Miriam Berkley and photo display at the Sewanee Writers Conference

I am a freelance photographer specializing in author photos. I have a very large stock of international author photographs in both color and black and white dating roughly from the late 1980s. I shoot using digital and -- now only occasionally -- film cameras, and have the ability to scan and transmit non-digital images digitally as well as to create illustrations from my photographs.

My archive contains portraits and environmental images of well over a thousand writers. Please ask for my latest, ever-expanding, author photo list.

Areas of specialty include writers from Latin America, Spain and Portugal, African-American and African writers, and Scandinavian, and especially Swedish, authors. Other strengths are science fiction and mystery writers.

I do author portraits or other photography for jacket, publicity or other editorial use by publishers and publications, and can cover a story or event using a combination of images and words.

My photographs are bought or commissioned by trade and textbook publishers, magazines, newspapers, and web sites worldwide. I also deal directly with authors.

Recently my photography has expanded to include a growing stock of photos of New York, Paris, London, Mexico and Sweden, as well as of dramatic scenic and other imagery suitable for front cover art.

Publishing, non-photographic background: Da Capo Press, Editor; Dover Publications, Publicity Director; Marion Boyars (briefly), running New York office.

Before turning to photography full-time in 1989, I wrote book reviews, author interviews, publisher profiles and photography articles and reviews for such publications as Publishers Weekly, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Popular Photography, and American Photographer, which also published my full-page-plus photograph of Andreas Feininger. For my writing, I was a recipient of an NEH grant for journalists and I was a Scholar in Non-Fiction at the 1984 Bread Loaf Writers Conference.

Web Pages with additional images (not on Publishers Marketplace):
NAPP page: View my gallery
www.StockArtists.com/MiriamBerkley
My personal web site is to come.

In the United States publisher sales include FSG, Alfred A Knopf, Vintage Books, Little Brown, Harcourt, Akashic Books, Pearson Education, Glencoe McGraw Hill and Gale Research. Outside the US: Diogenes, Circulo de Lectores, Bloomsbury, Rowohlt, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Bertelsmann, Bonniers, Norstedts, Fayard, Mondadori, Alfaguara, Nieuw Amsterdam, Companhia das Letras, etc.

Also: the BBC, NBC and other television and film use.

Publications include: The New York Times Book Review; Dagens Nyheter (Sweden); Der Spiegel; Le Monde; The Bookseller; Livres Hebdo; Publishers Weekly; Time Magazine; People; Entertainment Weekly.

Most recently photographed writers include Fatou Diome, Umberto Eco, A.B. Yehoshua, Etgar Keret, Elias Khouri, Francisco Goldman, Ma Jian, John Banville, Kevin Baker, Calvin Baker, Elizabeth Strout, Samantha Hunt, Charles Bock, John Burnham Schwartz, Ron Hansen, Rubem Fonseca, Martín Solares, Juan Carlos Botero, Juan Gabriel Vasquez, Alfredo Molano Bravo, Denise Mina, Allan Guthrie, Kurt Andersen, Lionel Shriver, Dinaw Mengestu, Vikram Chandra, Stephen Dixon, Anne Frydman, Matt Haig, Andrea Semple and Michael O'Connor. I photographed Orhan Pamuk in Sweden a few weeks before he was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize. Mark Slouka, Aryn Kyle and George Pendle are among early 2007 authors whose books bear images by me. My color photo of a crouching David Mitchell is on the jacket of Black Swan Green and has been published in many magazines and newspapers. My photograph of Susanna Clarke covers the back jacket of the originating UK edition of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and I have to date licensed use of the image to publishers of the Dutch, Finnish, Brazilian, Spanish and Italian editions of the book.

A very widely-used photograph was my image of Stephen W. Hawking that was shot after jacket art was complete but sent out, in cropped form, with review copies for the original edition of A Brief History of Time. One or another of my images of Dr. Hawking was seen throughout the world. Photos of James Wood and David Mitchell were also very widely published.

Exhibitions of author photos: Frankfurt Book Fair; The University of Guadalajara; Havana; annually during the summer at the Sewanee Writers Conference (where I am resident Portrait Photographer); 50 images of Southern Writers on permanent display at the Barnes & Noble bookstore at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.

Spring 2007-present: participation in four juried group shows in NYC of non-author photos, and a photograph of Guerrilla Girl Frida Kahlo by invitation of the James Cohan Gallery for their late 2007 show, "Mask." In 2007 two of my photographs, "Frances Patridge at 92," and "Long Island City" on my member portfolio page on the NAPP website were chosen as the "Editor's Choice."

Recently (through January 2008): Photograph of the Guerrilla Girl Frida Kahlo in the group show "Mask," at the James Cohan Gallery, Chelsea, New York City. Photograph mentioned in the NY Times review of the show.

Rewarded a 2008 grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council to mount an exhibition of some of my Hell's Kitchen photographs (show will run July 7 -August 25,2008 at the Columbus branch of the New York Public Library).

Languages spoken: French, Spanish, Swedish (some).

Skills: Photoshop and Illustrator. Attended Photoshop World 2007 in Boston in early April. Ability to work with studio lighting but prefer to and usually shoot outdoors using available light.

Caution: I am the only one who may license my images. None of the photographs on this page, which represent a tiny fraction of my stock, may be downloaded, copied or used in any way without my permission.

Memberships: ASMP, APA, Editorial Photographers (EP), Professonal Women Photographers (PWP), the Authors Guild, the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC), Friend of P.E.N.