Katherine Keenum

It’s always a thrill to encounter a picture that opens into a world you are reading about or imagining. This morning, when I checked Charley Parker’s blog, Lines and Colors, I was rewarded with glimpses of French landscapes and architectural details by artist Jérémy Soheylian which helped me visualize the setting for a current story of mine.

To write effectively about a place, real or imagined, it’s important to have a feel for what lies behind a block of buildings or how many trees might be interspersed among them, how close to the river the houses come, how high on the horizon a church or castle might reach, how heavily do the overhead arches of a passageway weigh on a pedestrian. It is also a great pleasure when you find work by a talented artist you hadn’t known before. What a good start to the week!