ND Stevenson

• 1. A Church Library And A Scary Anime

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  Nate Diana Stevenson was born Noelle Diana Stevenson on the 31st of December 1991, in Columbia, South Carolina. He grew up as the third of five siblings in a family that described itself as very religious. This environment created a very limited diet for his childhood experiences. At age 5 or 6, he found his first exposure to anime through a series called Superbook. He retrieved this show from a church library and later recalled finding it really scary and a little bit traumatizing. This early encounter with animation set a strange tone for his future career. The fear he felt then would eventually transform into the creative fuel for his own stories. His homeschooling continued until he attended A.C. Flora High School. During his senior year, he created picture books and won a local award in the Visual Literacy Book Production category. This early success hinted at the path he would soon take.

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• 2. The Senior Thesis That Became A Hit

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  During his junior year at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Stevenson created a character named Nimona for a class assignment. In mid-2012, he began creating a webcomic around this character. Soon after, a literary agent found the webcomic online and helped him sign with HarperCollins. The project became his senior thesis in 2012. The resulting graphic novel won Slate Magazine's 2012 Cartoonist Studio Prize for Best Web Comic of the Year. It also earned the 2016 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album: Reprint. Stevenson was named a 2015 National Book Award Finalist for the book version. He said that the ability to create comics on his own brought him into the animation world. While in school, he did freelance illustration for Random House and St. Martin's Press. In the summer of 2012, he interned at BOOM! Studios in Los Angeles. He created cover art for Rainbow Rowell's novel Fangirl which was published in 2013.

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• 3. Building Worlds From Lumberjanes To She-Ra

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  After graduating in 2013, Stevenson returned to BOOM! Studios to help develop and write Lumberjanes. This series won Eisner Awards for Best New Series and Best Publication for Teens in 2015. In 2020, he served as executive producer and writer for an animated special introducing these characters. He wrote and directed episodes for the main series while serving as an executive producer. In June 2023, he noted he was still developing the world of Lumberjanes. In 2015, he wrote for Marvel Comics on Thor Annual and Runaways. He also worked with Ryan North on To Be or Not to Be, a choose-your-own-adventure book based on Hamlet. Stevenson became the creator and executive producer of DreamWorks Animation's rebooted She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. The show ran for five seasons from 2018 to 2020. It received critical acclaim for its diverse cast and complex relationship between She-Ra and Catra. In 2019, the show was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award and a Daytime Emmy Award.

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• 4. Diaries And The Battle For Mental Health

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  His autobiographical collection of drawings and journals, The Fire Never Goes Out, was published in March 2020. The New Yorker described it as a memoir of sorts that covered his coming-out story and mental health struggles. In August 2020, Stevenson stated that he has bipolar disorder. In a February 2021 interview, he mentioned having ADHD and its impact during the COVID-19 pandemic. The book showed him figuring out what he must do first to make art and then to get well. In October 2021, he started a newsletter titled I'm Fine I'm Fine Just Understand. This platform explored topics such as mental health and gender identity. Premium subscribers gained access to comics reflecting more personal and sensitive topics. In August 2022, the newsletter was nominated for a Digital Book of the Year Harvey Award. He wrote about his journey to self-acceptance and his battle against the gender essentialism of his Evangelical upbringing. By age 23, he had become an atheist.

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• 5. The Name Change From Noelle To Nate

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  In July 2020, Stevenson announced that he was nonbinary or something like it. He used any gender pronouns at that time. On the 20th of November 2020, he published a comic about his top surgery. On the 31st of March 2021, International Transgender Day of Visibility, he stated that he is transmasculine and bigender. In August 2021, he changed his first name to ND. He said he was becoming increasingly aware of the practical need for a new, less gendered name. On the 30th of June 2022, he announced he had chosen the name Nate. He had been using this name privately since 2021 while being addressed as ND Stevenson professionally. His pronouns are now he/him and he accepts Indy as a nickname. On the 11th of October 2020, National Coming Out Day, he wrote and illustrated his coming out story for Oprah Magazine. He described his journey to self-acceptance and his battle against the gender essentialism of his Evangelical upbringing.

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• 6. Future Projects And The Streaming Struggle

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  In June 2023, Stevenson noted he was working on a two book series of novels based on stories predating Nimona. These were originally written in his teenage years when he was 12. The project originated as a two-book series influenced by Christopher Paolini's Eragon. It was originally 600 pages long. He is trying to rewrite and illustrate the story which involves queer themes and pirates. In February 2025, the first part of the duology was officially announced as an illustrated middle-grade prose novel titled Scarlet Morning. Published by Harper Collins in September 2025. On the 17th of September 2025, Stevenson told Comic Book Club that the animated adaptation of Lumberjanes had ended. Corporate mergers made working on it untenable. The most recent adaptation is sort of on ice but not dead. He hopes for a stage musical or RPG. In December 2025, ComicBook reported that She-Ra may leave Netflix on the 21st of February 2026. This is due to the expiration of DreamWorks' license. Stevenson said showrunners have no control over this situation.

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