Poets & Writers Magazine

Poets & Writers is a publication targeted toward authors of all styles, featuring writing competitions and offering general advice to further their careers. The feature article discusses the importance of being able to empathize with one’s subject when writing creative nonfiction, especially about family members, to convey the most accurate description of their lives. According to the author, when we write stories about people who really existed, we have to be able to imagine life from their perspective in order to capture their truest identity as an individual.

The illustrations allude to photographs, referenced multiple times in the article as an allegory to writing creative nonfiction as they capture only a small portion of a person’s life. The contrast between line-based and solid illustration suggests the difference between real life and memory; one can try to relate what really happened, but inevitably some detail is lost in translation, and we are left to fill in the blank spaces with our imagination.