When I was a student at UEA in the noughties, I wrote a story
inspired by this painting, Automat, 1927 by Edward Hopper. After I read it aloud in class my tutor, flourishing her scarf, exclaimed, ‘write more short fiction, you obviously have a gift.’
Listen here 👇
Friends, I took it to heart and wrote a good many more stories inspired by Hopper’s work in the years that followed.
And, almost 20 years later, I still like them. I am terrible at writing about my writing and so I never managed to get an agent or publisher interested. Even if I did get several published in a small journal. Finally, I stopped and started other things.
Recently I’ve been itching* to write again. Here is where you come in. No, I’m not hoping that any of you know agents or publishers, after all, this is publishing, isn’t it?
I wonder if you could help me shake the dust off my narrative brain and suggest a painting that I might try to write about? Please don’t overthink it, just suggest to me a painting that you like, or perhaps that you don’t like. My only stipulation is that the painting must be in the public domain - please don’t steal anyone’s work!**
Suggest a painting by leaving a comment below or over on Instagram and once I have a bit of a story, I will post it here for you to read by the end of October. If I can’t come up with anything good, we will never speak of this again.
Warmly and with thanks,
Deb
*I have a lot of itches and it’s hard to tell which I should scratch… My brain is stew.
** I cannot guarantee that I will write about the artwork that you suggest. I still retain the right to write about what I want - ha!