Cover Reveal!

Okay, I thought I’d seen cover art with the new file of VFK, but it turns out that was actually the beautiful front page of the book. Kira sent the real cover art today, and it’s lovely! I spent most of the day showing it off to friends, posting it on Facebook and Google+, and just generally basking in the glow of it all.

My next big task will be arranging for business cards, post cards, and bookmarks with the new image.

And here it is:

A real book…and a trailer!

October 4, 2011

I received a message from editor Kira Lynn today. She was asking me to proofread the final version before it goes to press–especially the excerpts quoted from primary documents, since she doesn’t have access to those. No problem, really, since I have hard copies of all of those. I opened the PDF, looking forward to seeing the book laid out and found….

COVER ART!!

Wowsers! I love it! I’ll post it here when I have a jpeg version. I clicked through a few pages of the book and discovered the beautiful job they did with the text and visual motif. The chapter headers (all primary documents) are printed on special pages that look like old paper. Lucy’s poems and letters are set in script font that looks like handwriting. It’s all really quite lovely.

Tonight I had a great phone conversation with Ken Spurgeon of Lone Chimney Films. Ken’s film company does dramatic films based on events in Kansas history. I met him at the Kansas Sampler festival last spring and asked if he might be willing to do a book trailer. Tonight we brainstormed some ideas (we were both thinking along the same lines already), and Ken is as excited about the project as I am. Ken also knows some musicians who play music from the 1850s era, and I’m hoping to see about uploading some music to the website.

Suddenly, it feels like things are moving very quickly!