MoCCA 2026 Application
Yao Xiao is a writer and artist based in New York City. She is a MacDowell Fellow, and the author of graphic novel Everything Is Beautiful, And I’m Not Afraid, a Lambda Literary Award Finalist. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times, Catapult, Lit Hub, and Autostraddle. She is working on a book about nostalgia and artmaking. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Hunter College and teaches at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Every year, Xiao brings new work to MoCCA for the New York audience. In this year’s application, the theme is language, homecoming, and nostalgia. Readers will find original comics that take us to the 2000s, outer space, and ancient China, through Xiao’s thoughtful comics fit for all ages.
Books and Zines to be Exhibited At MoCCA Fest 2026:
New Work
Have A Good Life
27-page graphic memoir about taking a bus trip on an impulse to feel a sense of belonging as an outsider.
My graphic memoir tells the story of my immigration from China to the United States as a 16-year-old teenager on a solo quest to become an artist. The book deals with themes of coming of age, with the through line of pursuing a passion for art while navigating a new life alone. From 2006 to 2014, I lived in Illinois, Seattle, Memphis, and New York, through 3 visa types, the last one being the competitive O-1 artist visa given to extraordinary individuals. Filled with do-it-yourself approach to art and immigration, the story highlights challenges of a young artist and immigrant with a unique sense of humor, and gives light to the people she met along the way — diverse, kind, optimistic individuals who represented hopeful possibilities for a fulfilling life.
I am exploring the possibilities to weave two worlds — immigration and art — into one story. Full PDFBoth worlds are rich places to explore a growing identity as an outsider. With this graphic memoir — titled The Art of Leaving — I am asking the questions: can art be the map of a path that has no road signs? What does art do to the heart that language can’t?
The Process Is Possessed: Finding Meaning In A Creative Life
In China, my 96-year-old grandma fell down a ladder trying to change a light bulb. On my father’s side, grandpa is moved back to his home village to live out his remaining days. In New York, the connection I have with my parents, built on carefully scheduled international phone calls, starts to unravel as caretaking and work take over our lives.
I’m worrying about things I can’t see. Anxious about a future that doesn’t exist yet. Meanwhile, being an artist is invisible to my family, and I am not sure if I should keep making the effort to be seen. There used to be an “inner kid” in me to keep things exciting and positive, and I haven’t seen her for a while. Is this just getting old?
To get the “inner kid” back, I try a series of low-stake and free activities: birdwatching, murder mysteries, selling things at a flea market, reading a newspaper. I talk to artists about how they face the world. I learn about authoritarianism, immigration, preservation, through cyanotypes, performance art, artist talks, and an artist friend’s death. This collection of comics explore the need for taking your mind off a constant sense of crisis, the inevitability of getting pulled back, and accepting everything that is a part of being alive.
Daruma Adventure
This experimental manga volume explores the adventure of a monkey named San-san who wishes to see her grandparents again. Through the help of a friend, San-san boards a midnight train headed for a shrine known for dealing with the soul.
This manga originally developed in Japan in the manga intensive, which I was a co-faculty of, at International Manga Museum and Kyoto Seika University.
Alien Sketchbook
A memoir comic about language, immigration, and art. A teenager who doesn’t speak English well makes friends and expresses herself through sketchbook drawings.
Books and Zines Exhibited In The Past
Everything Is Beautiful, And I’m Not Afraid (2020)
This one-of-a-kind graphic novel explores the poetics of searching for connection, belonging, and identity through the fictional life of a young, queer immigrant. Inspired by the creator's own experiences as a queer, China-born illustrator living in the United States, Everything Is Beautiful, and I'm Not Afraid has an undeniable memoir quality to its recollection and thought-provoking accounts of what it's like to navigate the complexities of seeking belonging—mentally and geographically.
No Word Island PDF
<What can’t you express in English?> No Word Island is a comic that challenges the convention of how non-English words are depicted in immigrant comics, and explores the limit of language and the power of visual imagination.
Printed locally in New York Chinatown
