachia-comic-book-islands-in-the-sky-a-peoples-history-of-hurricane-helene-andrew-aydin-to-speak-at-wcu\/","title":{"rendered":"Co-author of Appalachia Comic Book \u201cIslands in the Sky: A People\u2019s History of Hurricane Helene\u201d Andrew Aydin to Speak at WCU"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Hurricane Helene was a once-in-a-1000-years storm that devastated Western North Carolina. The land of the sky became islands in the sky. Towns and communities were washed away, but the people remained. Now, a new Appalachian comic book is bringing stories of the survivors, the helpers, their resilience, courage, resourcefulness and most of all, love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Communication Department and WCU\u2019s Society of Professional Journalists chapter are hosting National Book Award-winning author Andrew Aydin, who recently led the creation of the nonfiction comic book \u201cIslands in the Sky: A People\u2019s History of Hurricane Helene.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event is on Tuesday, Oct. 27 at the Hunter Library 101A starting at 6 p.m. Aydin will talk about the stories in the book and why telling them in a comic non-fiction book is an effective way to teach about the hurricane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aydin felt compelled to tell true stories about Helene survivors after witnessing growing misinformation after the hurricane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just got really angry because here I’d seen something totally different. I’d seen people pulling together. I’d seen what it took for us to save ourselves. And I wasn’t seeing that story represented either in the press or online,\u201d said Aydin. So, he founded the Appalachia Comics Project to \u201crevitalize Southern Appalachia by amplifying local voices and fostering community growth in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.\u201d Their first project is \u201cIslands in the Sky.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNon-fiction comics allow you to tell a story in a way that you can’t through any other medium,\u201d said Aydin on why he chose non-fiction comic books to tell these stories. \u201cYou can move time differently. You can slow things down. You can speed them up. And you can do so in a way that still allows the reader to experience it in their own way, because they choose how they read the page. And that is what makes nonfiction, graphic novels in particular, so effective at teaching history and keeping a shared understanding alive in people’s minds.\u201d Aydin is familiar with this practice due to his work with the late congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis to tell his story and history of the Civil Rights Movement in the nonfiction comic book trilogy \u201cMarch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIslands in the Sky\u201d is a result of the combined efforts of over 40 people, including letterers, writers, colorists, inkers, and interviewees. With the help of local reporter Cory Vaillancourt from The Smoky Mountain News, Aydin shared that he received \u201cdozens\u201d of testimonies from real survivors within 24 hours of an article running in the Haywood County paper, which make up the content of the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the event, students will have the opportunity to learn how this book came to life, and learn how non-fiction comic books can benefit storytelling and communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want students to understand what it took for us to make this history so that they understand the significance of this book,\u201d Aydin says. He believes that the book can succeed in bringing attention to, and common understanding of, less well-known histories in a similar way as his previous works like \u201cMarch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy 2019, \u2018March\u2019 had become one of the most widely taught graphic novels in America, one of the most widely taught texts about the Civil Rights Movement. And you saw a generation who had gone through the last six, eight years with \u2018March\u2019 in their schools being explicitly informed about nonviolent civil disobedience. And, now all these people know about Bayard Rustin and Fannie Lou Hamer. We were starting that,\u201d said Aydin, \u201cI think we can do the same thing with the Appalachia Comics Project, where we can help bring that national understanding to the extraordinary stories of this region, and at the same time empower the people who live here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To learn more about the book visit appalachiacomics.org. Books can be purchased from this site to directly benefit the Appalachia Comics Project so they can make more comics. Aydin will also do signings of the book at the event on Oct. 27. Stay tuned on information about the event, follow @wcucommdepartment on Facebook and Instagram.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hurricane Helene was a once-in-a-1000-years storm that devastated Western North Carolina. The land of the sky became islands in the sky. Towns and communities were washed away, but the people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3416,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[329,353],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-department-news","category-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18701"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18708,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18701\/revisions\/18708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/affiliate.wcu.edu\/comm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}