Litquake’s The Epicenter: MariNaomi with Grace Loh Prasad

I Thought You Loved Me sifts through a meditative ghost story of sorts, taking the form of a scrapbook-esque investigation into why a close friendship from the cartoonist’s youth abruptly ended. Mari and Jodie meet in high school in the 80’s. Both are bisexual outsiders, and each troubled in their own way. A 14-year friendship follows. Boyfriends come and go. When Jodie ghosts Mari in 2001, Mari is haunted. Years later, they search social media and their own journals for clues. Though some questions are answered, Mari is equally mystified by their own youthful insecurities and relationships. All this is told through a captivating collage of cartoons, photos, and text, resulting in an all too human portrait of a relationship.

Grace Loh Prasad was born in Taiwan and raised in New Jersey and Hong Kong before settling in the San Francisco Bay Area. Grace received her MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College and is an alumna of Tin House and VONA. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, Longreads, The Offing, Artsy, Hyperallergic, Catapult, Jellyfish Review, KHÔRA, and elsewhere. Grace is a member of The Writers Grotto and Seventeen Syllables, an AAPI writers collective. Her memoir manuscript is entitled The Translator’s Daughter.