Glimmerglass on the way

Above: detail of the Glimmerglass cover

Below: the front cover unveiled in the Mercer University Press Autumn 2014 catalogue. (There is a minotaur on the back cover!)

Marly Youmans’ Glimmerglass is now in the Mercer University Press catalogue of forthcoming publications. I made the artwork and the design is by Burt & Burt, who have done a fantastic job.

 

9 thoughts on “Glimmerglass on the way

  1. Great. Thanks for the notice.

    I am going NOW to my Amazon account, to pre order the book.
    I’ve had a great time with the ” Clive Hicks Jenkins ” book, and am going to order a couple of them as presents for friends as well.

    Again, I say

    Thank You, Thank You, Thank You

    • Oh my! Well thank you. A satisfied customer. (-:

      I read Glimmerglass three or four times before I made the cover and the interior decorations for it, and I really loved the novel.

      Marly is a friend of mine, and making covers and chapter-headings for her books really feels like a collaboration, which is not at all the way I hear many illustrators feel about commissions to make covers. Marly gives me free-rein to take the ideas where I think best, and is always gracious about the outcomes. I think it takes remarkable generosity on her part to give me that kind of freedom, as she must have ideas of her own, and yet she understands the processes of creativity so completely that she only ever offers positive responses. In fact I think she quite enjoys being taken by surprise!

      For my own part I never attempt to ‘illustrate’ the covers of Marly’s books, but try to create ‘moods’ for them that will have allure for anyone spotting them on bookstore shelves or in window displays. That’s my job, to catch the attention long enough to arrest the gaze of a potential purchaser, hopefully to the point of picking up the book to look inside. I have to be true to the spirit of the book, rather than try to reproduce in a picture what Marly has already achieved so beautifully in words. I attempt to make a setting (the covers) for her words (the novel). I see the image as being an accompaniment, like a pianist accompanying a singer, though I realise that might sound a tad fanciful.

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