New Author Photo! (Just Kidding)

Posted on 19 September 2010

FlavorWire recently posted Against Promotional Author Photographs to poke fun at cliche author poses, including 1) The Sophisticated Photograph (fist under chin), 2) The Office Photograph, 3) The Comfortable Photograph (torso twist on couch), 4) The Smoker Photograph and 5) The Hand-to-Face Photograph, which is kind of the same as the sophisticated version if you ask me.

So obviously I had to take my own author photo while displaying as many of these cliches as possible.

Fun facts: I’m wearing what I call my “professor jacket” with suede elbow patches. That scarf is a classy touch, no? I’m sitting at my desk at home (no one has to know that I rarely write there), and since I don’t smoke, a pen had to do in a pinch. The glasses are fake and they’re down on my nose not only to look intellectual but also because it drives me crazy to try to see out of them.

Even more fun facts: I was too embarrassed to ask anyone to take this photo, so I took it myself with my camera’s self-timer. That meant I needed something tall to put the camera on. Thank god for the Ultimate Scratching Post, which just made up for its $60 price tag a little more. But halfway through my photo session, Saucy, undaunted by the new arrangement, reached up for a nice scratch and knocked the camera over.

Final fun facts: I bought the fake glasses and picked up the “professor jacket” from a thrift store a few years ago for Halloween. I painted my face white, donned the glasses and jacket, grabbed a notebook and pen and went as a “ghost writer.”  (No, no one had any idea what I was.)

I’m pretty happy with my new fake author photograph and I definitely did not use novel-revision time to take it. Runner-up photo is shown here on the right.

Peter took my current head shot but I planned on having him take a new one for my official author photo for Living Arrangements. I don’t know, though. Maybe I already have a winner right here.