More Modern Love Illustrations…a Dozen. Yes, a Dozen!

It’s one thing to have people read your story — but to have it illustrated? For me, there is no higher praise. These following artists took my words and turned them into their own works of art.

Huge thanks to Grant Shaffer (https://www.instagram.com/nyseecomic/) for sharing these with me. And thank you, each and every one of you beautiful artists: Abigail, Adrien, Cecil, Fiona, Francisco, Dora, Junhan, Kayla, Maggie, Sarah, Sol, and Andrea. I’m just floored.

Jingying Zhang (Dora)

Modern Love Illustration, Take 4

So you may recall that a little while back, a third artist had painted their take of my Modern Love essay. Now there’s a fourth — and all I can say is wow. I’ve always been jealous of artists, their ability to say so much through a single visual statement. This is by Rumi Hara (@rumi.hara – https://www.instagram.com/rumi.hara/). Wow. Thank you, Rumi!

@rumi.hara – https://www.instagram.com/rumi.hara/

A Second Illustration to My Modern Love Piece

So many years ago, the Times published my Modern Love piece. That story was illustrated by Brian Rea, who’s been doing all the MLs for a while now.

Today I received a notification from an Instagrammer, Joyce (@paperie.pufferies), who is currently taking classes at the School of Visual Arts and chose my story for her own illustrative take. How cool is that?

@paperie.pufferies, https://www.instagram.com/p/CfovvAxr5Lk/

There are two details of this graphic on her Instagram, so check them out, and her site, too!

Interview in Slice Magazine

The lovely folks at Slice were kind enough to conduct this interview with both myself and artist Dina Brodsky.  Last fall, they published our work, Desert Places, in the magazine, and now you can read it online in addition to the interview.  Here’s their intro:

After all of the pieces for an issue of Slice have been edited, we send them over to our art director, Jennifer K. Beal Davis, who then strikes up a dialogue between art and prose. Jennifer and associate art director Matt Davis have a knack for selecting artwork that invites the reader to look at a story, an essay, or a poem in an unexpected way.

When writer Sung J. Woo mentioned that he’d written some stories that were inspired by Dina Brodsky’s paintings, we were immediately intrigued. What if we could capture an even more deliberate conversation between writer and artist?

We published “Desert Places,” which is posted below, in Issue 19 of Slice. What follows is an interview between Sung and Dina about their collaborative creative process.

Read on!

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Columbia Journal: Cycling Guide to Lilliput (11-13)

Check out the latest batch of my ekphrastic endeavor in Columbia Journal, the magazine published by Columbia University School of the Arts Graduate Writing program.  It’s available online, three little interrelated stories inspired by the fantastic paintings of Dina Brodsky.  FYI, the first ten of these flash fiction stories can be found in Juked.

Slice Magazine – Issue #19, Distraction

Happy to report that the good folks at Slice Magazine will be publishing my ekphrastic endeavor later this month.  The issue is titled Distraction, and it’s got some heavy literary hitters as you can see from the cover.

My part will be small, which makes sense as the paintings I wrote about are small, too.

slice19

This is a print magazine, so if you wish to revel in the glory of paper, you can order your copy.  Once I have it in my hands, I’ll put up some pics.