"Pick a painting and write a story." That, simply enough, was the assignment for writers invited to contribute to In Sunlight or in Shadow, and the relationship of story to painting was up to them. Some elected to tell the story they found implicit in their chosen...

Before I wrote my own story for In Sunlight or in Shadow, I took my time poring over Hopper's work. I looked, not for the first time, at "Automat"—and all at once a story idea came flooding in. There was only one problem. Kristine Kathryn Rusch had already called dibs...