WRITING + ART
I write stories.
I paint what I see.
I’m A. D. Bowen, a writer and visual artist in East Tennessee. Most of my work begins the same way: I notice something I cannot quite leave alone.
Writing
I write middle-grade fantasy, short fiction, and essays. The stories tend to begin in recognizable places and then admit one thing that does not belong there.
Art
I work in watercolor, gouache, pen and ink, and acrylic marker. I am interested in streets, buildings, interiors, objects, and the way light makes an ordinary arrangement briefly impossible to ignore.
Current novel
Ella Alden and the Island of Living Sand
Ella Alden makes sense of the world by naming and classifying it. When a flash of blue interrupts a day at the beach, the careful systems she depends on begin to fail her. Observation will help. It will not be enough.
The complete middle-grade fantasy manuscript is currently in revision. It is planned as the first book in a four-volume seasonal adventure.
From Where I Sit
My visual work often starts in the place where I happen to be: a Chattanooga street, a brewery table, a room away from home, or a chair beside a window. The subject does not need to be grand. It needs to be looked at long enough.
Journal
The Journal is for studio notes, revision discoveries, sketchbook pages, field notes, reading, and occasional essays about making things while holding down the rest of a life.
