Kids Comics Pitchfest 2025 Showcase

Tuli's Inferno

12 year-old Tuli is dumped with her weird aunt in a run down rainforest shack in the sweltering heat of Australian summer. Her six-year-old cousin, Vihma, talks to invisible creatures and eleven-year-old Autistic, Ohku, is Deaf and has no interest in Tuli’s music. Surrounded by screeching cicadas, Tuli is so irritable and lonely she could burst into flames, literally. During a raging bushfire, Tuli discovers her elemental powers are not unique to her and the cousins must collaborate and harness their magic of the ‘old ways’ to escape to safety. Tuli learns that through embracing what she was taught to suppress, she can use her anger to protect those she loves.

My Why:

As the grandchild of Estonian refugees who lost their culture to assimilation, a child domestic abuse survivor who fled her father’s rage through the Tasmanian bush with her siblings at seven years old, and as the mother of a DeafBlind, Autistic daughter who shows me new magic daily, as the aunt of a tween navigating emotional regulation in a disconnected society, as the daughter of a pioneering female forester who fought to save ancient rainforests, and as the weird kid who spoke to spirits and still finds solace in the soil, this story has lived in me, demanding to be told.