In this case, I hope so. The cover of My Brilliant Friends, which I love, was designed by Lisa Hamm, at Columbia University Press. The artist Jojo Karlin created the portraits of my three friends. Jojo, who is also a brilliant graduate student working on Virginia Woolf’s correspondences with her friends, took inspiration from author photos. Her illustrations are interpretations of these faces, the faces of the women whose friendship meant the world to me (Carolyn Heilbrun, Naomi Schor, and Diane Middlebrook). When it came time to choose the author photo for my book jacket, it seemed logical to have Jojo draw mine as well. I prefer the avatar to my photograph, especially the way she reimagined my hair.
