For some reason, writers and tattoos don’t necessarily spring to mind as a natural pairing — we tend to imagine authors decked out in sleeves of tweed and corduroy, not ink. But more and more authors are showing off their tattoos nowadays, and even some classic writers are a little more tatted up than you might think: George Orwell supposedly sported bright blue dots on his knuckles, and Dorothy Parker wore a star on her elbow. Since we’re always interested in finding out a little bit more about the internal lives of our favorite writers, we decided to explore a few of their tattoos, from the simple to the expansive, the cheeky to the deadly serious. Check out some awesome writer ink after the jump.
Kathy Acker’s awesome back tattoo, the most badass combination of birds and flowers and koi we’ve ever seen. “The tattoo is primal parent to the visual arts,” she wrote in Empire of the Senseless. “Beginning as abstract maps of spiritual vision, records of the ‘other’ world, tattoos were originally icons of power and mystery designating realms beyond normal land-dwellers’ experience… In decadent phases, the tattoo became associated with the criminal — literally the outlaw — and the power of the tattoo became intertwined with the power of those who chose to live beyond the norms of society.” Fun fact: Acker dedicated the novel to her tattoo artist.
Kevin Wilson rocks a tattoo of Buster and Annie from the cover of The Family Fang on his left arm. He writes, “I have two other tattoos and imagine I’ll get quite a few more before I’m done. The other tattoo I have is of a Deth P. Sun image of a weird catlike creature playing a marching band bass drum. Underneath it says, ‘Please Be Brave.’ The other one is just some damn ominous blackbird. I very much like tattoos, not because I really want other people to see them (though that is nice), but because it gives me a point of distraction whenever I happen to look at myself in the mirror and see how much older/fatter/sadder I’ve gotten. It’s a way for me, while I’m brushing my teeth before bed, to focus on a cat playing a bass drum or Annie and Buster with their bird masks and not, for example, why my skin always seems to have strange yellow bruises on it.”
See the other eight at Flavorpill
And to which we will add below our own New Zealander, the internationally acclaimed children's writer, Margaret Mahy who died yesterday after a short illness.
Photo - Claire Gummer
Kathy Acker’s awesome back tattoo, the most badass combination of birds and flowers and koi we’ve ever seen. “The tattoo is primal parent to the visual arts,” she wrote in Empire of the Senseless. “Beginning as abstract maps of spiritual vision, records of the ‘other’ world, tattoos were originally icons of power and mystery designating realms beyond normal land-dwellers’ experience… In decadent phases, the tattoo became associated with the criminal — literally the outlaw — and the power of the tattoo became intertwined with the power of those who chose to live beyond the norms of society.” Fun fact: Acker dedicated the novel to her tattoo artist.Kevin Wilson rocks a tattoo of Buster and Annie from the cover of The Family Fang on his left arm. He writes, “I have two other tattoos and imagine I’ll get quite a few more before I’m done. The other tattoo I have is of a Deth P. Sun image of a weird catlike creature playing a marching band bass drum. Underneath it says, ‘Please Be Brave.’ The other one is just some damn ominous blackbird. I very much like tattoos, not because I really want other people to see them (though that is nice), but because it gives me a point of distraction whenever I happen to look at myself in the mirror and see how much older/fatter/sadder I’ve gotten. It’s a way for me, while I’m brushing my teeth before bed, to focus on a cat playing a bass drum or Annie and Buster with their bird masks and not, for example, why my skin always seems to have strange yellow bruises on it.”
See the other eight at Flavorpill
And to which we will add below our own New Zealander, the internationally acclaimed children's writer, Margaret Mahy who died yesterday after a short illness.
Photo - Claire Gummer
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