Free: Cover Image by Tracy Granzyk

Our digital image submissions for Issue #17 – Free, as well as overall for the last few issues, have been very light leaving us with few options to choose from for our cover images. While Shannon Mcnichols contribution is an excellent artistic and personal expression of her lived health experience, we needed something that also addressed the theme of this issue for the cover.

Over the last two years I have been exploring how AI Tools can enhance the work I do, both creatively and for clients. This gap in digital submissions offered an opportunity to further explore how two of the tools I have been using to create images for both written and social media content–Midjourney and Canva–might solve the problem. This cover image was generated in Midjourney using the following prompt, and required 16 iterations to get to the final version you see on the cover:

Use graphic symbols of freedom and health for a digital image 8″ x 10″ cover image for Please See Me Issue #17 with the theme of free and a call for mental health awareness writing contest in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Use shades of red, white, and blue and incorporate freedom, wellness, free from illness in graphic symbolism.

We continue to welcome digital submissions and want nothing more than to elevate health-related art by artists from all backgrounds and lived experience. While I fully understand the reticence and skepticism that surrounds the use of AI tools to create art and creative work, I also know that my training, research, and exploration of these tools has empowered me with the knowledge that AI can, and is, being used to enhance the creative work we do. This cover image is just one example of how AI tools can be used to further our creative expression and message. You can learn more in the short guide I’ve developed for our community that will soon be available in the PSM store,  entitled The Ethical AI-Writer: An Introduction to AI Tools That Make Your Writing Practice More Efficient.

Tracy Granzyk is editor-in-chief of Please See Me.