The Word Made Flesh, I started planning this tattoo when I was about 16...

The Word Made Flesh

I started planning this tattoo when I was about 16 and started writing fiction stories and reading almost constantly. It morphed many times throughout planning before I finally fell in love with this design. I was going to have it say “I Cannot Live Without Books” a quote by Thomas Jefferson that I found at the Library of Congress, but once it was finished i decided against the words.
Ink was done by Erin at Creative Images tattoo in Fridley, MN

I started planning this tattoo when I was about 16 and started writing fiction stories and reading almost constantly. It morphed many times throughout planning before I finally fell in love with this design. I was going to have it say “I Cannot Live Without Books” a quote by Thomas Jefferson that I found at the Library of Congress, but once it was finished i decided against the words.

Ink was done by Erin at Creative Images tattoo in Fridley, MN

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The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide

Get your copy at Indiebound, Powell's Books or Amazon. Follow us on Twitter. And be our friend on facebook.

About the book:

The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide is a guide to the emerging subculture of literary tattoos — a collection of 100 full-color photographs of human skin indelibly adorned with quotations and images from Pynchon to Dickinson to Shakespeare to Plath. Packed with beloved lines of verse, literary portraits, and illustrations — and statements from the bearers on their tattoos’ history and the personal significance of the chosen literary work — The Word Made Flesh is part photo collection, part literary anthology written on skin.

Special features include a reprint of a short story by Donald Barthelme (along with the tattoo it inspired on the author's daughter), an interview with Brian Evenson about seeing his own work tattooed on someone else, Shelley Jackson's SKIN Project and Rick Moody's Shelley Jackson tattoo, Jonathan Lethem's homage to Philip K. Dick, Tao Lin's Tao Lin tattoo, and more.

Media highlights:

Feature in The New York Times Sunday Book Review; Listing in The New York Times Holiday Gift Guide; Interview and online slideshow in NPR’s “On Point” with Tom Ashbrook and "To the Best of Our Knowledge" with Steve Paulson; Article in the New Yorker's Book Bench blog (reposted on The Daily Dish); Feature article and slideshow in The Huffington Post; Feature in the August/September issue of Shelf Unbound, Interview and photo gallery in The Daily Beast; Feature article in the Boston Phoenix; Brief article about book trailer in the Observer.com; Link in Boing Boing's 2011 Holiday Gift Guide; Feature article in Interview Magazine; Interview and slideshow in Paper; Feature article in NBCNewYork.com; Article and slideshow in AOL News; Feature article on NYPost.com and the Brooklyn Paper; Article about book trailer in New York Magazine.com; Interview in the Miami New Times.com; Interview in Mediabistro's GalleyCat; Interview in The L Magazine; Interview in the Examiner.com; Feature article in Canada.com; Article about book trailer in PW.com; Feature article in Ink Butter; Brief article about book trailer in BlackBookMag.com; Brief article about book proposal in USAToday.com; Article about book proposal in Forbes.com.

About the editors:

Eva Talmadge's fiction has appeared in Subtropics, The New York Tyrant, The Agriculture Reader, The New Orleans Review, and elsewhere. She's the sole editor of this blog; comments or complaints should be directed to her at evatalmadge.net.

Justin Taylor is the author of The Gospel of Anarchy and Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever. He also edited The Apocalypse Reader, an anthology of short fiction about the end of the world. Visit him at justindtaylor.net.

Got a literary tattoo? Click here to submit it to the blog. But first, please make sure your pic is in focus, and, please, please, please do not send pictures with blood in them. Thanks.

Click here to browse the archive.