Chast,+Roz

Biographical Information:
Dates: 1954-  Dates in Ridgefield: 1990-present

 author, cartoonist, illustrator

 For Rosalind "Roz" Chast, cartooning has been a life-long love. "I drew a lot when I was very little and continued to draw when I went to school where drawing cartoons in class was the only way to keep from imploding with boredom," she once told an interviewer for the //New Yorker//. Her work for that magazine began appearing in 1977, a year after she graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design. Ms. Chast’s cartoons, which often address modern family life, range from single panels to full-page spread. She has contributed over 1,000 cartoons for the //New Yorker//, as well as several covers. In addition, her cartoons have appeared in over 50 magazines, including //Mother Jones// and //Town and Country.// She has also produced many books, either on her own or with other authors. Her first solo title was //Unscientific Americans//, published in 1986, followed a year later by //Mondo Boxo//, a book of cartoon stories. She has illustrated a number of children's books, including //Meet My Staff//, and published a collection of recent work, //Childproof: Cartoons for Parents and Children//. Her work has been exhibited in several New York galleries and is sold as //New Yorker// prints. She and her husband, writer William E. Franzen, and their two children moved to Ridgefield in 1990; since then, Ms. Chast has joined other local cartoonists in giving cartooning demonstrations in the schools. Her New Street home has been famous for the seasonal exhibits she and her husband erect on their front lawn, especially for their Halloween displays. Usually, they are light-hearted, but may take patience to appreciate. For instance, for a couple of months one winter, a lighted Saguaro cactus stood on the front lawn until suddenly, one day in March, it was on its side. Beneath was a "corpse," killed when the cactus toppled.

//Unscientific Americans, // 1986  //Now Everybody Really Hates Me,// 1993 //Now I Will Never Leave the Dinner Table, //1996 //Theories of Everything, // 2006  //The Alphabet from A to Y,// 2007
 * Titles (partial): **

--Sources: Notable Ridgefielders-Jack Sanders; Julie Saul Gallery bio; Amazon

 [|Check the library catalog for titles by this author.]