to the wall and started drawing with charcoal. It was really a wonderful way to do it, because you’re drawing a story, you’re illustrating your childhood, but you have no idea if it’s ever going to get published. So you just keep drawing and it just flows." Cartoonist and memoirist Alison Bechdel describes We Ate Wonder Bread as "a superhero origin story," noting that the title character of Sylvia "certainly possesses powers far beyond those of mere mortals" and tracing Hollander's humor to "the raucous banter of . . . mesmerizing women." Hollander explains that "if women hadn't taken their daughters with them everywhere, I would never have heard their stories and made their language my own." Hollander has performed on stage as a memoirist, and videos of her performances appear on YouTube channel Louder Than a Mom. Awards Hollander's work has formed the basis for several theatrical musicals, including Female Problems and Sylvia's Real Good Advice, winner of a Joseph Jefferson Award in 1991. Other awards include the Wonder Woman Foundation Award for Women of Achievement over 40 (1983) and Yale's Chubb Fellowship for Public Service (1985). Critical reception "Nicole Hollander has been one of our nation's leading satirists. This means she is in the business of telling the truth and making it funny... She is a radical social critic who is certain that nothing works, and so what?" (Jules Feiffer, Introduction to The Sylvia Chronicles) "What working commentator can confront Sylvia's range of subject matter—from macro-economics to stretch marks, from foreign policy to kitty litter—without gnawing anxiously on his or her writing instrument?... her supernatural insight into matters of public policy, her ability to see, as with x-ray vision, through the stupefying drone of media rhetoric." (Barbara Ehrenreich, Introduction to Tales from the Planet Sylvia) "There are precious few women cartoonists, and Nicole is the only one with a daily strip who presents the believable struggles of women in contemporary society." (Sara Paretsky) "Many [respondents to a reader survey] who voted for Mr. Boffo did so simply to vote against Sylvia. Several claimed they would have voted for a blank space. Their message: Get rid of Sylvia." (Providence Journal) "Shrewd and cynical and drily, wittily, outrageously attitudinous." (Katha Pollitt) "The unofficial cartoonist laureate of women’s studies programs around the country... Her cartoons allow us to track the shifting landscape of right-versus-left politics that brought us to where we