avg_rating: 3.75
name: Annie Weatherwax
about: Before turning to writing I had a long career sculpting superheroes and cartoon characters for DC Comics, Nickelodeon, Pixar and others. My short stories have appeared in The Southern Review, The Sun Magazine and elsewhere. In 2009 I was awarded the Robert Olen Butler Prize for Fiction and I have written for the New York Times. A graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, I am currently a full time painter and writer. What is most important to me as an artist and a writer is authenticity of voice. If I had to classify my own voice, I’d call it comic realism. It is a heightened, stylized wryness that often plunges into darkness. It permeates everything I do. Like my visual work, my fiction is bold and colorful with an undercurrent of darknes Before turning to writing I had a long career sculpting superheroes and cartoon characters for DC Comics, Nickelodeon, Pixar and others. My short stories have appeared in The Southern Review, The Sun Magazine and elsewhere. In 2009 I was awarded the Robert Olen Butler Prize for Fiction and I have written for the New York Times. A graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, I am currently a full time painter and writer. What is most important to me as an artist and a writer is authenticity of voice. If I had to classify my own voice, I’d call it comic realism. It is a heightened, stylized wryness that often plunges into darkness. It permeates everything I do. Like my visual work, my fiction is bold and colorful with an undercurrent of darkness. My artistic inspiration comes from many places. My fictional characters are often inspired by paintings—Alice Neel’s portraits are my favorites. And the boldness of Lorrie Moore’s characters have inspired my paintings. Both my painting and writing styles are influenced by the campy melodrama of Pop artists such as James Rosenquist and Andy Warhol. Yet what drives my work most is my voice—a dark and light, frivolous and grave, sardonic and serious sensibility that feels imbedded in my DNA. In life, as in art, I cannot see reality without seeing the absurdity of it too. ...more