CCA News

MFA Program in Writing Alum Ben Costa Receives Xeric Grant

Posted on Wednesday, March 31, 2010, by Lindsey Westbrook

Ben Costa (MFA Writing 2008) recently received a Xeric Grant. The Xeric Grant provides financial support for up-and-coming self-publishing comic book creators.

The Xeric Foundation is a private, nonprofit corporation established by Peter A. Laird, cocreator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Planet Racers.

Costa’s awarded project, Shi Long Pang, is a historical fiction/fantasy about a wandering Shaolin monk in 17th-century China. You can read portions of the comic online at his blog.

Costa’s other projects have included Cloaca Maxima, a “tween pregnancy story” about reptiles and 8th graders getting pregnant, and Death of an Artist, Age 8, in which a boy discovers what art is all about, and maybe it hurts.

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