Process of Writing and Designing "Manhattan Stories: Fiction and Non-Fiction"

I was really excited about this project. My bus had made a detour because of Fashion Week, and I started to think of this trip as a game with paths and detours. At first, I wanted to make a game, but then I couldn’t think of an incentive for why people would play it, and what I could teach them.

While I took the bus, I would watch people getting on the stop. I wondered about the distinguished gentleman sitting in the front. Where were this woman and her baby heading? Where was her husband? Why the lady was wearing a scarf on a sunny day? I started to watch people in their neighborhoods. The man dressed in a tuxedo in Central Park…for what occasion? The girls playing atop a fire escape above the Fish market in Washington Heights. So many people in Manhattan, so many stories. From people to food to spaces and history: their stories intrigued me. What were their lives like?

I opted to write a collection of stories, and included photographs of people in the city. Some are New Yorkers and some are tourists. I use the visual information to tell a story. Most of it is fictional, and reflect my predilections of their stories. “Non-fiction” refers to the subjects in my photographs and “fiction” reflects the story about the people or space. Hence, Manhattan Stories: Fiction and Non-fiction. This book explores all my questions, and hopefully gives the reader a piece of New York and its Culture.