…is the name of today’s story at Fictive Dream.
Throughout the month of February 2022 I will be showing you illustrations I did for Flash Fiction February 2022 at Fictive Dream, an online magazine devoted to the short story.
Here’s the image editor Laura Black chose for this story, Parental Tips for When the CHildren Are Ready to Leave Home, by Rosie Garland.
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 
That was quite an arresting story, especially perhaps for someone at my stage of parenting. I think your mark-making in this piece and your colour choice both emphasize the atmosphere and emotions of the story plus I like that suggestion of sharp claws and bared teeth.
Thank you. This story, I really have to think back into my history to remember this time. I contrast it to the feeling of detachment I now have about the subject – now that I am an empty nester!
One might well ask. But you have illustit quite well. (K)
Thank you. It seems so long since my child left home, I feel I don’t live the same world anymore for a lot of reasons, certainly am not the same person, either.
A mother’s love is strong no matter what she gives birth to or what that offspring becomes. This is a short but potent read. I imagine the black “scribbling” is nature rewriting the genetic code in adaptation to our “brave new world.”
There is always going to be a gap, I think, between the world a child is born into and the one that is waiting when he/she is ready to leave home – good and bad aspects. And the same for parents, who could have anticipated so much of how it is to be a parent and then to let go?
Parental Tips for When the Children are Ready to Leave Home by Rosie Garland is ostensibly about parenthood yet the world isn’t quite as we know it. It seems to be a more ordered and controlled environment, a control that extends in to the private sphere, and at odds with the natural animalism of the children who will soon be making their own way in this world. I love this illustration because complements the children’s almost feral emotions. I love the comment from msjadeli that the black scribbling represents the rewriting of DNA. Thank you, Claudia.
Thank you. I reflect on the difference from when my own child left home quite some time ago and when he was young, and now, that he has his own child, well, the cycle continues, and everything evolves.