The MARI IN THE MARGINS Cover Reveal!

Plus a little bit about how the cover came to be.

There are about 8,000 things I could write about today, such as…

• My grandson’s tendency to throw anything that ends up in his hands, including books.

• The anticipation of starting a new bullet journal for 2024. Do I really have to wait two more weeks?

• My favorite books from 2023.

• My hopes for 2024.

But I have something a little more exciting to share with you today…

…the MARI IN THE MARGINS cover reveal!

You are more than welcome to scroll to the bottom of this newsletter to see the cover in all its glory, but if you do I hope you’ll scroll back up to read a little bit about how this cover came to be.

When I had my first meeting with the folks at Bandersnatch Books, I was offered the opportunity to design the book’s cover. Because I’m the book’s author as well as the illustrator, you may think that it was perfectly logical for this task to fall to me. But, here’s the thing: I was still in a little bit of a state of panic and shock about creating the illustrations (at the time, just a few doodles and some art journal entries) for this book. Design a cover? I’ve never designed a cover before. What did I know? Who was I kidding? I’ve never had a stronger feeling of “imposter syndrome” than in that moment.

But I immediately said yes. Because…duh. I wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity. I could do scary things. I had already done the scary thing of sending this manuscript out into the world with my art in it. And they wanted to publish it! So, I could do this.

The publisher’s idea was to “lean into the black and white,” and I soon had an idea for the general layout. I sketched out a few options. I brainstormed with my friend and fellow author/illustrator Jessica Linn Evans. Then I put together two mock-ups of a cover design, and sent them to the team at Bandersnatch along with a note about which one I preferred. They loved my idea!

My initial design sketches.

After the basic design was approved, it was a matter of finalizing the cover art. It went through a few variations, and then I sent a “finished” design to the publisher. But…the feedback was that the image was “too clean” and they missed the texture of the rough mock-up I had sent (it was put together by hand, not with the computer).

So I took their feedback and made a rougher, more textured version of the design, and, after some back and forth regarding the background, the final cover was born!

And with that, I give you the cover of MARI IN THE MARGINS, a middle grade novel-in-verse (and doodles) coming in May 2024 from Bandersnatch Books:

The book should be available for pre-order soon. For now, find out more about MARI IN THE MARGINS on the publisher’s website.