Tess Callahan Squints at the Page as well as the Canvas

Tess 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…

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Literary Figures Painted and Drawn by Their Creators

Literary Figures Painted and Drawn by Their Creators by @DFriedmanAuthor #Literary #LiteraryFigures

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…

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The Stunning Visual Art of Author Annie Weatherwax

The Stunning Visual Art of Author Annie Weatherwax by @DFriedmanAuthor #VisualArt #VisuArtist #Writer #Artist

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…

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Join Me For a Rare Look at Author Annie Proulx’s Art

Join Me For a Rare Look at Author Annie Proulx's Art by @DFriedmanAuthor #art #annieproulx #painting

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…

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The Story Behind This Rare Drawing by Jorge Luis Borges

The Story Behind This Rare Drawing by Jorge Luis Borges by @DFriedmanAuthor #Drawing #Artists #Writers

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…

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The Fury and Tenderness of Author Joshua Braff’s Art

The Fury and Tenderness of Author Joshua Braff's Art by @DFriedmanAuthor #Fury #art

Joshua Braff, Author and Artist: “When I was thirteen, I was invited by a friend into a home in South Orange, NJ, that had many Color Field and New York School abstract paintings. There were works by Gottlieb, Motherwell, Steiner, Christensen, Poons, and Frankenthaler. Fury and Tenderness I could see warmth and artistry in them, but also…

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Kurt Vonnegut Discussing His Artwork

A few days ago was the anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut’s death, and I was inspired to post this interview I did with him—rare insofar as it’s devoted to discussion of his artwork. At the time, I was researching and interviewing writer-artists for my book, The Writer’s Brush: Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture by Writers and Vonnegut proposed I…

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