"Tales, unlike stories, never lie."

Carolyn Arcabascio muses on illustrating The Moon Coin:

Click HERE or the image directly above to read her post.

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Richard Due: Looking through a batch of Carolyn Arcabascio sketches, with the intent of winnowing away chaff, is a trying task namely because: THERE ISN’T ANY CHAFF! Time and again, I would put two final candidates side-by-side on my biggest monitor and stare at them for what felt like hours, waiting for one of them to mess up . . . you know . . . sneeze or something, maybe drop a prop Carolyn had drawn in—ANYTHING to make it easier for me to choose! But no dice! It was one of those times, while staring at the screen for what felt like hours, that the smoky voice of Stones rocker Keith Richards first visited me. It was like he was leaning over my shoulder, staring along with me, only his words were from a Terry Gross interview in which he’d been asked to choose a favorite between two Stones classics:  “I love ’em both, honey. Don’t make me cut the babies in half.”

There are twenty-one pieces of chapter art in The Moon Coin. Let me tell you: I spent a lot of time this summer with Keith Richards’ voice in my head talking about cutting babies in half. And I can’t wait to do it all over again on The Dragondain. But this time I’m going to go for summoning the stern voice of Mary Poppins. I have a hunch she’ll be an excellent decision maker. 😉