The simplest way to make a globe is to construct a sphere and paint it. The earliest globes would have been made of wood or metal, with the celestial or terrestrial map painted directly on by hand. Later, in the sixteenth century, hollow globes were made of thin sheets of metal which were then hand-painted. Mapping doesn’t lend itself to painting and lettering by hand, and cartography was in its infancy, so early painted globes were necessarily very inaccurate.

Later makers pasted blank gores onto the sphere to create a more forgiving canvas for the hand-painted map and lettering. These are called manuscript globes. The invention of the printing press meant that maps could be printed as gores. A silversmith or skilled engraver would etch a reverse map on copper plates before printing using a process known as intaglio, from the Italian word for ‘carving.’ In intaglio printing the etched plate is coated with ink, then wiped to leave ink only in the incised depressions, before being run through an etching press, in which dampened paper picks up the ink to create the printed image. Copper is a soft metal, so the plates lose their clarity relatively quickly; smaller print runs were therefore common. The effect, though, is very satisfying, with an intense character to the image. The globemaker then pasted the printed gores onto the globe and finally the painter would add color.

It was at this point that the globemaking craft became assimilated with the printing and publishing industry. Globes were after all now printed just like books, and since this time each edition has been referred to as a ‘publication.’ And as in book publishing, copying the map from a rival’s globe is plagiarism.

The golden age of the printed and then hand-painted globe coincided with the age of European expansion, reaching its peak at the beginning of the seventeenth century. In this period, as astronomical, geographical and cartographical knowledge developed apace, globemakers too were inspired to experiment and refine their art. In turn, the proliferation of printing presses made it possible over time to produce more globes at a less than exorbitant cost so they became more affordable to a greater number of people.

Nevertheless, the acquisition or commission of a globe was still the preserve of the aristocracy and the affluent merchant class. Because of the delicate and time-consuming nature of the work, a budding globemaker probably would have required considerable financial backing. Globes therefore were prized symbols of status and prestige.

Studying these venerable antique globes, it was striking to see how little the methods of manufacture had changed from the mid-sixteenth century until the twentieth century, albeit there is always a mystery about the exact construction and methods because so much is hidden under the surface – it was only in the last century that the rot set in. I knew that I had high aspirations but did not want to simply reproduce some sort of cheap faux-antique facsimile. Instead, my ambition was to produce a handmade globe that felt classic yet at the same time unusual, relevant and contemporary.

Bellerby Globes. shot by Tom Bunning for part of his ‘Crafted’ Series.

I come from a line of keen artists. My grandmother and my mother both loved painting with watercolors; my grandmother even taught it for many decades until well into her nineties. I have several of their paintings, although they are stored in my attic because, sadly, I just don’t share their enthusiasm for this medium; I don’t like the imprecision of the application, although more likely I don’t care for watercolors because I have never been very good at painting with them. However, in collaboration with the crispness of the cartography on a globe, watercolors acquire another dimension, allowing you to build up a rich color patina over many layers without obscuring the text. It really is a perfect match.

Watercolors were no doubt used on the finest old globes for this reason; indeed, I would go so far as to say they could have been invented for globemaking had they not been conceived centuries earlier than the first painted globe. Globemakers must surely always have planned to paint their globes with watercolors; they knew their creation would have pride of place in the purchaser’s house, so beauty was paramount. We might love the look of these old globes now, but when they were made, they were positively revered. Meanwhile Chiara Perano, a friend of Jade’s obsessed with astrology and mythology, had been designing a celestial globe, mapping the stars and drawing all eighty-eight constellations by hand. She also decided that my original basic cartouche was not suitable for her celestial globe, and she quickly came up with a much better design.

In the early years of Bellerby & Co., my approach to publicity and marketing was a little scattergun. Finding the correct person to contact at publications for editorial content was far from straightforward. I just fired off the odd email here and there, and occasionally the employee handling the info@ or press@ account would pass it on to the editorial team. Sometimes this miraculously resulted in some publicity for Bellerby & Co. globes, such as a tiny feature in House and Garden magazine.

Just as Chiara was finishing the first Bellerby & Co. celestial globe, the Perano Celestial model, David Balfour, the property expert on Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning movie Hugo, saw the House and Garden piece and commissioned me to make four globes for a scene in the film, one of which was to be a celestial globe in two pieces; they were going to film the scene in a clockmaker’s studio, so our globes fitted the bill.

The deadline for the Hugo globes was ridiculously tight – filming was due to start in June 2010, and I had to build in extra time for their in-house approval. And I was still learning many of the processes and practicing only on 50-centimeter globes; the commission was for a 40-centimeter celestial globe and three much smaller terrestrials. I worked into the night for weeks for next to nothing – I was just excited to be asked.

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Excerpted from The Globemakers: The Curious Story of an Ancient Craft by Peter Bellerby. Copyright (c) 2023 Bloomsbury Publishing. Used by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for C. Michelle Lindley’s debut novel, The Nude, which will be published by Atria in June. Here’s a little bit about the book from the publisher:

A gripping, provocative, and sensual debut novel about an art historian who journeys to a Greek island to acquire a found sculpture for an American museum and quickly becomes immersed in a cultural tug-of-war and, soon after, tangled in a love affair with her translator and his wife.

An island off the southern coast of Greece. 1999. Art historian Elizabeth Clarke arrives with the intent to acquire a rare female sculpture. But what begins as a quest for a highly valued cultural artifact evolves into a trip that will force Elizabeth to contend with her career, her ambition, and her troubling history.

Disoriented by jet lag, debilitating migraines, and a dependence on prescription pills, Elizabeth turns to her charming and guileless translator to guide her around the labyrinthine island. Soon, the island’s lushness—its heat and light, its textures and tastes—take hold of Elizabeth. And when she’s introduced to her translator’s inscrutable wife—a subversive artist whose work seeks to deconstruct the female form—she becomes unexpectedly enthralled by her. But once the nude’s acquisition proves to be riskier than Elizabeth could have ever imagined, Elizabeth’s fate and the statue’s are called into question. To find a way out, Elizabeth must grapple with her past, the role she’s played in the art trade, and the ethical fallouts her decisions could leave behind.

The Nude is an evocative and intense exploration of art, cultural appropriation, and what it means to be a woman helming morally complicated negotiations in a male-directed world.

And here’s the cover, which was designed by Kelli McAdams at Atria:

“Finding our way to this cover was an interesting challenge. I started looking at paintings, and as soon as I came across this watercolor by Scottish artist Sir William Russell Flint, I knew I wanted to use it,” McAdams told Lit Hub. “I love the intimacy and the honesty of it, how the women pictured seem blissfully unaware that they’re being observed, at ease in each other’s company. I liked the idea of cutting up this softness with something stark to convey the sense of displacement the narrator feels throughout the novel. Hiding the central figure’s face felt like a good way to emphasize the voyeurism of the image as well—the idea of seeing versus being seen.”

“C. Michelle Lindley’s debut novel is literary fiction at its best—beautiful, lyrical writing, emotionally engaging characters, with a strong and moving message at its core,” said editor Jade Hui. “I was initially drawn to this story because of Elizabeth, her determination to take control of her path forward, her gradual openness as she comes to a different view of the world and the beauty within it. What unfolded is C. Michelle Lindley’s shrewd exploration of moral boundaries and what it takes for a woman to hear her own voice after years of shouting from within herself. Seductive, propulsive, and entirely engrossing, The Nude is a lush, satisfying reading experience that will have you in its grasp until the very last page.”

“I’m grateful for the talented designer of this cover, who has created a timeless and mesmerizing portal into The Nude,” added Lindley. “The artwork is visually stunning   there’s a depth and emotionality to its beauty. An ominousness in the details. The extra white space above the title. The movement of the two figures, leaning both toward and away from one another. The seething waves. Even the color palette (that brooding red!) strikes me as portentous. At first glance, the scene might read as bright and blissful—aspirational, even. (Wouldn’t I like to find myself on that beach?) But on another look, a truer, stranger scene shifts into focus. It’s this sort of line that the novel itself seeks to blur—and I think the designers have captured it perfectly here. How much it conveys, and perhaps more importantly, how much it leaves hidden, too.”

The Nude will be published by Atria Books in June 2024.

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Morgan Talty’s debut novel, Fire Exit, which will be published by Tin House in June. Here’s a bit about the book from the publisher:

From the porch of his home, Charles Lamosway has watched the life he might have had unfold across the river on Maine’s Penobscot Reservation. On the far bank, he caught brief moments of Roger and Mary raising their only child, Elizabeth–from the day she came home from the hospital to her early twenties. But there’s always been something deeper and more dangerous than the river that divides him from this family and the rest of the tribal community. It’s the secret that Elizabeth is his daughter, a secret Charles is no longer willing to keep.

Now it’s been weeks since he’s seen Elizabeth and Charles is worried. As he attempts to hold on and care for what he can: his home and property, his alcoholic, quick-tempered and big-hearted friend Bobby, and his mother, Louise, who is slipping ever-deeper into dementia–he becomes increasingly haunted by his past. Forced to confront a lost childhood on the reservation, a love affair cut short, and the death of his beloved stepfather, Fredrick, in a hunting accident–a death that he and Louise cannot agree where to lay the blame–Charles contends with questions he’s long been afraid to ask. Is it his secret to share? And would his daughter want to know the truth?

From award-winning author of Night of the Living Rez, Morgan Talty’s debut novel, Fire Exit, is a masterful and unforgettable story of family, legacy, bloodlines, culture and inheritance, and what, if anything, we owe one another.

And here’s the cover, which was designed by Beth Steidle, Tin House Director of Design and Production:

“Because Fire Exit is Morgan Talty’s debut novel, following his bestselling short story collection Night of the Living Rez, we wanted this cover to have a big literary look—bold and unmistakable, leaping off the shelf,” Steidle told Lit Hub.

To achieve this, I used large type, bright colors, and strong imagery. It is rare for a title to have only two short words, with the two being somewhat symmetrical in the shapes and width of the letterforms. This makes them perfect for stacking and filling the space, which was incredibly satisfying.

As an image, fire is an important element of the book and the bright red flames help to reinforce the title. To balance the overall design, I added the outline of flowers within the flames. This element tempers the aggressiveness of the fire and big type, and allows the cover to also reflect the book’s quieter features, its remarkable landscape and moving lyricism.

“I loved my cover for Night of the Living Rez,” said Talty.

This time around, the cover was being designed by a different art director, Beth Steidle. I don’t mean to suggest I worried, because I didn’t, but I was curious to see her aesthetic, the way she read the book, and how she internalized my words into art. I waited anxiously to see what kind of magic she would do.

At first glance, the cover for Fire Exit certainly pops, but the longer I looked at it, the more I realized it radiates, glows. I noticed the intricate detail—there’s a gentle yet ruggedness to the art: dots of color are missing here and there, the flames, in parts, look soft like feathers, and the purple-blue backdrop of flowers made me feel simultaneously safe and alert, like how could plants survive a fire? How could we?

So, what did I think when I first saw this cover? I felt the heat, not too hot—just right.

Fire Exit will be published by Tin House on June 4, 2024. You can preorder it here. 

Another month of books, another month of book covers. We’ve entered what is arguably the most exciting season for books, and so naturally, the covers follow. Here are my favorites from September:

Ida Vitale, tr. Sarah Pollack, Time Without Keys; design by Tyler Comrie (New Directions, September 4)

This layered, cut paper treatment is delicate and extravagant at once.

Sean Michaels, Do You Remember Being Born?; cover design by Rodrigo Corral, 3D illustration by Danny Jones (Astra House, September 5)

What to even say about this glorious, insane book cover? Sometimes, the weirder the better.

Ariel Dorfman, The Suicide Museum; cover design by John Gall Design (Other Press, September 5)

This reminds me pleasantly of those Nabokov backlist butterfly box redesigns (which John Gall art directed—gasp—fourteen years ago), but with a sleekly updated vibe.

Anne Serre, tr. Mark Hutchinson, A Leopard-Skin Hat; cover design by Joan Wong (New Direction, September 5)

This is just a really good idea, and plus it made me smile.

Gina Rushton, The Parenthood Dilemma; cover design by Rodrigo Corral, photo by Jason Fulford and Tamara Shopsin (Astra House, September 5)

I love the strangeness of the image, neatly paired with the cover text.

Yiyun Li, Wednesday’s Child; cover design by Na Kim (FSG, September 5)

(In real life, it shimmers.)

Victor Heringer, tr. James Young, The Love of Singular Men; cover design by Pablo Delcan (New Directions, September 5)

A simple, straightforward text-based cover that’s elevated by the color choices.

J. Michael Martinez, Tarta Americana; art direction by Lynn Buckley, art by Amber Cowan (Penguin Books, September 12)

Another cover that makes excellent use of a piece of art.

Laura Picklesimer, Kill for Love; cover design by Jaya Nicely (Unnamed Press, September 12)

A parade of pink torsos? Gotta love it.

Soula Emmanuel, Wild Geese; cover design by Dana Li (Feminist Press, September 12)

Another layered cover (in a shade of green you don’t see too often on book covers).

Julius Taranto, How I Won a Nobel Prize; cover design by Lucy Kim (Little Brown, September 12)

Now this one reminds me pleasantly of Peter Mendlesund’s Kafka backlist redesigns (only 12 years ago, whew). The coin makes for a very fun twist.

Anya Johanna DeNiro, Okpsyche; cover image: “Psyche Asleep in a Landscape,” by Karl Joseph Aloys Agricola, 1837 (Small Beer Press, September 12)

It takes a few moments to see the subtle shifting in the painting, but what’s really daring is that bleeding text treatment.

Nathan Hill, Wellness; cover design by Oliver Munday (Knopf, September 19)

Big and bold and beautiful.

Daniel Mason, North Woods; cover design by Anna Kochman (Random House, September 19)

“There was so much imagery to be inspired by in this book, it was hard to zero in one thing!” Anna Kochman told Lit Hub. “Originally this illustration was part of a panel design, using a few different images, but it was the one that seemed to call to everyone. I think the style of illustration and the amazing expression in the eyes of the catamount really suit the tone of the book, and when we let it stand alone it felt right.” It certainly does.

Luis Felipe Fabre, tr. Heather Cleary, Recital of the Dark Verses; cover design by Alban Fischer (Deep Vellum, September 19)

Macabre and brilliant.

Karl Ove Knausgaard, tr. Martin Aitkin, The Wolves of Eternity; cover design by Stephanie Ross (Penguin, September 19)

This looks like a simple cover at first glance, but it’s actually playing with perspective in some really interesting ways—look for the sky behind the text, the light in the corners. Where are we?

Vauhini Vara, This is Salvaged; cover design by Keith Hayes, art direction by Steve Attardo (W.W. Norton, September 26)

Behold the power of a single, dynamic image (and the text treatment to support it).

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Dorothy Chan’s fifth collection of poetry, Return of the Chinese Femme, which will be published by Deep Vellum in April. Here’s a bit more about the book from the publisher:

An unabashed exploration of queerness, excess, identity, and tenderness from award-winning poet Dorothy Chan.

The speaker in Dorothy Chan’s fifth collection, Return of the Chinese Femme, walks through life fearlessly, “forehead forever exposed,” the East Asian symbol of female aggression. She’s the troublemaker protagonist—the “So Chinese Girl”—the queer in a family of straights— the rambunctious ringleader of the girl band, always ready with the perfect comeback, wearing a blue fur coat, drinking a whiskey neat. They indulge on the themes of food, sex, fantasy, fetish, popular culture, and intimacy.

Chan organizes the collection in the form of a tasting menu, offering the reader a taste of each running theme. Triple sonnets, recipe poems, and other inventive plays on diction and form pepper the collection. Amidst the bravado, Return of the Chinese Femme represents all aspects of her identity—Asian heritage, queerness, kid of immigrants’ story—in the most real ways possible, conquering the world through joy and resilience.

And here’s the cover, which was designed by Christina Vang, featuring a photograph by Grace Sydney Pham:

“The cover features a photograph of bingo balls by Grace Sydney Pham,” Vang told Lit Hub. “Building on the idea of money, gambling, and Chinese culture, the cover includes glittery gold text and a full red cover to look like a red money envelope. Throughout the book, circular graphics elements are used to resemble bingo balls and qian cash coins.”

“The still life photograph “Your Inheritance” was composed of various thrifted odds and ends: a Las Vegas cup and saucer, bingo balls from a bingo set, and a polyester satin fabric,” added Pham. “I enjoy frequenting thrift stores and estate sales, finding value in cast off, unwanted things, and assembling these various cast-offs in odd, nuanced arrangements. With this still life, I wanted to poke fun at the tension between saving money and prized possessions for one’s descendants versus gambling it away in the later stages of life. There’s an additional, personal meaning to this photograph and my photography practice for me; both of my parents are hoarders, and I’ve inherited this hoarding behavior, which I’ve tried to justify or redeem by taking still life photographs.”

“Return of the Chinese Femme follows my poetic tradition of riffing on Star Wars titles,” said Chan.

My first full-length was Attack of the Fifty-Foot Centerfold, followed by Revenge of the Asian Woman. And now it’s time for Return. My poetics have always been over the top and campy as hell, yet equally elegant and thoughtful. The architecture and ethos of Las Vegas is all the above. It’s no coincidence that Las Vegas is my hometown. My parents are Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong who always dreamed of making Las Vegas our home, ever since we vacationed there back at the turn of the millennium.

The day my editor Sebastián Páramo showed me Grace Sydney Pham’s photograph, I cried. He hit the nail on the head. The red satin fabric gives Bond Girl mixed with Old Hollywood glamour. I absolutely love the lettering on the cup juxtaposed with the texture of the saucer. But I’m most taken by the sentimental part of Pham’s story: the ways in which her parents’ obsessions influence her as an artist.

Nostalgia is just about the hardest sentiment to express. Designer Christina Vang’s decision for a full-on red cover, along with the bold gold lettering adds onto this sense of nostalgia. I feel like I am six years old again, with my parents in New York’s Chinatown, receiving red envelopes on Lunar New Year. Or maybe I am ten years old again, embracing the glittering gold marquee that lures me inside the New York-New York Hotel and Casino.

Return of the Chinese Femme will be published by Deep Vellum on April 30, 2024. You can preorder it here.

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Amy Lin’s debut memoir Here After, which will be published by Zibby Books in March. Here’s a bit more about the book from the publisher:

Here After is an intimate story of deep love followed by dizzying loss; a stunning, taut memoir from debut author Amy Lin so finely etched and powerful that it will alter readers’ hearts.

“When he dies, I fall out of time.”

Amy Lin never expected to find a love like the one she shares with her husband, Kurtis, a gifted young architect who pulls her toward joy, adventure, and greater self-acceptance. But on a sweltering August morning, only a few months shy of the newlyweds’ move to Vancouver, thirty-two-year-old Kurtis heads out to run a half-marathon with Amy’s family. It is the last time she sees her husband alive.

Ten days after this seismic loss, Amy is in the hospital, navigating her own shocking medical crisis and making life-or-death decisions about her treatment.

What follows is a rich and unflinchingly honest accounting of her life with Kurtis, the vortex created by his death, and the ongoing struggle Amy faces as she attempts to understand her own experience in the context of commonly held “truths” about what the grieving process looks like.

Here After is a love story and a meditation on the ways in which Kurtis’ death shatters any set ideas Amy ever held about grief, strength, and memory. Its power will last with you long after the final page.

And here’s the cover, which was designed by Anna Morrison:

“Our only time is the body,” Lin told Lit Hub.

I learn this twice: first, when my husband Kurtis suddenly dies, and then, when I almost die, ten days after Kurtis’ death. His body ending, my body stuttering, the seemingly limitless pain of all of it, this is what Here After reckons with. It is a book as tender as it is raw, as natural as it is unnatural, as gripping as it is disorienting. As such, I envisioned a cover that was organic in shape, striking in colour, and commanding in presence; a cover that reflects the intensity, longing, and fragmentation so inherent to my grief.

I was most pleased to have Anna Morrison on board with this project as I have admired her work for some time. She has created a cover that elegantly realizes my hopes. In Anna’s cover, we feel first the sensation of it: there is the intensity of the red, as well as the red’s sharp contrast with the blue, all beautifully reflective of grief as a landscape of extremity: the heat of pain, the blues of loss. Then, the body: two of them, both stretching in a gesture of longing that is forever fixed—each diver is just beyond the other, him ever falling away into the realm of the beyond, her ever held to the realm of reaching.

I also really admire the ways in which Anna shows, in the different shading of the divers, how grief collides with life, with death, with memory—each touches the other in a way that leaves traces. This collision is, of course, an imperfect process, subtly shown by the softly misshapen circles. Finally, in Anna’s tilting of ‘a memoir,’ I find a fitting gesture to the ways in which grief-memory is always bent by its own making: the pain that renders memoir possible is also the very thing that ensures it is impossible to perfectly capture.”

“Creating the cover for Here After was very much a collaborative project between the author, myself and Zibby Books,” Morrison added. “Amy’s memoir is extremely personal and moving so it felt very important to have her on board within the design process. I loved Amy’s suggestion of using diving bodies (I had gone for a more abstract approach initially). We played around with the interaction between the divers, we wanted them to have a feel of reaching towards each other to give that sense of longing and grace.”

Here After will be published by Zibby Books on March 5, 2024. You can preorder it here.

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for R.O. Kwon’s sophomore novel, Exhibit, which will be published in May by Riverhead. Here’s a little more about the book from the publisher:

At a lavish party in the hills outside of San Francisco, Jin Han meets Lidija Jung and nothing will ever be the same for either woman. A brilliant, young photographer, Jin is at a crossroads in her work, in her marriage to college sweetheart Phillip, in who she is and who she wants to be. Lidija is a glamorous, injured world-class ballerina on hiatus from her ballet company under mysterious circumstances. Drawn to each other by their intense artistic drives, the two women talk all night.

Cracked open, Jin finds herself telling Lidija about an old familial curse, breaking a lifelong promise; she’s been told that if she doesn’t keep the curse a secret, she risks losing everything. As Jin and Lidija become more entangled, they realize they share more than the ferocity of their ambition, and begin to explore hidden desires. Something is ignited in Jin: her art, her body, and her sense of self changed forever. But can she avoid the specter of the curse? Urgent, bold, and deeply moving, Exhibit asks: how brightly can you burn before you light your life on fire?

And here’s the cover, which was designed by Vi-An Nguyen:

“Exhibit felt to me like a gorgeous exploration of contrasts: legends and reality, pleasure and pain, creativity and destruction,” Nguyen, an Art Director at Penguin Random House, told Lit Hub. “R.O. Kwon’s writing is incredibly vivid and haunting in the best way, and the novel is so very visceral. So it felt right to pair sharp, contrasting type with a bold photograph of an expressive body, an image with a graphic quality that makes you look, and then look again. I’m a longtime fan of R.O. Kwon’s work so it was a joy to collaborate with Helen Yentus, Riverhead’s Art Director, on the cover.”

“When, years ago, I first told my editor about the novel that would become Exhibit, I said I couldn’t say much about it yet, but that it was full of sex,” Kwon told Lit Hub.

“Excellent, it’s all I need to know,” she said, and we both laughed. But also, in a larger sense, Exhibit is an exploration of desire and the ferocious pursuit thereof, including desires having to do with art, ambition, living one’s fullest possible life, and, yes, sex. In some ways, I’m always writing for a person I’ve been in the past who feared she was wrong, bad, and evil just for wanting as she did. She felt, at times, like the loneliest person in the world, and I so badly want her to know she’s not wrong. She’s not alone; nor am I. Nor are you.

As far as the cover, Kwon added: “I hoped for an image with strength, physicality, confidence, and passion. This striking image taken by Eric Traore, and designed by Vi-An Nguyen, surpasses what I’d imagined. I love the sense Exhibit’s cover gives of a woman having a private moment. She exists as herself, perhaps outside expectations people might have of who she is and ought to be. I’m bewitched, too, by what looks like long hair flowing into paint, as though she’s also in the process of becoming art. It’s an image that my novel’s protagonist, Jin Han, a celebrated photographer, would love to see.”

Exhibit will be published by Riverhead on May 21, 2024. You can preorder it here.

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Susan Rich’s sixth poetry collection, Blue Atlas, which will be published by Red Hen Press in April. Here’s a bit more about the book from the publisher:

Blue Atlas is a lyrical abortion narrative unlike any other.

This one-of-a-kind collection follows a Jewish woman and her ghosts as they travel from West Africa to Europe and, finally, to the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco. The speaker searches repeatedly for a new outcome, seeking answers in a myriad of mediums such as an online questionnaire, a freshman composition essay, and a curriculum vitae. The raw, often far from idyllic experience of a global love affair that results in an unplanned pregnancy is examined and meditated upon through a surreal prism. The Blue Atlas, a genus of the common cedar tree first found in the High Atlas of Morocco and known for its beauty and resilience, becomes a metaphor for the hardship and power of a fully engaged life.

And here’s the cover, which was designed by Mark E. Cull, publisher of Red Hen Press:

“The cover of Blue Atlas was one of those instances that was a collaboration between the author and the designer,” Cull told Lit Hub. “In this case, the author, who was full of ideas, had access to a wonderful image of blue-glazed pots arranged against a tightly cropped frame of Mediterranean architecture. Half of these pots are seemingly empty while the other half hold the beginnings of something verdant that is just coming to life. The color and form of the image and the design make for a wonderful piece of eye candy that will make one stop and look and compel them to pick up the book to consider what lies inside.”

“I love how this photograph in non-literal ways, encompasses my divergent worlds,” Rich explained.

The attentive observer notices sea green illuminated walls and four pots glazed in an alchemical, lapis blue. Much like the poems contained in Blue Atlas which chronicle my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Africa, then a quick move to Paris, a hard land in New York, then finally culminating in a sensual journey to Morocco—this cover conveys a message of travel.

It may only be me, but I believe the three-dimensional nature of these tall steps set against a rough-textured backdrop, hint at a kind of epic journey with shimmering highs and disastrous lows.

My quest for cover art comes as an object lesson in joy and despair. I find depth and dimensionality in this chosen image: young garden herbs living on the edge of a borderless stairway.

When I began my search, I had no idea what I wanted. I looked at at least a thousand images until these shapely pots arrived. While it’s true that I believe passionately in color and line, travel and the unknown, I didn’t understand that these beliefs would lead me to my cover.

After a long internet search begun on Pinterest, I tracked down the photographer, Niranj Vaidyanathan, a software engineer based in Bangalore, India. Twelve years ago, while on a holiday in Mauritius, he snapped this photograph. Not only did Niranj immediately allow me to use his work, but he took just two days to lay his hands on the original image and send it off to Red Hen Press. It seems fitting for a lyric narrative that takes place on three continents to add a fourth by way of the photographer.

My poetry collection, Blue Atlas, narrates events that span thirty years of my life, examining in multiple found forms a midterm abortion I had at 26. The poems borrow the shape of an online questionnaire, a freshman composition essay, a personification of the abortion question and other surreal strategies.

This book has taken me more than a decade to write. During this time, the titular blue atlas has stood in for my map of sky and sea. The landscape I inhabit in Seattle, Washington, on the edge of the Puget Sound.

Sometimes I look at the cover and think, if I could climb these stairs, where would they take me? Are they a pathway to connect me to a safer world? Can they bring me out of abandonment and shame? I believe they already have done so. Every time I see this cover, I’m filled with inexplicable peace.

Recently, I’ve discovered that the blue atlas cedar is a tree that originated in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco. A nomad of a tree, the blue atlas thrives in many climates, including the Pacific Northwest where I live. Like writing poems, choosing cover art is an act of the imagination, of instinct, of desire. Ultimately, it is an act of magic.

Blue Atlas will be published by Red Hen Press on April 2, 2024. You can preorder it here.

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Juliet Escoria’s latest book, You Are the Snake, a short story collection that Soft Skull Press will publish in June. Here’s a bit more about the book from the publisher:

From the celebrated author of Juliet the Maniac comes a collection of previously unpublished stories concerned with girlhood, family, and urge, reminiscent of Mary Gaitskill and Laura Vandenberg. In You Are the Snake, we peer into the life of a community college student, the life of an abusive grandmother is imagined, and a young woman takes up gardening. Escoria’s characters are trying their best, or they aren’t, as they bump against the boundaries of society’s expectations.

Exploiting the form of the short story in a voice entirely her own, You Are the Snake resists easy moralizing by subverting our expectations of how narrative functions. While Escoria plumbs the depth of girlhood and new womanhood, she leaves room for oddness, impulse, and yearning. Each story contains its own world, be it the suburbs of California or the countryside of West Virginia, but taken as a whole, this collection is expanding and challenging, corrupting expectations about what women can be and what they can write.

Juliet Escoria’s writing has been called “vivid,” “fantastic,” “sharp,” and “singularly honest,” and this collection delivers the “charged eloquence” of her previous work, in addition to the maturity and style of a new format—the short story—which is a dream fit for her “electricity that pulsates from within the prose.”

And here’s the cover, which was designed by Farjana Yasmin:

“I wanted the imagery to contrast with the title, because the stories and characters in the book often took an unexpected turn,” Yasmin told Lit Hub. “They gave me mixed feelings ranging from disturbing and creepy to endearing and relatable. Zooming in on a coiled lollipop seemed like the right move because it shows both the appealing and gross side of sweetness. Using a traditionally feminine and fun color palette also seemed like a great way to offset the darkness of the characters and stories.”

“I had some ideas for the cover, and the design team came back with mock covers that matched my idea,” added Escoria. “However, it was clear that this design was much stronger than anything I—a writer, and not a designer—could have envisioned. My favorite part is the hairy skin as the background; it makes the cover both girly and creepy, which is a combination I love.”

You Are the Snake will be published by Soft Skull on June 18, 2024.

Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for Ananda Lima’s CRAFT: Stories I Wrote for the Devil, “an intoxicating and surreal fiction debut,” which will be published by Tor Books in June. Here’s a bit more about the book from the publisher:

At a Halloween party in 1999, a writer slept with the devil. She sees him again and again throughout her life and she writes stories for him about things that are both impossible and true.

Lima lures readers into surreal pockets of the United States and Brazil where they’ll find bite-size Americans in vending machines and the ghosts of people who are not dead. Once there, she speaks to modern Brazilian-American immigrant experiences–of ambition, fear, longing, and belonging—and reveals the porousness of storytelling and of the places we call home.

With humor, an exquisite imagination, and a voice praised as “singular and wise and fresh” (Cathy Park Hong), Lima joins the literary lineage of Bulgakov and Lispector and the company of writers today like Ted Chiang, Carmen Maria Machado, and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.

And here’s the cover, which was designed by Jamie Stafford-Hill:

“The original seed for the cover came from the team’s desire to see something that captured the layered, meta-textual nature of the book, in which a writer writes about a writer writing stories about writers,” Stafford-Hill told Lit Hub.

The stories themselves are atmospheric, strange, and haunted, but in thoughtful, unexpected ways; not really horror, but verging on it. And the cover memo requested something “fun, buoyant, strange.”

It’s not a long book but I found myself reading the manuscript quite slowly to let each piece sink in, intermittently sketching ideas. I kept coming back to the idea of a book recursively nested within itself, which appealed to me for being both literal and surreal at the same time.

I usually start playing with ideas on the computer but this time, to really push that real/unreal vibe, I grabbed an old hardcover and an x-acto knife, shot some quick phone pix and then went to Photoshop. The editor was really into this direction and I started over more carefully with a book of an appropriate color and matching trim size.

The type layout solved itself: since the subtitle does a lot of work here it was important that it still be readable in the smallest iteration, and I knew we wanted to keep the primary title and author name unobscured. It took a while to find the right typeface (fun and a little witchy) and colors (orange and teal was the surprise favorite). Burn marks were the last touch—suggested by the editor, as if the devil himself has held the book.

“The editorial process with this book has been a total dream,” Ananda Lima added.

So when the time came to talk about covers, I felt I would be in good hands the whole way and was feeling good and relaxed. My wonderful editor Ali Fisher and I shared some examples of existing book covers we liked. I loved the examples she brought in and added some more. Though there was a little conceptual consideration, I think our initial set was more based on the aesthetics at that initial stage. Other than that, I was just excited to see what the designer would come up with. I was privately expecting maybe something nice looking and fun and maybe in some communication with the themes of the book in some way, but I didn’t know what exactly. I really had no idea what it would or should look like. When I saw the cover, by Jamie Stafford-Hill, I screamed. That was it, it was my book! It wasn’t just a nice wrapper. It was immediately a part of it and I didn’t want anything else.  I think what he did is brilliant, both conceptually and in execution. I love these layers going in, continued by the layers of the book. I love the disorientation of the 3D effect, the fictional carving that tricks your perceptual system. I love how the eye naturally goes to the larger outer “craft” at first, then gets interrupted and moves in to try again. How physical it is in how it directs the eye movements of the viewer. It is smart, artful and so fun. What a beautiful reading and response to the book.

CRAFT: Stories I Wrote for the Devil will be published by Tor on June 18, 2024.
You can preorder it here.