Show & Tell

What happens when we blend image and word?

Sabino Creek. Tuscon, Arizona. February 2026.

Fiction, memoir and poetry books contain graphics, photographs and iIlustrations.

Theatre and storytelling events often include images on a screen.

This blending of word and image is showing up in the work of the writers I’m coaching. They are making collages. Digging into old notebooks, journals, letters and photographs. They are inserting quotes, images, illustrations, photographs or poetry into their memoirs.

Literarily speaking, we are moving into very visual place, a fusion of words and art, working together. It actually comes from an old tradition: Think illuminated bibles. Children’s picture books. Images and words that show and tell. That when combined, amplifies the takeaway.

It didn’t happen overnight. Essays used to refer to long-form pieces that could run as long as 5000 words. In the 90s and early 00s, Judith Kitchen’s series,’ In Short, In Brief and Short Takes introduced a new kind of short-form essay ranging from 100 to 2000 words.

Memoirs like Abigail Thomas’s Safekeeping and What Comes Next and How to Like It broke traditional form with chapters of one, two or three sentences.

Beth Ann Fennelly compiled 52 micro memoirs in Heating and Cooling.

Sarah Ruhl’s Letters from Max: A Book of Friendship is a memoir written entirely in letters.

Teju Cole’s essay collection, Blind Spot, pairs photos with one-page essays.

Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home became a stage play.

There are many theories as to why this is happening. Our digital age, camera phones, attention spans. But just as there are art, music, dance, fashion and culinary movements, so are there are literary evolutions.

Because I love a challenge, I’m digging into this one. (See February’s post for more about that.)

I leave you with an example from my own files. I took the photo above on a recent trip to the Arizona desert. Alone, it’s a nice shot. But paired with the caption, my hope is that it’s power and possible meaning are magnified.

“The desert creek carries one of nature’s greatest enigmas by capturing the rocky-bottomed earth, slow-moving air, blazing sun and searing heat in a liquid portrait.”

Upcoming

Next month, I’ll be digging into a topic that so many of us face right now: How we can use AI to deepen our creativity? Stay tuned.

I am making myself available for free, 30-minute video consultations to talk about short and long-term projects involving images and words. Schedule time with me here.

Catch up with my word and image project on my Instagram. Check out my photography here.