Quivering Pen: The Resurrection

Just like General MacArthur, a bad penny, and that ugly sweater you got from your Aunt Julie last Christmas, I have returned.

For a variety of reasons too complicated and personal to go into here, I let this blog lapse into a four-month silence. While I had plenty to occupy my time and engage my attention this past winter, I always felt the gentle yet insistent tug of The Quivering Pen: Come back to me. Put blood in my veins once again.

And so here I am. Here we are. For now, at least. I don’t know how rigorous or frequent my writing here at the blog will be going forward from this day (because, after all, I am starting work on a new book and I have my priorities in order), but I’ll try not to let so much time pass between posts again. I’ll soon be bringing back all the old regulars: My First Time, Friday Freebie, and Sunday Sentence, along with the occasional guest post and, if I can make the time for it, my own stream-of-consciousness musings about reading, writing and publishing.

(By the way, even though I’m posting this on the first day of April, this is no joke. The Quivering Pen is, indeed, back.)

One reason—which may seem small to you, but felt huge to me—why the blog jumped the tracks back in January was the Best of 2017 posts I’d planned to write, highlighting my favorite books and literary moments of the past year. I’d made notes all year long, but had never gotten around to actually stringing all those words into something coherent and interesting. I always meant to get it done, but I never carved out enough hours during the day to finish those blog posts. Time passed. More time passed. Too much time passed. And then it seemed silly to be posting a “Best of” feature halfway into the next year. And so The Quivering Pen drifted off into silence.

That in itself is silly, of course. Why should the calendar—and the fact that everyone else had posted their lists back in November and December—keep me from publicly expressing my love for certain books published in 2017? Who wrote the rule that no best-books lists should be posted after January? Probably the same jerk who once said it was gauche to wear white after Labor Day.

And so, without further ado and dithering (and with minimal commentary because I’m still fighting those irrational feelings of “don’t bother posting this if it isn’t a long and comprehensive review”), here are my various picks for the cream of 2017’s literary crop, starting with

THE BEST BOOKS OF 2017

Hourglass
by Dani Shapiro
This is my new gold standard for how memoirs should be written: tight, poetic, and deeply-felt. Shapiro charts the course of her 18-year marriage to “M.” in the space of 161 beautiful pages. Along the way, she covers a wide swath of territory, including thoughtful meditations on how external forces like luck (good and bad), family history, and those damned grains of sand in the hourglass can bend, but not always break, a relationship. On the surface, Hourglass may look like a small book, but open it up and it becomes a candle in a dark room whose light reaches all corners of the heart.

Lincoln in the Bardo
by George Saunders
In my personal reading history, Saunders’ unique novel about Abraham Lincoln’s grief over the loss of his son is as rare as an albino Tyrannosaurus Rex: I loved this book so much that I read it twice, once on audiobook and then in print. That never happens, mainly due to the constant flood of new books coming into my home. But Lincoln in the Bardo is so full of nuance that a second time through was just as rewarding. It is easily one of my favorites of the year, in any format.

Letters to a Young Writer
by Colum McCann
I can think of no better compliment for McCann’s book of advice to writers (and all creative artists) than to say the ink in my new highlighter pen ran dry halfway through reading. Open my copy and all you’ll see is canary-yellow lines shading brilliant bits of wisdom.

Imagine Wanting Only This
by Kristen Radtke
Can a book about urban decay move me to tears? If we’re talking about Radtke’s graphic memoir about ruined places like deserted cities in the American Midwest, an Icelandic town buried in volcanic ash, and islands in the Philippines, then the answer is a most emphatic “Yes!” Like the equally-brilliant Building Stories by Chris Ware and Here by Richard McGuire, Imagine Wanting Only This made me think long and hard about what we love, what we leave behind, and what ultimately crumbles back to dust and rust.

We Could’ve Been Happy Here
by Keith Lesmeister
This is a criminally-overlooked collection of short stories about contemporary Midwesterners that had me running out the door and grabbing everyone by the shoulders and shouting, “You have GOT to read this!”—on social media, rather than in real life, of course, because I am at heart a shy person. Consider your shoulders shaken, dear blog reader. You really must give this collection a try, not only because it was issued by a small press that, despite all good efforts, wasn’t large enough to make this book ping your literary radar, but also because Lesmeister writes beautiful lines like “The autumn sun felt like a quilt” and “I felt like a rusty nail getting hammered into the knot of a two-by-twelve, getting all bent up, going nowhere.”

Theft by Finding: Diaries: 1977-2002
by David Sedaris
I knew this diary would be funny. What I didn’t expect was how moving and thought-provoking it would be. And yes, the section previously covered in The Santaland Diaries is just as brilliant the second time around.

See What I Have Done
by Sarah Schmidt
The opening pages of Schmidt’s debut novel about Lizzie Borden are drenched in blood, but don’t let that deter you from this breath-taking historical thriller, a stunning book that makes us reconsider that 1892 crime in a new light. Schmidt tells the tale via a chorus of voices, each offering a slightly different perspective on what happened in that house, leading us to think long and hard about Lizzie’s so-called “forty whacks” with the axe. Did she or didn’t she do it? When the writing is this good, who cares?

Draw Your Weapons
by Sarah Sentilles
After my reading from Brave Deeds at Powell’s last summer, bookseller Kevin Sampsell came up to me and said, “Have you read this?” I took one look at the cover with its paintbrush morphing into bullets and said the same thing to the book that I did to my wife when we met thirty-four years ago: “Where have you been all my life?” I don’t say this lightly: Draw Your Weapons will completely change your outlook on art, war, and religion. Sentilles does an incredible job of blending the stories of two men: Howard, a conscientious objector during World War II, and Miles, a former prison guard at Abu Ghraib. Reading this felt like putting on a pair of prescription glasses after squinting at the blurry world my whole life. Thanks again for the recommendation, Kevin!

The Girl of the Lake
by Bill Roorbach
Let me just put this out there: I love Bill Roorbach, I love his sentences, and I really love this book of short stories. All nine stories in the collection are terrific, but my favorites are “The Fall” and “Harbinger Hall.” Dive in, readers!

The Shape of Ideas
by Grant Snider
I have loved Snider’s Incidental Comics series for years and so I greeted the news that the best of them would be collected into a hardbound book by tooting a horn, releasing a cloud of butterflies, and taking my menagerie of pet alligator, turtle, cheetah, and camel for a parade down Main Street. Oh wait, that was Snider’s alter ego doing those things in these pages. Still, that’s the kind of joy I always feel when encountering Snider’s offbeat imagination, so perfectly inked in panels that teem with inspiration. If I were the Secretary of Education, I would make Congress pass a law that said every graduating high school student should get a copy of The Shape of Ideas along with their diploma.

THE BEST FIRST LINES OF 2017

Phoebe never hated her husband more than when she visited him in prison.
       The Widow of Wall Street by Randy Susan Meyers


Despite protests from the Kirkwood Neighbors’ Organization and bad press in the local paper, they bulldozed the house where I lost my virginity.
       Flight Path by Hannah Palmer


I left Indiana and drove toward happiness.
       Should I Still Wish by John W. Evans


Killing, Balint discovered, was the easy part. Not killing required discipline and restraint.
       The Mask of Sanity by Jacob M. Appel


My mother had two placentas and I was living off both of them.
       Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash


After my mom hangs herself, I become Nancy Drew.
       The Art of Misdiagnosis by Gayle Brandeis


In a coffee shop on Dead Elm Street, Norma arranges chicken bones on her plate, making an arrow that points to her stomach, where the chicken now resides.
       The Dark Dark by Samantha Hunt


Francis never expected the silverware would be his undoing.
       The World of Tomorrow by Brendan Mathews


The index finger is in my pocket feeling like a soft twig, or a bent piece of stale licorice in my warm palm.
       What’s Wrong With You Is What’s Wrong With Me by Christian Winn

THE BEST BOOK COVERS OF 2017

The Age of Perpetual Light by Josh Weil, design by Nick Misani

Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, design by Rachel Willey

Exes by Max Winter, design by Strick&Williams

To Die in Spring by Ralf Rothmann, design by Oliver Munday

Heating & Cooling by Beth Ann Fennelly, design by Alex Merto

The Fall of Lisa Bellow by Susan Perabo, design by Alison Forner

The Hearts of Men by Nickolas Butler, design by Allison Saltzman

The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott, design by Alex Merto

Isadora by Amelia Gray, design by Na Kim

Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips, design by Jason Ramirez

Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash, design by Karl Engebretson, illustration by George Boorujy

Release by Patrick Ness, design by Erin Fitzsimmons

I’m Fine, But You Appear to Be Sinking by Leyna Krow, design by Zach Dodson

See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt, design by “committee”

My Year of Reading: Best Covers of 2016

First impressions are often lasting impressions, especially when it comes to book design. The jacket art, the thickness and geometric dimensions, the typeface, the feel of the page—all of those elements impact our attitude toward the words between the two covers. And I’m not just talking about physical dead-tree books. No matter if we take our literature electronically, design elements come into play: the size and type of font, the margins, the brightness of the screen all influence us. Even on a Kindle, the cover art is still floating out there somewhere in electronic bits and bytes for us to get a fix on the book’s character. As Jhumpa Lahiri writes in The Clothing of Books, “As soon as the book puts on a jacket, the book acquires a new personality. It says something even before being read, just as clothes say something about us before we speak.”

Here are the cover designs of 2016 books which spoke loudest to my eyes...

Allegheny Front by Matthew Neill Null
Design by Kristen Radtke
One of the stories in Null’s collection is about an eagle who torments a hunter after he kills her mate. That huge eagle eye on the cover of the book likewise torments me. It seems to warn, “If you don’t read these short stories, I’ll peck your eye out, mister!” Losing my sight would mean I could no longer enjoy beautiful covers like this anymore, so I quickly turn to the first page and begin reading.

This is Where it Ends by Marieke Nijkamp
Design by N. C. Sousa
The high-speed photo of shot-through chalk is dramatic enough, but when we learn that the novel is about a school shooting, the powdery explosion takes on deeper and sadder meaning.

Today Will be Different by Maria Semple
Design by Kelly Blair
This design was the closest thing to an audio-visual cover I saw/heard this year. As I look at the illustration of the woman with her hands over her face behind the blackboard-chalk scrawl of the words, I swear I can hear her muttering the title over and over in an insistent, affirmative chant. (Noteworthy trivia: Semple wrote the repeating title in her own handwriting for the final jacket.)

Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E. K. Johnston
Design by Kristin Logsdon
The cover for Johnston’s Young Adult novel brings to mind another favorite of mine from years past (also for a YA novel): 100 Sideways Miles by Andrew Smith. In both cases, there is a sense of movement—falling down or rising up—and the anticipation of someone being there to catch the mid-air bodies.

All Things Cease to Appear by Elizabeth Brundage
Design by Mario Hugo
This is probably not the designer’s intent, but every time I look at the cover for Brundage’s novel, I think about words rising from a bowl of milk. No matter how you interpret it, this cover is one of the most haunting ones to appear in bookstores this year.

Barkskins by Annie Proulx
Designed by Jaya Miceli
This is another cover I “heard” this year: the woodsy snap of a treetop falling off to one side. Proulx’s novel is a long one, but I can’t think of a better illustration to hold in my hands for 736 pages.

The After Party by Anton DiSclafani
Designed by Jaya Miceli
Miceli’s design for this novel bears one thing in common with the one for Barkskins: they function simultaneously as works of art as well as illustrations that hint at the book’s themes—whether it’s the wilderness-eating greed of the timber industry, or high-society disdain of a party hostess picking a fleck of tobacco off her tongue.

Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett
Design by Keith Hayes
The deceptively simple-looking cover—black words on a white background—works on two levels: every time the title asks me to imagine someone’s disappearance, the ghost letters whisper “No!” in my ear.

My Father the Pornographer by Chris Offutt
Design by Jamie Keenan
Call me slow, but it wasn’t until about a week ago—after staring at this cover for nearly a year—that I saw the outline of a head. That just adds to the genius of an already-brilliant cover.

Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett
Design by Alex Merto
While the lush, colorful detail from Margriet Smulders’ photo Fair is foul and foul is fair is attractive, it’s the large, stark simplicity of the title’s font that makes all the difference in this design.

American Ulysses by Ronald C. White
Design Eric White
I love this colorized photo of our 18th President so much, I want to frame it and hang it on my wall. Grant’s gaze (nicely placed just above the title) implores me to read the story of his life.

We’ve Already Gone This Far by Patrick Dacey
Design by Lucy Kim
I can’t put my finger on exactly what I love about this cover—the filled-in letters? the weathered and wrinkled look? the deep-freeze suburban scene?—but whatever it is, this is one design I’ve never tired of admiring since I first saw it nearly twelve months ago.

Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine by Diane Williams
Design by Dan McKinley
It’s the scattered zig-zag pattern of the title’s “Fine”s laid over the cover art from a pulpy 1960s novel that keeps me coming back to this one. You want me to buy this book? Okay, okay. Fine, fine, fine, I’ll do it!

Anatomy of a Soldier by Harry Parker
Design by Oliver Munday
Parker’s novel in stories is narrated by objects surrounding the titular warrior: shoes and boots, a helmet, a bag of fertilizer, a medal, a beer glass, a snowflake, dog tags, etc. The cover design makes it clear that, yes, we could assemble the character like a snap-together model, but at what price?

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
There is such watery menace in this ship’s porthole that I’m chilled long before I open the book to the first page.

Not All Bastards Are From Vienna by Andrea Molesini
Design by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich
I’ll confess, I am so in love with this cover design, if I was a cheating man, I’d be making it my mistress. The colors pop and glow, the beauty establishing a sharp contrast to the word “bastards” in the title.

Brave Deeds Gets Dressed

If, as Annie sings, you’re never fully dressed without a smile, then a book is still half-naked until it gets its cover.

Well, that day has finally arrived for my forthcoming novel Brave Deeds. Thanks to the splendid production team at Grove/Atlantic, the book is no longer nude. I know I’m biased, but I really like the novel’s new wardrobe. For four years, the book existed only as bare words, black ants crawling across white sheets of paper, and now it’s splashed with color. I hope it catches, and holds, your eye as it does mine.

Brave Deeds is the story of six U.S. soldiers, stranded in the middle of Baghdad during the Iraq War, who dodge bullets and bombs as they make their way on foot through the streets. Their goal: to reach the other side of the city so they can attend the memorial service for their platoon sergeant.

On the cover, the silhouettes of six rifle-toting figures are drenched in blood as they walk toward the reader. I love the stark colors and the big bold font; as my editor pointed out in an email to me, those elements echo the cover design for Fobbit. I always felt the artwork for that 2012 novel “popped” on the bookshelf and the screen. Though I have yet to hold a physical copy of Brave Deeds in my hands, I have faith the Grove team will make it just as lovely a package as that which bound the words of Fobbit.

Earlier this week, I read Jhumpa Lahiri’s short, beautiful sermon on book design, The Clothing of Books, and since the timing was good, I thought I’d share one of my favorite passages from that book. Lahiri’s words illuminate how I feel about the cover for Brave Deeds, and cover design in general...

     A cover appears only when the book is finished, when it is about to come into the world. It marks the birth of the book and, therefore, the end of my creative endeavor. It confers on the book a mark of independence, a life of its own. It tells me that my work is done. So, while for the publishing house it signals the arrival of the book, for me it is a farewell.
     The cover signifies that the text inside is clean, definitive. It is no longer wild, coarse, malleable. From now on the text is fixed, and yet the cover has a metamorphic function as well. It transforms the text into an object, something concrete to publish, distribute, and, in the end, sell.
     If the process of writing is a dream, the book cover represents the awakening.

Trailer Park Tuesday: Classic Penguin: Cover to Cover, edited by Paul Buckley

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday, a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies.

One part of my Penguin colony

I am obsessed with penguins. Or, to be more precise, I am obsessed with Penguins. For the past seven years, I have actively curated a collection of the so-called “Black Spine” Penguin Classics. It started as a shelf but now threatens to overtake two large bookcases in my upstairs office. Each morning, before I sit down to work on what I can only dream of someday being a Penguin Classic novel, I gaze fondly at my brigade of tuxedo’ed soldiers all standing in formation and I am filled with joy, contentment, and a little anxiety because I want to READ THEM ALL RIGHT NOW. Lately, I have have turned my infatuationous eyes on Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions—those beauties with the French flaps, deckle edges and supermodel-gorgeous cover designs. Suffice to say, I live, breathe, and eat Penguins. (Please don’t take that last part out of context.) That’s why when I heard the publishers were trotting out a large trade paperback called Classic Penguin: Cover to Cover, it was like the announcement of a newfound Gospel. Good news, indeed. If I’m honest, cover design is at the heart of my Penguin compulsion. As Audrey Niffenegger notes in her Foreword:

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover. But when the book is a classic, you don’t have to—that book has already been judged many times over whilst sporting wildly different covers. A classic book has survived and endured great and egregious designs; it carries its world in its title and the name of its author. It is more than the sum of its covers. This leaves the designer and artist free to play.

The ratio of egregious to great leans heavily in favor of the latter on my shelves. I’m hardly done collecting my Penguins (and, to the groans of my wallet, I’m sure this new book will only serve to add more volumes to my shelves), but what I do have proves, as Niffenegger writes, they are “intellectually sexy, these flowers of culture.” The Penguin gift-wrapping around these volumes can be exotic or literal, playful or toe-the-line, but it is rarely (if ever) ugly. That’s why I curate and continue to grow my collection. I try to keep my bookshelves a no-ugly zone. One thing I most like about Penguin cover designs is their eagerness to push the boundaries of our expectations. When it came to Middlemarch, for instance, Elda Rotor (vice president and publisher of Penguin Classics) said they had an in-house rule: “No bonnets!” Instead, the Deluxe Classics Edition sports a white leather glove inscribed with a map of the village. Paul Buckley, creative director and editor of Classic Penguin: Cover to Cover, puts it like this:

When Jimi Hendrix played “The Star Spangled Banner,” it was those two things coming together that made the world stand up and go, “YES.” When you find a mashup that should be so wrong but it just comes out so right, that is what art can do with material you thought you knew.

In a Reddit Q&A with Buckley on the day of Cover to Cover’s launch, Buckley wrote:

Classics have been packaged so many times, over so many years, and often this is what freaks designers out—“oh my god, it’s been done 100 different ways already, how am I going to come up with anything new?” Instead of walking through the front door, come in from the back door, come down the chimney, climb through a window, and turn off that goddamn waltz. Bring new music, open the windows and let some fresh air in, mix up some cocktails and have fun with it. Make it a costume party and give the protagonist a new set of fun clothes to party in.

I like the way he thinks.

—But the video, the short trailer for Classic Penguin: Cover to Cover, what of that? That is, after all, what we’re here to talk about today. Truthfully, I might have expected something a little better to promote such a gorgeous book. At the very least, I would have thought there’d be music or some sort of sound effects (the clicks and honks of real-life penguins, perhaps), but instead the trailer is as silent as Marcel Marceau. The concept itself is adequate, but not flashy: merely a roving pan around the cover as the design elements lock into place. Don’t get me wrong, I do like the design of Cover to Cover, which incorporates snips from the Penguin art found on The Master and Margarita, Jason and the Argonauts, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Perchance to Dream, Lord of the Flies, Crime and Punishment, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, The Tempest, The Greek Myths, and others. I just wish the book trailer pulled the viewer deeper into this book than it does. As Buckley writes in his Introduction: “With great literature comes great responsibility.” The extraordinary Classic Penguin: Cover to Cover deserves more than an ordinary trailer.

NOTE: Shortly after I published this, Mr. Buckley commented about it on Facebook, saying that this short video was never meant to be a true book trailer, serving only as an enticement. Short videos like this are created by Elizabeth Yaffe at Penguin, and she should receive credit for the work you see above. I doubt this video is something she just tosses off in her spare time at the office and that there is a lot of hard work which goes into making it. So, I don’t want to take anything away from Elizabeth’s work here. And I know publishers’ budgets don’t always allow for a longer, richer trailer full of razzle-dazzle. So for now, let’s just remain content that there is something out there to snag readers’ eyeballs with at least a tiny hook, pulling them to Cover to Cover, which is itself bursting with razzle and dazzle.

My First Time: Jamie Duclos-Yourdon

My First Time is a regular feature in which writers talk about virgin experiences in their writing and publishing careers, ranging from their first rejection to the moment of holding their first published book in their hands. Today’s guest is Jamie Duclos-Yourdon, author of the novel Froelich’s Ladder, which will be released by Forest Avenue Press next month. Steve Hockensmith, author of Holmes on the Range, had this to say about the book: “Half (extremely) tall tale, half picaresque quest, and all entertaining, Froelich’s Ladder paints a picture of the American frontier that’s more original—yet perhaps more true—than any I’ve encountered in a long, long time. Readers who appreciate the cockeyed historical vision of writers like Charles Portis, Thomas Berger, Richard Brautigan, and Patrick deWitt need to add Jamie Duclos-Yourdon to their to-read lists today.” Jamie received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona. His short fiction has appeared in the Alaska Quarterly Review, Underneath the Juniper Tree, and Chicago Literati, and he has contributed essays and interviews to Booktrib. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

My First Cover

For a first-time author, cover art is a large part of what makes a book real, along with the satisfying thump you get when you drop it. The publication of my debut novel, Froelich’s Ladder, has been my first experience with cover design. My fiction has appeared in print before—in journals or on websites—but never has a graphic designer coupled his or her imagery to my words.

I had the good fortune to sign with Forest Avenue Press, which is independently owned and run by Laura Stanfill. This means I was deeply involved in the publication process, beyond the drafting and revising of the manuscript. I contacted other authors to request blurbs; I walked into bookstores to approach event coordinators; and I was asked to give my opinion on cover art. Had Froelich’s Ladder been acquired by a big-five publishing house, a functionary might’ve informed me, “Good news! Here’s your cover. It’s done.” Instead, I was introduced to Gigi Little.

Gigi has designed the covers for Forest Avenue Press’s entire catalogue, not that you’d be able to tell. Her aesthetic is fluid, matching her sensibilities to the particular novel she’s representing. Before I saw early layouts, I cornered Gigi at a barbeque and asked her, “How much of the book do you read? Like, a lot or a little? It’s going to have a ladder on it, right? I mean, it has to. I always envisioned the perspective of someone standing below and looking up. Not that you’ve got to do that. I don’t know, what do you think?” Gigi smiled, bought herself a little time by chewing, and essentially said, “I read as much as I need to.”

She would eventually design three separate covers—or, rather, she was in the process of designing a third cover when she delivered the first two. Cover #1 was closest to what I’d originally envisioned. It was the literal (which is to say, three-dimensional) view from underneath a ladder. The stiles were exquisitely detailed and vanished into the clouds, with strands of ivy weaved between the rungs. It was breath-taking; unfortunately, it was also reminiscent of Jack and the Beanstalk. I worried the reader would think I’d done a poor job of a modern retelling. “Where’s the giant? Where’s the golden egg? You suck, Duclos-Yourdon!”

Cover #2 was akin to a cartoon; it was two-dimensional with bright colors. I enjoyed its playfulness, but now I worried we were getting away from the genre of historical fiction. I decided that Cover #1 could work if we removed the ivy and played around with the font (which Gigi had also designed). Maybe I could go back and reference Jack and the Beanstalk—if not the premise, then a wink to improbable heights. Luckily, I had Laura to act as my intermediary. However well-intentioned these sentiments may have been, I easily could’ve offended Gigi by sharing my notes.

At this point, Gigi was still toying with a third cover design. I’d got a peek at her early sketches, after which I referred to Cover #3 as the Chaucer cover, because of its intricate scrollwork. Drawing inspiration from books released in 1871, the year that Froelich’s Ladder is set, Gigi wrote on her website:

I just love the ornate lettering and the fancy borders and, well, everything about these old book covers. What works of art. I loved the idea of doing a modern spin on them, something that retained the lavishness but also added a hint of the whimsy that is a part of the book. The two books I drew the most inspiration from were…The Count of Monte Cristo, published by George Rutledge and Sons, Limited. I wish there were an easy way to find out who created these covers. The listing where I found this book said that the book is illustrated with 20 etchings by M. Valentin, but the cover artist was probably someone completely different. The second is a book called Burns Illustrated. I know nothing about this book except that it was published in 1871 by Belford, Clarke and Company. I loved the typography and the title banner in this one. And the nearly non-stop ornamentation. I let myself soak in these fabulous book covers like some fancy, gilded bath, and I picked and chose what to glean from them, musing on how best to incorporate all the elements we needed, including a kick-ass blurb by Brian Doyle. Then I used a color scheme that was reminiscent of the classic red and gold but updated into something modern. Funny to be tootling around on Adobe Illustrator, making minute movements with a mouse, creating something electronically that nonetheless hearkens back to book covers that fabulous artisans created, more than a century ago, using such a very different process.

When Gigi shared the final Chaucer cover with me it was love at first sight. In a bricks-and-mortar bookstore, the vibrant colors will draw a reader’s eye—quite possibly from across the room. Beyond that, Gigi has captured the era, central metaphor, and overall whimsy of the novel in a static image. Me, I have trouble describing the plot in under three minutes; Gigi’s cover is the elevator pitch I never mastered. And, ultimately, it will contribute as much to the novel’s success as anything I wrote.

Soup and Salad: Negotiating a writer’s worth, Where are all the patrons?, Alexander Chee’s 13-year journey, Max Ophuls at The Lincoln, Punctuation kills words, Great cover designs, Lee Boudreaux’s careful reading, “I wanted to publish a book before I died,” Paul Giamatti channels Balzac

On today's menu:

1.  Manjula Martin, editor of the anthology SCRATCH: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living, which will be published later this year by Simon & Schuster, on how to negotiate ways to be paid for your art:

The one super-strict rule I hold myself to is: Always ask for more. Every time. No matter what. Because no one is going to give you more money unless you ask for it. And if you ask for more and the person instantly agrees without even blinking... then you should probably ask for even more next time. When I negotiate, I sometimes don’t get more. And I sometimes get more than more. But I never get less, I can tell you that!

Manjula’s occasional tiny letter newsletter is well worth subscribing to. (Also, it’s free!)


2.  $peaking of $upport for writer$: “No longer supported by the state, today’s writers must meet market demands. Those who succeed often do so by innovating no more than is necessary.”

3.  Listen, my children, and you shall hear...of the rollercoaster ride of Alexander Chee. His novel The Queen of the Night tops my To-Be-Read stack and after reading this interview at The Millions, it’s almost a wonder the book is in our hands at all. As Claire Cameron (author of The Bear) describes it,

The Queen of the Night is Chee’s first novel hardcover release since Edinburgh in 2001 and its reissue in 2003. While he has hardly been idle, I wondered how that felt. As novelists often talk of the pressure to publish, were the intervening 13 to 15 years productive or full of angst? What I found was a story filled with all the twists and turns of the greatest writing careers, a publisher bankruptcy, bouts of teaching yoga, the consequences of missing a deadline by 10 years, the advance money running out, an Amtrak residency, surviving through four changes of editor, and whether it’s all worth it in the end.

Chee says when he thought about working on the manuscript for The Queen of the Night,

It was like wandering blind into a storm. I moved to Los Angeles, where I really just sort of rested for a few months, read things, and went to parties and libraries and tried to put my head together again. When I ran out of money, I moved to my Mom’s in Maine....writing in her basement every morning starting at 5 a.m., taking a break for Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns at 11 a.m. and making an early lunch before working more. It was like the weirdest saddest colony stay, about three months.

And then these comments, of course, spoke directly to my heart (which is often torn between writing this blog and doing some “real writing”):

My friend Maud Newton and I were talking about our history with blogs recently, and we agreed to think of them respectively as the sort of minor books that you publish in between the books that matter, an experiment done in a way that eventually helps the sale of the next book — people read it, treat it like a blog and not a book — and which allows to sustain a readership without suffering the damage of a tragic sales track record.

4.  If you’re in the New York City area, you might want to drop by The Lincoln Center on March 2. That’s when Chee will be on hand to help bring Max Ophul’s 1953 classic The Earrings of Madame de... to the screen. The Print Screen series “invites our favorite authors to present films that complement and have inspired their work, with discussions and book signings to follow screenings.” Click here for more information on the recurring series.


5.  Punctuation posters. Who needs words anyway?


6.  I can always count on The Casual Optimist to drop some delicious eye-candy into my inbox. The blog’s February Book Covers of Note includes some stunners, including one of my favorites: Jamie Keenan’s design for My Father, the Pornographer: A Memoir by Chris Offut.

7.  Over at Lit Hub, Lee Boudreaux takes us into the mind (and heart) of an editor:

The editing process is asking every question that occurs to you and reading the manuscript as carefully as anyone is ever going to read it. This is the time to ask those questions and it is always the author’s…well, they have permission to reject anything, it’s just that you’re raising the question. I believe the author always has a better idea on how to solve the problem than anything I would suggest.

8.  If you can read this and not be moved, you’re a stonier person than I am: I wanted to publish a book before I died.


9.  I leave you with Paul Giamatti channeling Balzac and his 50-cups-of-day habit: