Like most kids, cartoonist and writer Nicole Hollander, loved writing and drawing as a child. What set her apart, though, was that she managed to turn it into a career.

In the 1970s, Hollander illustrated for political articles in “The Spokeswoman,” a monthly feminist publication.

“One day I came up with a good idea for a cartoon strip,” she says.

“They were happy with that idea and so I did it,” Hollander says.

Now Hollander’s cartoon strip, “Sylvia,” appears in newspapers and different publications around the country six days a week.

“When you start out and only do the strip once a month, it’s very difficult. But when you’ve been writing and drawing it for a while, it just becomes easier,” she says.

“You’ve done it many times before and you’re sort of confident that you can do it. “

In addition to getting ideas for her cartoons while reading newspapers and Web sites, Hollander says she also draws inspiration from daily interactions with people.

“I’m working at home and when I go out and talk to people or go to restaurants or travel on the train, then I hear people talking and telling each other stories,” she says.

“I can hear the way they talk, their phrasing, and that’s what I like very much – to get the sound of the way people talk.”

Doing the comic strip may be second nature to her, but Hollander is still looking for ways to challenge herself.

She has recently begun experimenting with humorous writing and performing her monologues and lectures.

“I give lectures about being a cartoonist or a theme like censorship or politics,” she says.

Hollander says she especially enjoys the human interaction performing her monologues fosters, especially after spending so much time alone working on her cartoon.

“It’s getting to talk to people and seeing their response. Unless you say the material out loud, it isn’t a performance; it isn’t connecting with people,” she says.

“As soon as you start to speak, then you start to connect to people and they give you their response.”

Although Hollander does a cartoon six days a week, she works on her essays over the course of several years.

“When you’re a writer, it’s sort of about yourself and it isn’t,” she says.

“That’s the fun part, is that you get to write about something that happened and then you turn it into fantasy and humor.”