…is the name of today’s story on Fictive Dream.
Throughout the month of February 2021 I will be showing you illustrations I did for Flash Fiction February 2021 at Fictive Dream, an online short-story magazine. For more information about FFF21 and my artwork process, look here.
Here’s the image editor Laura Black chose for this story, The House, by Alan McCormick.
And here is the artwork with the banner. Take a look at this image. And then…
Read the story at Fictive Dream.
Claudia McGill and Her Art World 
Could there have been a better illustration for today’s story? No, I don’t think so. The House by Alan McCormick is a playfully wicked piece of writing that subverts the haunted house genre, and among all of the illustrations there was the perfect match. I love the row of sunny houses and there, among them, is the grey, lonely building, empty and neglected. Marvellous illustration, Claudia, thank you very much.
What a nice bit of serendipity for this story. You know how much I like to make images of houses, and this one expresses a picture I had in my mind. In any group of houses or on any street, each house has a personality, and there is always one that stands out for one reason or another. I liked this story very much and I think the gleeful killer house in the story is a fantastic character.
A perfect (if creepy) match. (K)
Yes. A good serendipity moment for the story and art to combine themselves. But in my art there must always be a house or two somewhere in the mix – I think of them as stand ins for human figures.