Mawrters in the New Yorker

When the Bulletin asked Maggie Larson ’10 to draw a cartoon for this issue, she immediately texted the news to some of her friends (“I get to do a cartoon about Bryn Mawr!”), then set to work brainstorming ideas.

In the end, her depiction of friendship — a comically large group trying to squeeze through the “friendship poles” at Pem Arch, based on the more recent superstition that “splitting the poles” can split friendships — was the winning sketch.

“I wanted it to be funny, but I wanted it to be a love letter to Bryn Mawr,” she says. “It’s the friendships I’m so grateful for.”

Larson has been drawing for as long as she can remember and always loved the New Yorker magazines her parents had around the house. She was drawn to the single-panel style of the cartoons. “It’s one chance to get it right and get a laugh.”

In 2017, she sold her first cartoon to The New Yorker. Now, more than 50 published cartoons later, she submits new ideas every week, poking fun at city living and everyday experiences.

“It’s nice to elevate those small moments that are a part of how we are all living our lives,” she says.