FRESH AIR: Chicago illustrator Emil Ferris has always be fascinated by monsters. As a kid, she would watch werewolf movies and find herself sympathizing with the wolf. Now 55, she’s recently published her first graphic novel, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters. “I always felt like [monsters] were kind of heroic because they were facing something,” Ferris tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “Becoming a monster sometimes isn’t a 
choice that you have. We’re all that; we’re all ‘the other’ in one way or another.” Set in 1968, Ferris’ novel is rendered as a sketchbook that belongs to a 10-year-old girl, Karen, who loves horror movies and who thinks of herself — and draws herself — as a werewolf. The novel deals with the figurative and literal horrors of Karen’s life, including the murder of her elderly neighbor, Anka, who was a Holocaust survivor. Ferris began writing and drawing My Favorite Thing Is Monsters after she was bitten by a mosquito that infected her with West Nile virus. The virus left her paralyzed, but eventually she regained some use of her right hand and learned to draw again by duct-taping a quill pen to her hand. Ferris now walks with the help of a cane. Looking back, she says the book never would have been written had she not contracted West Nile. “The experience really coalesced my ferocity around regaining the ability to draw and walk and live and create,” she says. “It became clear to me that it was much more important … to do the best that I could and give something to the world.” MORE
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FRESH AIR: When President Trump came into office, President Obama warned him that the growingthreat from North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs were likely to be the most urgent problem he would confront. That’s according to our guest, New York Times national security correspondent David Sanger, who’s been reporting on the North Korean nuclear threat. Sanger says
the regime is getting closer to being able to launch a nuclear weapon that could reach American shores. And now the U.S. is resorting to cyberattacks to try and undermine the North Korean missile program. Sanger also reported on the U.S. cyberattack on Iran’s nuclear program with the computer worm known as Stuxnet. That’s described in his book “Confront And Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars And Surprising Use Of American Power.” David Sanger has written for The New York Times for 30 years and has worked on two teams that won Pulitzer Prizes. MORE