veils
martinesque
by manjula martin
hi,
i have two things to reveal to you, but "reveal" seems like a word that will get caught in sp*m f*lters. instead let's call it an unveiling, which also has a weird vibe, summoning mental images of sexist/gendered wedding stuff. but i do like actual veils: when i was in sixth grade i wore a grey bowler hat every day. the hat had a little black veil on the front of it, just big enough to cover the brim and not any part of my face, and i loved it because it reminded me of a hat that a Dame would wear in an Old Movie and also i could blow a puff of air up and see the lace wiggle, just at the top of my sight range. and yes, it was the 1980s, why do you ask.
also there is a chapter in my book called "veils" but you'll just have to wait and read it. (it's not about hats. or brides.)
now, to the unveilings. first up is the cover art for my forthcoming book, which some of you have already seen, but here it *officially* is, i love it.
so, do you want to hear about the cover design? i always enjoy graphic-design backstory, so i'm going to tell you all about it!
(for those unfamiliar with the book biz, the author is usually "consulted" during the design process, but we are by no means in charge of it. my publisher, Pantheon, has been awesome in this regard; they really listen to me, which is not always the case!)
a while back, my editor asked if i had any thoughts on cover art, and i sent her a bunch of pictures of things important to themes of the book and also of comps (comparable titles) whose covers i like. my only other directions were "no flames, no orange/red."
the first major element: smoke, type
i wanted cover art that gestured to the creeping anxiety familiar to anyone who lives with fire (or with wildfire smoke) (or, like, on the planet Earth). yet i wanted something that wouldn't automatically turn off people who aren't interested in reading yet another depressing book about All The Horrible Things. and i didn't want the cover to telegraph NATURAL DISASTER NONFICTION or THIS IS A JOURNALISM because, although both those things are elements of the book, they're not the whole picture.
from the beginning the graphic designer came up with this cool creeping fade on the text, which says but doesn't scream "smoke/fire," and i loved it. it felt right to everyone to make the typography the central element of the cover and i was very excited when the designer came back with what i affectionately call the "Madness Rack & Honey font" (although technically i think this is a different typeface). we also tried a version of this design with a white cover, which i really liked but someone called it "bridal" and then i couldn't unsee that. (hey, veil callback!). plus, the white was difficult to literally see online at thumbnail sizes, which is a huge part of book design These Days. besides, i have always had a streak of baby goth in me (see: veil, above) so the black cover was the winner.
the second major element: a flower
the publisher wanted something in the cover art that said "hope" because... well, see DISASTER, above, and also because when people engage with climate change-related events they inevitably want some hope out of the process (there is also a chapter in my book about this!). we had a couple design rounds that involved falling ash, burned leaves, that sort of thing, but everyone agreed it wasn't quite working. this trial-and-error helped me understand it was important to me that something on the cover be alive, organic. most scenes in the book take place in forests, gardens, and coastal areas, and a major theme in the book is the idea of cycles of damage and renewal.
while working on the book i had kept a picture of a fire poppy as my desktop background image. the fire poppy, Papaver californicum, is a rare fire-reliant species of native-to-California poppy. it only grows in areas that have recently been severely burned. (and guess what? everyone say it with me: there is also a chapter about this in the book!). in design, the fire poppy says it all: beauty! hope! renewal! "a book about nature that isn't also subtextually about toxic masculinity"!
an added bonus to the fire poppy: any reader who is already familiar with fire ecologies or who works in fire-related fields will probably recognize a fire poppy on sight. everyone else will probably assume it's a regular California poppy, which is totally fine by me, as we'd wanted cover art that hinted at California (the book's setting) but didn't restrict the scope of the readership to the west coast. as anyone who has been reading the news lately understands, the wildfire crisis—like the larger climate crisis to which it is very much linked—is everywhere.
so, i guess my cover had orange on it after all.
about that subtitle:
when my editor sent me the cover art options, they all had a handwriting-style typeface for the subtitle. i don't love skeuomorphic design, but i accepted that it lent a human/personal element to the cover, which otherwise has a very clean and crisp vibe. Then i remembered that once, when i worked at Zoetrope magazine, we had scanned Jeff Bridges' handwriting to use in the layout. so i asked if we could use *my* handwriting instead of the fake stuff. and they said yes! to me, the handwriting says "memoir." although not in a diaristic way, necessarily; i think of it more like an artifact of my zine-making past. DIY, baby. there is also a design element in the interior of the book that incorporated imagery from my tattoos, but i'll save that story for another time...
also for another time: the topic of the specific words used in the subtitle.
the second unveiling is my newly redesigned website: manjulamartin.com.
the glam shot is nice and all, but obviously this is my favorite page on the site.
i feel like this is a pretty big step up from the ole "free wordpress blog template jerry-rigged into a homepage" that i've been using for like 20 years. Luca J. Davis made it and it was easy and fun to work on it with them.
okay, those are all the veils being lifted here today. in conclusion, please pre-order The Last Fire Season! here's how:
—if you patronize a local independent bookstore, ask them to preorder it. I like to do all my preorders at Point Reyes Books because they are awesome.
—if you're an online shopper, try Bookshop.org instead of that evil megacorporation.
—and if you are a library user, please request it from your local public library. libraries are the best!!!
(one more time, for those in the back:) preorders are IMMENSELY helpful to authors and publishers. preorders tell the publisher and bookstores that there is demand for the book, which can effect decisions made about print numbers, sales, and promotional efforts between now and pub day (January 16, 2024!) preorders also help with sales figures for the all-important, make-or-break first weeks of a book's release.
as an added bonus, you will magically receive my book in the mail the moment in January, and by that time you'll have forgotten about ordering it, and it'll feel like getting a bonus holiday gift at a normally dark and lonely time of year.
so, yeah, do it.*
you'll probably hear from me a bit more frequently in the coming months. i promise it won't be all about my book, my book, my book. (some of it will probably be about my garden, my garden, my garden!).
go smell a flower,
-m.
*If you are a journalist, book reviewer, or TikTok influencer (lol) and want to write about me or the book, hit me up for an advance review copy by replying to this email.
oh, and to reward those who've scrolled down this far, here's the hat:
i have two things to reveal to you, but "reveal" seems like a word that will get caught in sp*m f*lters. instead let's call it an unveiling, which also has a weird vibe, summoning mental images of sexist/gendered wedding stuff. but i do like actual veils: when i was in sixth grade i wore a grey bowler hat every day. the hat had a little black veil on the front of it, just big enough to cover the brim and not any part of my face, and i loved it because it reminded me of a hat that a Dame would wear in an Old Movie and also i could blow a puff of air up and see the lace wiggle, just at the top of my sight range. and yes, it was the 1980s, why do you ask.
also there is a chapter in my book called "veils" but you'll just have to wait and read it. (it's not about hats. or brides.)
now, to the unveilings. first up is the cover art for my forthcoming book, which some of you have already seen, but here it *officially* is, i love it.
so, do you want to hear about the cover design? i always enjoy graphic-design backstory, so i'm going to tell you all about it!
(for those unfamiliar with the book biz, the author is usually "consulted" during the design process, but we are by no means in charge of it. my publisher, Pantheon, has been awesome in this regard; they really listen to me, which is not always the case!)
a while back, my editor asked if i had any thoughts on cover art, and i sent her a bunch of pictures of things important to themes of the book and also of comps (comparable titles) whose covers i like. my only other directions were "no flames, no orange/red."
the first major element: smoke, type
i wanted cover art that gestured to the creeping anxiety familiar to anyone who lives with fire (or with wildfire smoke) (or, like, on the planet Earth). yet i wanted something that wouldn't automatically turn off people who aren't interested in reading yet another depressing book about All The Horrible Things. and i didn't want the cover to telegraph NATURAL DISASTER NONFICTION or THIS IS A JOURNALISM because, although both those things are elements of the book, they're not the whole picture.
from the beginning the graphic designer came up with this cool creeping fade on the text, which says but doesn't scream "smoke/fire," and i loved it. it felt right to everyone to make the typography the central element of the cover and i was very excited when the designer came back with what i affectionately call the "Madness Rack & Honey font" (although technically i think this is a different typeface). we also tried a version of this design with a white cover, which i really liked but someone called it "bridal" and then i couldn't unsee that. (hey, veil callback!). plus, the white was difficult to literally see online at thumbnail sizes, which is a huge part of book design These Days. besides, i have always had a streak of baby goth in me (see: veil, above) so the black cover was the winner.
the second major element: a flower
the publisher wanted something in the cover art that said "hope" because... well, see DISASTER, above, and also because when people engage with climate change-related events they inevitably want some hope out of the process (there is also a chapter in my book about this!). we had a couple design rounds that involved falling ash, burned leaves, that sort of thing, but everyone agreed it wasn't quite working. this trial-and-error helped me understand it was important to me that something on the cover be alive, organic. most scenes in the book take place in forests, gardens, and coastal areas, and a major theme in the book is the idea of cycles of damage and renewal.
while working on the book i had kept a picture of a fire poppy as my desktop background image. the fire poppy, Papaver californicum, is a rare fire-reliant species of native-to-California poppy. it only grows in areas that have recently been severely burned. (and guess what? everyone say it with me: there is also a chapter about this in the book!). in design, the fire poppy says it all: beauty! hope! renewal! "a book about nature that isn't also subtextually about toxic masculinity"!
an added bonus to the fire poppy: any reader who is already familiar with fire ecologies or who works in fire-related fields will probably recognize a fire poppy on sight. everyone else will probably assume it's a regular California poppy, which is totally fine by me, as we'd wanted cover art that hinted at California (the book's setting) but didn't restrict the scope of the readership to the west coast. as anyone who has been reading the news lately understands, the wildfire crisis—like the larger climate crisis to which it is very much linked—is everywhere.
so, i guess my cover had orange on it after all.
about that subtitle:
when my editor sent me the cover art options, they all had a handwriting-style typeface for the subtitle. i don't love skeuomorphic design, but i accepted that it lent a human/personal element to the cover, which otherwise has a very clean and crisp vibe. Then i remembered that once, when i worked at Zoetrope magazine, we had scanned Jeff Bridges' handwriting to use in the layout. so i asked if we could use *my* handwriting instead of the fake stuff. and they said yes! to me, the handwriting says "memoir." although not in a diaristic way, necessarily; i think of it more like an artifact of my zine-making past. DIY, baby. there is also a design element in the interior of the book that incorporated imagery from my tattoos, but i'll save that story for another time...
also for another time: the topic of the specific words used in the subtitle.
the second unveiling is my newly redesigned website: manjulamartin.com.
the glam shot is nice and all, but obviously this is my favorite page on the site.
i feel like this is a pretty big step up from the ole "free wordpress blog template jerry-rigged into a homepage" that i've been using for like 20 years. Luca J. Davis made it and it was easy and fun to work on it with them.
okay, those are all the veils being lifted here today. in conclusion, please pre-order The Last Fire Season! here's how:
—if you patronize a local independent bookstore, ask them to preorder it. I like to do all my preorders at Point Reyes Books because they are awesome.
—if you're an online shopper, try Bookshop.org instead of that evil megacorporation.
—and if you are a library user, please request it from your local public library. libraries are the best!!!
(one more time, for those in the back:) preorders are IMMENSELY helpful to authors and publishers. preorders tell the publisher and bookstores that there is demand for the book, which can effect decisions made about print numbers, sales, and promotional efforts between now and pub day (January 16, 2024!) preorders also help with sales figures for the all-important, make-or-break first weeks of a book's release.
as an added bonus, you will magically receive my book in the mail the moment in January, and by that time you'll have forgotten about ordering it, and it'll feel like getting a bonus holiday gift at a normally dark and lonely time of year.
so, yeah, do it.*
you'll probably hear from me a bit more frequently in the coming months. i promise it won't be all about my book, my book, my book. (some of it will probably be about my garden, my garden, my garden!).
go smell a flower,
-m.
*If you are a journalist, book reviewer, or TikTok influencer (lol) and want to write about me or the book, hit me up for an advance review copy by replying to this email.
oh, and to reward those who've scrolled down this far, here's the hat:
you're receiving this email because you know me, know my work, or might want to.
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