This morning I found this great surprise in my (e)mailbox: the Czech cover for When You Reach me (Argo). I find it beguiling and beautiful. If you look closely, you will see that it's made to appear drawn on loose-leaf paper, complete with smudges. And look at my name - Steadova! with an accent! (My last name is Welsh, but I am Russian and Hungarian on my mom's side, so I love this mash-up.)
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE.
There's also a series of amazing illustrations inside the book, by the artist Nikkarin. I think this makes the Argo edition my first-ever illustrated novel, something I have dreamed about.
Meanwhile, I'm happy to say that some day I WILL have another novel published by Wendy Lamb Books (next fall, we hope). We are just now hashing out a lot of fun stuff like final edits, the title, and the cover. As lots of you probably know, a book's cover is designed by an art director (in our case, the wonderful Kate Gartner at Random House), not the editor or the author. I haven't yet seen sketches for the new book, but this infusion of art from Argo has me very excited.
Comments
It's nice how the illustrations are so detailed yet still impressionistic in a sense. They leave enough room for the reader to apply their own vision of the characters and locations.
Nice!
im very glad that you like these pictures. Its a great book and working on it was really fun.
Nikkarin