Two Step

Prospect magazine commissioned this illustration for Two Step, a short story by Maile Meloy from a new collection called Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It. “I wanted to write about love and adultery in such a way that the nature of the story changes, as you read it,” she told Prospect, “in which the power shifts among the characters and what you understand about them turns, and turns again.”

Maile Meloy’s first novel, Liars and Saints was shortlisted for the 2005 Orange prize. She is also the author of the novel A Family Daughter and the short story collection Half in Love. Her stories have been published in the New Yorker, Granta, Prospect and other publications. In 2007, she was named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists. Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It (to be published by Canongate in March) was selected as one of the New York Times Book Review’s Ten Best Books of 2009. She lives in Los Angeles.

Art direction by David Killen.

Lead your pack

On the field or in the office, you need to get the best from your team. Men's Fitness magazine asked England rugby union captain Steve Borthwick to share his expert advice. "Any team is home to a number of very different personalities, and as captain your responsibility is to get to know each man personally so that you can manage them individually and as part of the team," says Borthwick. For this double spread I've illustrated a range of locker room personalities: the prima donna, the nervous newcomer, the jaded veteran, the volcano, the mistake maker ...

Art direction by Donovan Walker.

The Not-Dead and the Saved

Prospect magazine commissioned this illustration for a poignant, thought-provoking story by Kate Clanchy about parental love and sacrifice in a hospital ward. The Not-Dead and The Saved has been awarded this year's V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize and the BBC National Short Story Award.

Clanchy's story has been praised for its "rich lyricism" and "deeply affecting style ... an account of a deeply painful experience" that becomes "richer on every re-reading." Critics were impressed by its "acute control of emotional tone and by the vividness and generosity of the writing." Listen to Penelope Wilton reading the story here.

Kate Clanchy was born in Glasgow in 1965 and educated in Edinburgh and Oxford. She currently lives in Oxford where she now works as a teacher, journalist and freelance writer.

Art direction by David Killen.

Push

Chicago magazine commissioned this artwork for a diary page called Push: One Chicagoan's 40-week Stumble into Fatherhood. It's a portrait of the writer and his wife, whose pregnant dreams play out like Bunuel films on three hits of acid. House-sitting a talking cockatoo, rabbit and dog, swimming in green Jell-O . . .

Art direction by Kim Thornton.

Taming the banks

Adair Turner, chairman of the FSA, answers a group of leading financial analysts in this month's Prospect magazine, calling for greater vigilance from big investors, global agreements that regulate financial insiders and a recalibration of moral values for the world's biggest industry.

Art direction: David Killen; inspiration: Gustav Moreau.