Every now and then I manage to talk a small press author into showing us a little skin... tattooed skin, that is. I know there are websites and books out there that have been-there-done-that already, but I hadn't seen one with a specific focus on the authors and publishers of the small press community. Whether it's the influence for their book, influenced by their book, or completely unrelated to the book, we get to hear the story behind their indie ink....
Today's ink story comes from Ani King, whose released their story collection Family Night earlier this year with Mason Jar Press!
The Presence of Wildflowers by
Ani King
I can be a particularly impulsive
person, which is evident in all of my early tattoos. It is also evident in my
writing process, which is largely a vibes and inspiration driven affair. A fair
number of the stories in Family Night were written in stoplight bursts on my
phone, or at the kitchen counter while asking if my family would be so kind as
to let me just write this down, even though we might have been in the middle of
something.
As
far as my tattoos, I spent very little time considering what they should be
beyond what felt cool in the moment, while also factoring the amount of money I
had available at the time. I have a couple of terrifically stupid, cheap
tattoos, including a playboy bunny with blue flames around it that I got on my
stomach. I have since had two children and grown well into middle age and that
bunny looks really bad now. I will not be sharing a picture here of that
tattoo. I also do not fully remember the circumstances in which I chose it but
will note that it is also a shared tattoo. Yes, someone else has the same bad
tattoo, with the flames in a different color, and no, we were not sober. We
don’t even know each other anymore. I tell you this first for a couple of
reasons: it makes for good contrast against how long I spent thinking about and
planning this wildflower forearm sleeve, and it probably will make most of the
characters who inspired the tattoo seem a little obvious. I’m not saying that
Anne Shirley or Jo March or Lolly Willowes would get an impulse tattoo (I’m
lying, in modern times Jo for sure would have some embarrassing literary quote,
I promise you), but I am absolutely saying that young adult Pippi Longstocking
would have a left forearm full of ink and poke nonsense that she did herself. I
will not be taking counter arguments.
This specific
tattoo was always meant to do a lot of heavy metaphorical lifting, and so much
like a short story that takes forever to complete, the style and intent shifted
over the course of six years. It started with a list of words that I felt like
I was reclaiming (obstinate, difficult, headstrong, stubborn, to name a few); I
had also just come to the full realization that I am non-binary. Gender
non-compliant, if you’re nasty. As I thought about the words themselves, I
found myself returning to foundational books and characters, largely from my
elementary and preteen years. For a brief moment, I thought about getting a
typographically interesting box of the most impactful words, with wildflowers
growing out of the box. I like the imagery and how it would let me throw a
little love for Michigan into the mix. As well, wildflowers are stubborn
plants, weedy and prone to growing even where they might not be wanted, and
they tend to survive where other more delicate or desirable flowers would not.
As a person who is prone to
impulsive decision, I have always needed at least a couple of rules that keep
me employable and from having too much expensive regret. My three tattoo rules
are: no words or names, no political symbols (ask me how I came up with this
one, and yes, the answer is a very expensive cover job), no flags. As you can
see, I was prepared to break one of those pretty quickly. I was having a really
hard time bringing all the elements—the flowers, the characters, the words and
meanings—in a way that sounded at all appealing. As much as I am an artist, I
am not a tattoo artist, and that was evident after five years of trying to come
up with something.
My tattoo artist
did an amazing job, though I did not remotely explain the relationships between
the flowers, characters (and one author) or words and feelings that they were
representing. I managed to tell her which flowers I was keen on (except I
forgot one), and that I didn’t want it to be too structured. What she designed
after a five-minute interaction is perfect: sketchy, organic, and very free.
She added a few more flowers that pop up here in Michigan and included the ferns
I had forgotten. A fun final fact: I didn’t get to see the design until the day
of my appointment, so in a way it felt a bit impulsive because I took one look,
fell in love, and about twelve minutes later my artist inked the first line.
Pippi Longstocking, Pippi
Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren, 1945 | Goldenrod (Solidago nemoralis)
Picture of a white person’s
forearm with a sketch-style tattoo of wildflowers.
This image is focused on the
Goldenrod part of the tattoo,
which has black-lined stems and leaves and
unlined yellow blossoms.
Until I was
about eight, I lived in a conservative, restrictive environment. I largely read
select Little Golden Books, and Bible stories or books that were tied to Bible
stories in some way. Sometimes it surprises me that Pippi Longstocking made
its way to me in that time period, considering what subversive female character she was compared
to how I was supposed to behave. I related far more to Annika and Tommy
Settergren than Pippi, and like them I think I found her as terrifying as I did
amazing. Pippi was the very definition of non-compliant. She was willful and
confident and headstrong, and she was always asking why, and while not without
her problems, she was very happily herself.
A lot of the
time, Pippi is treated like a nuisance, like she’s too much, like she’s a
problem to be managed into obedience, and Goldenrod is a hardy, beautiful,
overpowering plant that millions of people are allergic to, and bees and other
bugs and birds love this flower. In fact, Goldenrod is tremendously important
to bees in that it provide nectar and pollen in quantity, and it’s still around
in late summer and early fall when other plants are already done for the year.
I like to think Pippi in real life would be a stay too late at the party until
someone very directly explains that it’s time to leave kind of person.
Anne Shirley, Anne of Green
Gables by L.M. Montgomery, 1908 | Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota)
Where Pippi is
honestly kind of cool, Anne is dramatic and messy. She has big feelings all the
time and she desperately wants to be beautiful, and just as desperately wants
to be good, but she also wants to be loved as herself.
The core thing
about Anne is she’s so vulnerable. Her layer of armor barely covers her deep
sensitivity, and her heart lives on the outside of the armor. While it’s not
graphic, on the page trauma, Anne goes through being moved around foster homes,
often chosen or rejected based on her gender and usefulness; she’s known
hunger, she knows enough to try and get in front of all the complaints Matthew
and Marilla Cuthbert are going to have, because she’s heard it all before. But
still, there’s a bit of her that cracks every time she’s confronted with her
supposed flaws, no matter how much she tries to summon the mantle of
graciousness that might hide it when then remark cuts. Associating her with
Queen Anne’s Lace is pretty obvious, but if there’s any wildflower that
simultaneously belies its own toughness and fragility, it’s this one.
Jo March, Little Women by
Louisa May Alcott, 1868/1869 | Chicory (Cichorium intybus)
Picture of a white person’s
forearm with a sketch-style tattoo of wildflowers.
This image is focused on the
Chicory part of the tattoo,
which has lightly sketched purple blossoms and
watercolor style leaves and stem.
Chicory is a
hardy plant, said to represent perseverance, determination, and adaptability. I
think it’s a flower worthy of representing Jo March, who was in many ways
representing her creator, and I like to think they would both appreciate the
comparison. When I look at Chicory on the side of the road hanging out with all
the other ditch weeds, I think, Dang that is a masculine but jaunty plant!
I love that Jo March is rough and wild and boyish, and also tenderhearted to
boot. Her best friend is a boy who is in love with her and she is not in love
with him, and I remember thinking of the boys I had friendships with, that I
roughhoused and spit and swore with, as being a part of a brotherhood with me,
and what a blow it is to find out those boys were thinking of me like a girl. I
didn’t have the words yet to explain it when I was younger, but I understood
why Jo was so disappointed, even in herself. Sometimes it would a lot easier,
or feel a lot safer, to do the expected thing. She even considers it, knowing
she doesn’t love Laurie, but out of loneliness. As well, Jo isn’t fearless,
though she lets people think otherwise. I’ve always thought it’s more that she
does things despite the fear, because the end result is more important. She
hustles to sell her stories, she works hard to take care of her family, she
sells her hair for a good amount of money and is deeply sad about it, so she’s
a hard worker for what or who she loves. And like Anne, she also feels set
apart at times. She struggles with the boundaries of her sisterhood expanding
and changing, even while changing them herself.
Louisa May
Alcott was herself a deeply political person, an abolitionist and feminist, and
she intentionally never married. In an interview with Louise Chandler Moulton,
she said, "I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man's soul put by
some freak of nature into a woman's body.... because I have fallen in love with
so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man." The
authorial layer feels well represented in Little Women, and I think Alcott, who
was also a very practical person who worked as a nurse during the American Civil
War, was part of helping people find employment, and later raised her niece
after her sister died, while managing her own health issues. Determined.
Adaptable. Reliable.
 |
| Picture of a white person’s forearm with a sketch-style tattoo of wildflowers. This image is focused on the Marguerite Daisies part of the tattoo, which has pale purple and blue blossoms and a black shared stem. |
There’s a lot that could be said about Meg’s role in Little Women as the oldest daughter, and the mini-Marmie and peacekeeper. Or about Jo wanting Meg to be the kind of woman who bucks marriage and everything that comes with it so she can tread the boards, but how Meg actually would like marriage and most of what comes with thank you, especially if it could please be with the poor but hot tutor from across the way. But the thing about Meg March that has always stuck with me is from the scene that made me hate Laurie’s smug rich-boy ass with a vengeance. She’s at a party and she is so happy to be at the party, because most of the time she is doing chores and helping care for her family, and yes, her sisters can be fun, but they are also her responsibility, and no one at this party is her job. Of course, there are all these rich girls with more modern, more expensive dresses, and one girl takes her under her wing, but in that benevolent rich girl way where it’s not quite actual kindness. Meg embraces it, she lets herself be “Daisy” which is the benevolent rich girl’s nickname for her. And listen, as a kid who grew up on hand-me-downs, thrift-store finds, government cheese, and Kiwanis Christmas baskets, I promise you Meg did not think she was going to live like this afterwards. I’d bet money she never even forgot for a second that it wasn’t real. But Laurie couldn’t let a girl have a minute, instead he craps all over her dress and how she looks and then lectures her about essentially being fake and basic. I still hate him for it, because it takes a lot to lean into a moment where you know you’re not welcome and still make something of it your own, only to have this oblivious, moneyed-up, hometown-bro crap all over it. The Marguerite Daisy is a little more dressed up that some of its siblings, just a little bit more delicate in the petals, and I chose it for Meg’s moment as Daisy, where she very briefly got to enjoy something on her own. Still mad at Laurie though.
Lolly Willowes, Lolly
Willowes; or The Loving Huntsman by Sylvia Townsend Warner | Lady Fern (Athyrium
felix-femina)
Finally, we come to the plant I
forgot to mention to my tattoo artist about, the one she included in her design
as a given, and to Lolly Willowes, the spinster-aunt, possibly-aro-ace satanist
of my heart. I didn’t find this book until I was a little shy of forty, at
which point I became obsessed with it and gave a lot of my middle-aged lady
friends copies, because I felt (and still do) that it said a lot about women
bucking the expectations of age and station; it said a lot about being done
with doing emotional labor for everyone else. It absolutely said a lot about
wanting even more than a room of one’s own and then fighting to keep it by
becoming a satanist and hexing bothersome nephews so they will not in fact move
to town and continue to disrupt everything and fit everything into the shapes
they want. When Lolly Willowes finds in herself someone she would like to get
to know, everything changes. She wants to be alone, because she’s not
especially lonely when she is, not after most of a lifetime spent caring for
others. She doesn’t resent having done so, but once she embraces life for
herself, she can’t possibly let it go. As I get older, I find that I crave more
alone time, I enjoy the time I can spend in my own head.
I chose the Lady
Fern for this representation because the ferns in a floral arrangement are
considered filler, even though the bouquet often looks shabbier without them.
In a field, or along the edges of a forest, ferns are the background characters
in the party, but ferns are capable of living through below freezing
temperatures for a while, and they’re a backbone plant in their ecosystem, and one
of the first plants to grow back after a wildfire. Ferns are so dependable that
they are sometimes overlooked or taken for granted, much like Lolly Willowes
becomes in her family. Like my favorite spinster aunt, ferns are complicated in
their beauty and they’re not all that intentionally inviting. I personally find
the smell of hot ferns nostalgic, but also a little unpleasant, though not so
much as certain body sprays and colognes. Lolly Willowes helped raise kids and
carefully lived in the background to maintain an easy seeming peace in her
brother’s home, and then she went to whatever lengths she could to keep her own
actual peace. I’m not saying we all need to make the quietest and politest of
fictional deals with the devil to do so, but I am saying it’s an option, and I
don’t judge.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Releasing October 20, 2026
FAMILY NIGHT is by turns a lyrical celebration of queerness and an exploration of family and loss, often through a lens of magical realism. Ani King's collected flash fiction stories explore relationships and connections: a teen girl attempting to summon her missing mother home with cigarette smoke and yacht rock songs; two sisters disputing how to care for an unhealthy elderly unicorn; a woman accidentally raising two daughters from the bones of her long-dead pet rabbits. Throughout FAMILY NIGHT, there is a sense of yearning for connection, be it with family, old friends, lovers, or community.
Ani King (they/them) is a queer, gender non-compliant writer and artist from Michigan. Ani is a Monarch Queer Literary Award recipient, with work on the Wigleaf Top 50 Long List, and in Best Small Fictions 2025 and Best Microfiction 2026. Family Night, their debut flash collection is out in October 2026 with Mason Jar Press.
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