JT.

@Daedalus, that’s so unutterably awful it’s tipped all the way over into wonderful!

@libby, @athelstone, thank you. I’m delighted with my foxy. 🙂

I think you’re right in that figures are often used as a massive ‘THIS IS WHAT THIS BOOK IS’ flag, like for bodice rippers or YA urban romantic fantasy, or twee historical rags-to-riches stories.…[Read more]

So. Many. Ways. That’s horrifying.

It is, isn’t it?

I suppose that once a book and an author become so well known that the text will survive whatever the publisher throws at it, things are different. The various covers for Mrs Dalloway were what I thought of straight away. They are almost always a portrait of a woman, often Woolf herself, but there are few that would positively prevent a purchase.…[Read more]

Yes, my thoughts exactly @athelstone. I did the same thing – I specifically asked my publisher to brief the designer to NOT include illustrations of the characters, for precisely the reasons you say. I wanted the kids to have ownership of them. Silhouettes are fine, but not drawings. Funny how we all feel the same about this!

It is an excellent fox. Foxes are cool.

I think I understand really well why you wouldn’t want a human face on the cover. A huge part of the pleasure of reading a novel, is the way the characters reveal themselves to us as the story progresses. A picture of somebody, fully-formed, denies the reader that pleasure. But you can understand why…[Read more]

Stunning, Raine.

I gushed all over this on social media and have only just seen it here – so congratulations on a thing of beauty (autocorrect tried to make that a ‘biting of beauty’, and perhaps I should have let it), which is quite perfect. xx

Wow, that’s fantastic! Sorry, I’ve just seen this, but congratulations – a fabulous achievement. 😍

Aaah, that makes sense! Yes, now you mention it I think I recall more attention on that aspect. I think it worked. Good on you, lovely to see your writing get more recognition

@Daedalus, it was mainly making the manifests more fleshed out (so to speak) so they felt more real and the way they worked made more sense. So small tweaks throughout rather than a big edit. And totally justified, I think. I am prone to the vagueness, as you know!!

That’s interesting @raine, the story seemed pretty much exactly as I remembered it so I don’t suppose too much can have changed? Really glad to see my writing friends appearing in my favourite sources

Thank you @Daedalus. It’s a great mag & the editorial team were fantastic throughout. The acceptance followed on from a revise & resubmit, so it took a while but I’m delighted it’s out.

I treated myself to the podcast this morning. Wonderful story, lovely to hear it being read. SH is a fantastic home for it, one of my very favourite mags