Dylan Paints America
Writer-Artist 11: Bob Dylan “The idea was to create pictures that would not be misinterpreted.” A 20th century icon, winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, 12 Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a special Pulitzer Prize, Bob Dylan has been making art since recovering from a motorcycle accident in the 60’s, has published…
Read MoreProlific Poet William Jay Smith Somehow Found Time to Paint
Writer-Artist 10: William Jay Smith 97 years old when he died, William Jay Smith apparently wasted not a minute of them. U.S. Poet Laureate Achieving national publication of a poem at 14, it was probably unsurprising that Smith would end up Poet Laureate of the United States, a member of the American Academy of Arts…
Read MoreTess Callahan Squints at the Page as well as the Canvas
Writer-Artist 9: Tess Callahan “The constraints we rail against may be the very ones we need.” A short story writer and essayist whose work has appeared in such prestigious venues as AGNI, Narrative Magazine, and the New York Times Magazine, Tess Callahan’s widely praised, multiply translated, debut novel April and Oliver was declared by The…
Read MoreThe Drawings of Nobel Prize Winning Author Joseph Brodsky
Writer-Artist Eight: Joseph Brodsky “There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” The greatest Russian poet of his generation, Nobel Prize-winner, Poet Laureate of the United States, and member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Joseph Brodsky illustrated many of his writings. Drawings and Writing Although he…
Read MoreLiterary Figures Painted and Drawn by Their Creators
LitHub editor Emily Temple just posted an article about some literary figures who have been depicted by famous artists—like Roy Lichtenstein’s TinTin, Picasso’s Don Quixote, and Rockwell Kent’s Captain Ahab. There are more than 400 plates of artwork by writers in my book The Writer’s Brush: Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture by Writers, but until…
Read MoreThe Stunning Visual Art of Author Annie Weatherwax
Writer-Artist Six: Annie Weatherwax Annie Weatherwax, novelist, short story writer, essayist, and visual artist was the 2009 winner of the Robert Olen Butler Prize for Fiction for her story “The Possibility of Things.” Her novel, All We Had, was turned into a movie directed by Katie Holmes. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The…
Read MoreJoin Me For a Rare Look at Author Annie Proulx’s Art
Writer-Artist Five: Annie Proulx “It is a kind of pleasurable note-taking.” ~ Annie Proulx The Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, Pen-Faulkner Award, and the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction-winning novelist, short story writer, and journalist, most famous for The Shipping News and Brokeback Mountain, Annie Proulx is also a painter, using her artistic skills to…
Read MoreThe Story Behind This Rare Drawing by Jorge Luis Borges
Writer-Artist Four: Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Luis Borges, the great Argentinian master of both philosophical and fantasy literature, of whom Nobelist J. M. Coetzee wrote: “He, more than anyone, renovated the language of fiction,” produced little visual art. After progressive deterioration of his eyesight, he went totally blind at 55. The only surviving work…
Read MoreHow To Write Better: Borrowing From Chemistry
Better Writing Through Chemistry In 1935, Dupont promised they’d bring us better living through chemistry. Today, the phrase is used ironically for movie and album titles and most especially to describe recreational drug use. Acknowledging that chemistry has improved our lives is bromidic. Less well known is that the chemical lexicon, demonstrably miscible with our…
Read MoreWhose Dog Are You?
From a scholarly friend comes “Whose dog are you?” It seems Alexander Pope’s bitch, Bounce, whelped a number of pups, one of which he gave to the Prince of Wales in 1736 to guard his house in Kew. The poet engraved this epigram on the collar: I am his Highness’ Dog at Kew; Pray tell…
Read More