Laura Gao

Laura Gao is a Chinese-American comics artist. Gao became famous when she released a short comic called "The Wuhan I Know" in response to the growing sinophobia due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The comic was later used as the basis for her graphic memoir called Messy Roots, released in March 2022.

Life and career

Gao was born as Gao Yuyang, in Wuhan, China. While her parents moved to the United States to study, she stayed at Wuhan with her grandparents until she was four years old, after which her parents were able to earn enough money to bring the rest of the family to the US. Gao received the English name "Laura" in honor of Laura Bush.

Gao grew up in Coppell, Texas, and later moved to Philadelphia to study at the University of Pennsylvania, where she attended business school. After graduating, she was hired by Twitter as a product manager and moved to San Francisco. During that time, Gao noticed more people become aware of the city, mostly in a negative way, resulting in many people calling the new virus the "Wuhan virus". Wanting to show the positive aspects of the city and its culture, Gao published a comic called "The Wuhan I Know" in March 2020, which highlights the city's "history, architecture and economy", as well as some of the street foods. After receiving the offer for her books, Gao decided to leave her position at Twitter to focus on her work as an artist.

Works The Wuhan I Know (comic) Messy Roots (graphics novel) Kirby’s Lessons for Falling (in love) (novel)