Worries, and Cover Art We Could Have Used (Cover art reveal tomorrow!)

Hello from a place of worry. My little 13-month-old nephew is in the Children’s hospital since last night with a bad ear infection, so I’m feeling anxious for him and today I’m going to go to the neurologist again to check out some troublesome symptoms like my legs not working occasionally. So you know, spin spin worry worry.

In happier news, it is supposed to be 70 degrees today, like real spring, and I thought I’d talk a little about cover art. I have very strong ideas about cover art for poetry books – no weeping willows over lakes, no dying roses, no blah blah art. I like dramatic, bold covers – as you can probably see from my previous book covers (see links in the right columns of this page), two of which are done by graphic artist Michaela Eaves, and the third by painter Rene Lynch. I actually think of artists as friends – and have collaborated on some different projects when I could – and think art and poetry can work together more closely than they usually do. So I go around art galleries and read art magazines and write fan letters when I like someone’s work. Plus it helps you know what’s out there.

So, today I’ll talk about the cover art that almost was…and the real cover art reveal tomorrow!

This book, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, was a bit of a challenge, because the subject matter – from Atomic Era nuclear pop culture to robotics to autobiographical poems about growing up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was hard to pin down in artistic form. I wanted something with a girl, something that spoke about nature, maybe something threateningly atomic-y/scienc-y/robot-y.

I found this great vintage postcard that we almost used:

There was also some great art that popped up in my searches of “girl robot” like this. Balazs Papay’s picture has both the nature and the girl/robot theme, but not quite human enough: