We just posted an interview with Brad Holland on Tor.com. Excerpt:
In what way did Hawthorne influence you?
Well, I grew up in a period when literature was realistic and painting was abstract. Hawthorne’s stories appealed to me because they were more like folk tales, like Pecos Bill or Hogo Pogo, only more subtle. I imagine he’d been influenced by Pilgrim’s Progress—lots of writers were in those days—except that Hawthorne’s stories were harder to pin down. No Worldly Wise Man or Mr. Feeblemind. Hawthorne was a kind of Transcendental Kafka, a hundred years before Kafka. I could imagine doing the same kind of thing with pictures—and that seemed more up my alley than trying to be one more guy painting stripes on a canvas or exhibiting dead cows in plexiglass.
Besides being a remarkable artist, he's smart, funny, and has the best Slim Pickens/Salvador Dali story you'll ever read. Go check it out.