How To Be a Non-conformist

A Gift From a Teenage Girl

I’ve had this little book for about fifteen years. My husband bought it thinking it would inspire me.

It did.

The book was one big piss-take and I recognized myself in it. It was well drawn, and funny, and brilliant.

Naturally this depressed the shit out of me.

Why hadn’t I made this book or something like it? What was the matter with me?

Things got worse when I discovered the author, Elissa Jane Karg, had written it in 1967, when she was only sixteen years old.

My brain was full of envy.

I don’t make anything this good. I told myself. I’ve never made anything this good. I’ll never make anything this good.

I found myself pulling the book out from time to time, a perfect reminder to take an honest look at myself and to lighten the fuck up.

I almost never write to authors but in this case, I thought I’d look up Ms. Karg and email her. I would let her know how magical her little book was and, if anyone could relate to my juvenile petty jealousy, I assumed she could, and we would have a laugh about it together.

Sadly, I discovered the author had died in a bicycle accident years earlier. I’d missed an opportunity to let her know how much her work had meant to me.

Though much has changed in the world since Elissa Jane Karg created this special book, it seems very little has changed about the way we humans respond to the world.

Sixty years on, How To Be a Non-conformist, is still relevant and funny and brilliant. It’s out of print but I’m sharing it here in its entirety so others can appreciate it. Perhaps, like me, you too will recognize a few people you know in it.