Choosing an author photo
It’s hard not to overthink it!!!
As soon as I began planning my three-month escape to Bologna, Italy last spring, I knew I wanted to take my next author photo there. In pursuit of romanticizing the living daylights of my life, I figured what could be better than suiting up in some Italian attire and capturing my next book jacket headshot somewhere in the home of Europe’s oldest university, the University of Bologna. Known equally for its prosciutto, Lambrusco, and academic history, the whole town of Bologna looks like a real-life Hogwarts. It’s a medieval walled city, packed with dusty libraries, bookstores on every corner, towers four times as old as America itself, stone buildings the color of peaches and pomegranates, and students in vintage leather coats milling about every piazza. If you can’t already tell, I fell in love with the place. I knew I’d like it, but I couldn’t have imagined how much.
Three weeks into my stay there, a photographer friend living in London came to visit. Kaitlyn and I spent an afternoon with her film camera gallivanting around my new favorite spots in town—Piazza Santo Stefano, the thousand-year-old portici (arched sidewalks) of the university district, sneaking into private courtyards...
I knew I wanted to look a bit more mature in my author photo for The Age of Magical Overthinking than past book jackets. To me, TAOMO feels like a more grown-up book than Wordslut or Cultish, and also, people kept telling me I looked like a little Mormon child in my Cultish jacket photo (lol), which is not necessarily the vibe I wanted to capture this time around. In my 30-something-grownup-lady era, I wanted to look professorial and mysterious! Like Donna Tartt :)
Some author photo inspo for The Age of Magical Overthinking:
When the film came in, I knew right away which photo I loved most: The below image of me in my favorite piazza, at magic hour, with one of Bologna’s signature sunset-red buildings and a wisteria plant in the background. The decision was easy!