She was awarded Friends of Lulu's Kimberly Yale Award for Best New Talent in 2003. Telgemeier was nominated for the 2005 Eisner Award for Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition, and the 2003 Ignatz Awar in the categories of Promising New Talent and Outstanding Mini-comic. guts where Raina struggles with getting sick and have therapy to overcome certain foods. In 2019, she released her third autobiographical graphic novel, Guts. In 2014, she released a sequel called Sisters. In 2012, her graphic novel Drama about a middle school stage crew and performers was released. In August 2009, Del Rey Manga released X-Men: Misfits, which Telgemeier co-authored with her husband, Dave Roman. Martin's The Baby-Sitters Club series for Scholastic/Graphix: Kristy's Great Idea, The Truth About Stacey, Mary Anne Saves the Day ,and Claudia and Mean Janine. Telgemeier's works include a series of self-published mini-comics called Take-Out, a short story in Bizarro World for DC Comics, a short story in Volume 4 of the Flight anthology,and four graphic novel adaptations of Ann M. She is married to Dave Roman, who is also a cartoonist. She lists Jeff Smith, Lynn Johnston, and Adrian Tomine among her influences.

With that encouragement, she studied illustration at New York's School Of Visual Arts, and currently lives in Queens, New York. She eventually found new friends of better character in high school who appreciated her artistic talent, increasing her confidence. She was viciously picked on by her 'friends', prompting her to partially withdraw into her love of drawing until she got sick of there abusive treatment of her when they publicly humiliated her.

In her pre-teen years, Telgemeier suffered a serious mouth injury that required several years of dental and orthodontic surgery, (which is described in her 2010 graphic novel Smile). Telgemeier was born May 26, 1977, in San Francisco.

Raina from smile