CBC News reports that award-winning cartoonist Teva Harrison died at the age of 42 in Toronto on April 27, 2019. Harrison was best known for her short comics about living with cancer, which were published in The Walrus magazine and collected in the book “In-Between Days: A Memoir About Living with Cancer.”
Harrison was born in Oregon on August 20, 1976, and lived in Toronto with her husband David Leonard. She was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer aged 37. After its publication in 2016, “In-Between Days” won the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Non-Fiction, and was a finalist for that year’s Governor General’s Literary Award for nonfiction. Her comics were exhibited at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and her writing and artwork were also featured in publications like Granta, Reader’s Digest and The Globe and Mail. She was a regular commentator on CBC Radio, and appeared on programs including Canada AM, The Agenda with Steve Paikin, Space TV’s InnerSpace, The Morning Show, and more.
Her husband wrote of her passing on Facebook: “in our house, surrounded by family and old friends, she lay among us sleeping, alternatively waking and smiling as people spoke to her and shared their memories with her. She was peaceful and happy. As she said in her book, she wanted to ‘live like a tornado,’ and she did for every part of her life. Full-hearted, eyes wide to beauty and wonder, and pouring love into everyone around her.”
