Katherine Keenum

Mary Hamilton Frye’s illustrations for “Children and the Theatre,” which were mentioned in my last post, came to mind today when I read Kathleen Jennings’ blog post on Skimmings, with its gif compilation her own recent paper cut-out illustrations for a musical composition. Silhouettes have  Read More 

Lisbeth Zwerger is one of my favorite living illustrators, and I couldn’t resist pairing a sample of her work with a picture from the Golden Age by Mary Hamilton Frye (1890–1951). Is it just my imagination,  Read More 

The conceptual artist Catherine Chaloux tickles my fancy. Although fantasy fiction is a part of my reading and writing life, I have not reacted to her witty, luscious work as a source of stories so much as illustrations of my imaginary self. This picture combines  Read More 

Some of my favorite novels are fantasies. For a holiday treat, I read Patricia McKillip’s Od Magic. It is a lovely, lively story and I was specially interested in how McKillip interwove four plot lines. It allowed her to jump over the  Read More 

Although those of us who write historical fiction do a lot of directed research, sometimes it is serendipity that turns up the most gorgeous details. In life, chance meetings are even better. I was taking my daily walk this afternoon and ran into Linda Baker-Cimini, whom I  Read More 

Blog tip: I have just read this post on Jeannine Atkins’ new novel Little Woman in Blue: The Story of May Alcott Nieriker with great interest. And, of course, I love it that Where the Light Falls is included in the recommended reading list at the end! Read More 

Born in 1867, artist Helen Stratton would be a near contemporary of my new heroine Mattie, who is employed in the children’s book publishing industry and would therefore know her illustrations. With no more relevance than that to my own work, I’m posting  Read More 

An important new show, Artist & Empire: Facing Britain’s Imperial Past, will be opening at the Tate Gallery in London on November 25, 2015. It features this painting by Elizabeth Butler among  Read More 

After Saturday’s post on Halloween cards, my first search for the illustrators who painted them turned up Rose O’Neill—the inventor of Kewpie! Who knew? (Well, probably lots of historians of material culture, but not me.) It is tempting, tempting, tempting  Read More 

Images inspire writing. Among my desktop folders, I have one for Pictures Demanding Stories—or, in Greer Gilman’s more potent term, Story-seeds. This image by Rovina Cai instantly called to mind Gilman’s work. I’m tickled pink that she agrees. Here’s hoping that one day she’ll tell us the story! (As for me, it's back to ANONYMITY and, well, to some other fiction that insists on being written.)

Thanks to Line and Colors for the post on Cai.

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