Image: Megan Archer
Guest Editor: Kate Nic Dhomhnaill

Dear writers, readers and friends,

May’s Visual Verse (https://visualverse.org/) is a special edition dedicated to the human condition: our nature, behaviour and minds. We have invited three contemporary thinkers to respond to our image, using their analytical, critical and philosophical backgrounds. In their respective professions, this month’s lead writers interpret the big questions and ideas that men and women have been asking for centuries, and now they bring this thinking to Visual Verse.

British academic philosopher, Simon Blackburn (http://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/people/teaching-research-pages/blackburn) , who is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, half-time Research Professor at UNC Chapel Hill, and Professor at the New College of the Humanities, has written our lead piece this month. Simon is known for popularising philosophical theories and making them accessible and engaging to a wider audience. Having published a long and varied list of works, including Think, Truth: A Guide, The Big Questions: Philosophy, and most recently Mirror, Mirror: The Uses and Abuses of Self Love, Simon is one of the most exciting philosophers of our time. His website (http://www2.phil.cam.ac.uk/~swb24/) is also very entertaining.

Our second lead writer, Richard Kearney (http://richardmkearney.com/) , is an Irish academic philosopher and public figure, who holds the Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy at Boston College. He also currently holds the Chair of the Institute for Critical Philosophy at The Global Center for Advanced Studies. Kearney’s work looks at the philosophy of the narrative imagination, hermeneutics and phenomenology. He is the author of over 20 books on European philosophy and literature, including two novels and a volume of poetry. Among his best known works are The Wake of the Imagination, On Stories, Poetics of Imagining, and Debates in Continental Philosophy.

Next on our list is Fariyal Wallez (http://www.letyourbodytalk.uk.com/blog.htm) , writer and creativity coach. Fariyal publishes a monthly blog on her personal website, where she writes on creativity and the psycho-somatic relationship within the context of familial, societal and cultural narratives. She lives in Lyon, France and is currently writing her first novel.

Our wonderful image for May comes from Berlin-based painter and illustrator, Megan Archer (http://cargocollective.com/meganarcher) , whose personal works aim to be visually seductive but oddly disconcerting, vacuous or even repulsive in terms of subject matter. Her interest in the human form, animals and colour has informed much of her work and provided her with a starting point for most of her paintings and drawings. Her fascination with 1970s and 80s fashion and lifestyle photography has been a continual influence on her aesthetic, beginning in art school. She also has a long-held interest in portraiture.

So, dear writers, whatever will you make of our image this month? What will it inspire in you, and in your writing?

Visit www.visualverse.org to see, read and submit your writing to Visual Verse: Anthology of Art and Words.

Kate Nic Dhomhnaill (Guest Editor)
with Preti Taneja and Kristen Harrison
https://www.visualverse.org