UNTERZAKHN--Leela Corman's new graphic novel

Check out my friend Leela Corman's new graphic novel, UNTERZAKHN, about to be released from Schocken Books. Leela is one of my personal bad-girl superheros--she's smart, talented, a student of history and used to be my belly dance teacher and may one day be again if she ever moves back to NYC from Gainesville, Fla.

Leela's graphic novel tells a story of immigrant life on the Lower East Side at the turn of the last century, as seen through the eyes of twin sisters whose lives take radically different paths. (In case you didn't know, "unterzakhn" is Yiddish for "underthings.")

This spring, Leela's traveling all over America to promote her story of "bad girls making good, pogroms, and vaudevilian types." She'll be doing book events all over NYC as well as in Gainesville, Boston, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco and Toronto. You can find her at www.leelacorman.com or Twitter: @LeelaOfNewYork.

Plus! Leela will also be dancing in some unrelated events, in New York City and in Toronto.

Here are the NYC listings for the UNTERZAKHN launch:

Tuesday, April 3, Brooklyn:

7 p.m., WORD bookstore book launch party, 126 Franklin St.

Thursday, April 6, Manhattan:

6:30 pm, Tenement Talks event at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, co-sponsored by the Center for Cultural Judaism. 103 Orchard Street (at Delancey). RSVP requested (events@tenement.org). Event is free, but requires purchase of book.

Saturday, April 28-Sunday, April 29, Manhattan
MoCCA Fest 2012.