Joseph Sieracki is currently teaching in a suburb of Cleveland. A Letter To Jo is his first graphic novel. Kelly Williams makes comics. Sometimes writes, just about always draws. He has done work with Dark Horse, BOOM!, IDW, Image, Alterna and more. Best known for the graphic novels The Cabinet and Metaphase along with his work in Eerie and Creepy. As Leonard fights on the frontlines of World War II, memories of Josephine and home help keep him alive. As Josephine contends with life, family, and work in Cleveland, letters from Leonard sustain her. But official censorship forces him to leave out much of the most significant action he sees.
Finally, with the war coming to an end, Leonard is able to tell his full story. In a quietly beautiful letter to Josephine, Leonard writes of the loneliness he felt, the camaraderie he experienced, and the terrible violence he witnessed. Josephine and Leonard’s grandson, Joseph Sieracki, has expanded the letter into a moving tale of a young man’s fears and bravery far from home. Brought to heart-wrenching life by the paintbrushes of Kelly Williams, A Letter to Jo (Top Shelf Productions) is at once a tender love story and harrowing battlefield memoir. School Library Journal praised Sieracki as he “effortlessly adapts his grandfather’s letters into a narrative that feels both intimate and sweeping… Williams captures the desolation of the battlefields and the bloodcurdling violence of government-sanctioned killing. But through it all, the love story conquers the darkness so hauntingly illustrated.”