Some news about my design, my writing, and the books I’ve had a hand in…

March 26, 2025

Upcoming events!

Coming up first this Saturday, March 28, Dian Greenwood, author of Forever Blackbirds, will be reading with Gemma Whelan, author of Painting Through the Dark, at BOLD Coffee and Books. 7 PM. More info on BOLD is here. (The below graphic was made by BOLD.)

The following Tuesday, April 1, is the book launch of Imagine a Door by Laura Stanfill. She’ll be in conversation with author Armin Tolentino, at Powell’s Books downtown. Starts at 7. I expect it’s going to be a full house! More info is here. (The below graphic was made by Powell’s designer Baylie Barton.

Then on April 18, I’ll be reading at BOLD Coffee and Books. Reading with me will be fellow Dangerous Writers Suzy Vitello, Adam Strong, and event organizer Steve Arndt. 7 PM.

April 22 is the book launch of Nancy Townsley’s Sunshine Girl. Dian Greenwood and I will be her conversation partners for her big event at Broadway Books. Starts at 6.

Continuing into May, there’s the launch party for Art Born Words. 7 PM at BOLD Coffee and Books. I have a story in this gorgeous art book and I can’t wait to celebrate it coming into the world. (Graphic by Demagogue Press.)

Finally, dipping all the way into June, I’m looking forward to the community reading for Jenny Forrester’s Love: The Art of Cherishing the World. Also at BOLD. There’s an Eventbrite page to reserve a spot here. 7 PM. I’ve recently designed the cover for that and we’ll be doing a cover reveal soon.

March 13, 2025

Copies of Imagine a Door by Laura Stanfill have arrived at Annie Bloom’s Books in Portland! The book isn’t technically out until the first of April, but Annie Bloom’s had the luck to get early copies, and they put a stack on display. Check it out if you’d like to get a sneak peek or a sneak buy. A bird tells me she’ll be in to sign copies very soon.

I’m also looking forward to celebrating Laura and the book at the launch at Powell’s downtown on April 1. More info is here.

Another lovely thing happened today: Ken Jones of KBOO’s Jonesy ran a tribute to Susan DeFreitas, who we lost not long ago. You can read their celebration of her on the KBOO website here, and then listen to the rebroadcast of the episode of Jonesy in which Ken interviewed Susan as well as David Naimon at the launch of Susan’s anthology Dispatches from Anarres back in December of 2021.

Some good news: the second book in the Mythwakers series, The Manananggal, was funded through their Kickstarter campaign. The happy graphic below was made by Kate Ristau, publisher of the series.

Lastly, members of my writing group The Gong Show and some other Portland authors will be reading at Le Salon Rouge this Saturday, March 15, at 8:00. Reading from their works in progress will be Doug Chase, Shannon Brazil, Bradley K. Rosen, Christy George, Kirsten Nelson, Megan Savage, and Shavaun Scott.

March 7, 2025

What a lovely surprise to find that A Tree of My Own was named a book of note in the Freeman Book Awards, put on by The National Consortium for Teaching about Asia. From the website: "The National Consortium for Teaching about Asia (NCTA) is a collaboration among seven East Asian Studies programs to support primary and secondary teachers in incorporating East Asia into their classrooms and to build a global competency for students."

Author Nui Wilson enjoyed a school visit to Sacajawea Elementary, and work continues on the Thai and Karen translations of the book. We recently met at my place to go over the progress so far and to work through some of the technical complications of bridging the language gap in our computers. In some instances, I’ve had to build the words outside of the available fonts. It’s been an interesting process.

March 6, 2025

Two books I designed covers for are finalists for the 2025 Foreword Reviews Indie Awards! Congratulations to Daniel A. Olivas whose novel Chicano Frankenstein is a finalist in the Science Fiction category, and David Ciminello whose The Queen of Steeplechase Park got its nod in the historical fiction category! I like how, on the Foreword Reviews website, if you click into the sci-fi category, the first thing you see is the eyes of Chicago Frankenstein staring back at you. Congrats to all the nominees. Check them out here.

March 1, 2025

I can hardly believe Susan DeFreitas has left us. I was honored to have danced a funny, little anthology dance with Susan. I included her story in my book City of Weird, and she included my story in her book Dispatches from Anarres. In the middle, I also designed the cover for her novel Hot Season. Grieving her loss, thinking about our professional connection, I feel a strange, silly pride in my heart for having been one of the shapes that cast a shadow from the big brightness of her.

Her City of Weird story, “The Mind-Body Problem,” was one of three submissions for that book that made me cry. In the spreadsheet I made when I was trying to sort out which stories to accept, on her line, color-coded with the bright pink that meant definitely yes, I had written simply, "Elegant writing, beauty, sadness." What a huge talent, mind, and soul. What a legacy in too short a time, from her award-winning Hot Season to the beautifully curated Dispatches from Anarres, to her powerhouse editing and teaching that lifted up so many writers.

For others who were touched by her, donations can be made to her husband and their young son here.

February 24, 2025

Today was the cover reveal and Kickstarter launch for the second in the Mythwakers series of middle grade books, Mythwakers: the Manananggal, written by Armin Tolentino and Kate Ristau (pictured below). It was fun to create my own manananggal for the cover of the book. If you want to check out the Kickstarter and support this book, you can do so here.

I’m also excited to be in conversation with Nancy Townsley and Dian Greenwood for the launch of Nancy’s novel Sunshine Girl. That will be at Broadway Books on April 22. You can check out more of Nancy’s book tour below right. I didn’t make that graphic. The press pass and Eliza are mine, but the design of the flyer was put together by Nancy’s publicist Elise LeSage.

February 18, 2025

I have been intensely busy with design projects as well as copyedits on my novel. But wanted to pop in with some news on books I’ve done design work for, and more.

The and more is that submissions closed on February 9 for Forest Avenue Press. They received more submissions than ever before and are currently sifting through and making the hard decisions about which books to say yes to, and which to say no to. I’m looking forward to finding out what new novels I may be designing covers for soon. The second to left image below is a little grid I made of our book covers thus far to share when we were promoting the submission period.

Big news for Scott Nadelson, author of Trust Me. His novel won the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, one of the country's oldest and most prestigious Jewish literary awards! More on that is here.

First copies of Imagine a Door arrived on author/publisher Laura Stanfill’s own door recently and she sent me the below photo of one fresh out of the box.

And one other Forest Avenue Press book made a little appearance on social media on Valentine’s Day when a couple got engaged at Powell’s Books on Hawthorne. If you look close on the picture on the far right below, you’ll see City of Weird doing a little photo bomb. It was sweet to spot.

January 28, 2025

During such a scary time in this country, every little act of goodness feels so important. Today publisher Frances Lu Pai shared, along with the photo of our book A Tree of My Own below, the letter she wrote to accompany a donation to the Oregon Karen Association that was made possible by sales of the book. It feels so good to know that profits have exceeded expenses and we’ve been able to make the first of hopefully many donations from the proceeds.

And another point of joy in the day: the finalists for the Oregon Book Awards were released today, and on the list, among other very worthy folks, is my friend and writing-group mate Brian S. Ellis, for his poetry collection Against Common Sense. I was honored to have designed the book’s interior, and I absolutely fell in love with it. I’m so happy for Brian and for his publisher Limit Zero.

January 27, 2025

Galleys for my novel have arrived! Publisher Laura Stanfill had them shipped directly to me, and it was exciting to open the box and hold one in my hand. I’ve been checking in with a few people about reading the galley and maybe, possibly writing a blurb for the book. For those who so generously said yes, I packaged them up and wrote some notes, and then Laura picked them up from me to pop in the mail. She even hand-delivered one to Annie Bloom’s Books, which means that for the short time it was there waiting for its lovely recipient, my book was technically in a bookstore, heh.

January 4, 2025

Today was the cover reveal for my novel Who Killed One the Gun? The one problem with having a question mark in your title is that it makes all your statements about the book seem tentative. But it really was.

It was a lovely day with loads of really sweet comments and shares on social media, and as you can imagine, I’ve been more nervous about this cover reveal than most of my others. It’s a strange, wonderful thing to get to design your own book cover, and truth be told, that opportunity was one of the reasons I screwed up the courage to pitch my novel to Laura Stanfill and Forest Avenue Press in the first place.

And truth also be told, I’ll probably be tinkering with the cover a little more as we go along. We had an early January deadline for the cover in order to be able to launch the book in early October of this year. One thing we don’t yet have on this cover is the blurb snippet, so there will definitely be an update for that, once we get into the process of seeking blurbs (which: eek).

I’ve been trying to celebrate all the different moments in the life of this novel, and there are myriad moments in the time leading up to publication day. For instance, there was this moment I wrote a bit about on my blog, when I was going through one of the edits to the book with publisher Laura Stanfill. We’ve also been working on early galleys, which Laura sent to print on January 3. Galleys are for the aforementioned seeking-blurbs process, and are uncorrected proofs, often without even any cover art. We were able to sneak the cover on this one.

On the same day, Forest Avenue Press’s writing book Imagine a Door went officially to press. It’s due out this April.

By the way, I wrote a bit about the process of creating the cover for Who Killed One the Gun? on my blog here.

January 1, 2025

Happy New Year, everyone. Just popping in to share a few photos below. The first three are author Nui Wilson presenting our book A Tree of My Own at Golden Land in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Nui has given me two translations for the book, Thai and Karen, and I’ll soon be doing the design work needed to get those translations going. The last photo is the group shot of authors and publishers of The Magic We Miss at the book launch back on November 30. What fun that was. I hope you’ve been looking back at 2024 with a nostalgia for the good times and I wish you more good times in 2025.

December 25, 2024

Merry Christmas and all happy holidays to you!

I’m having a little Christmas morning coffee and thinking on the blessings that have come to me this year. Recently I was in the KBOO Radio studio to tape an interview, alongside author Nui Wilson and publisher/editor (also author in her own right) Frances Lu Pai, with the host of Jonesy, Ken Jones. It was lovely to sit and talk about our picture book A Tree of My Own — and full disclosure, I’m listening to that interview as I write this because Ken sent us a sneak peek. The conversation will be on Jonesy tomorrow at 10:30 on KBOO Radio, and then will be archived here.

Nui is in Thailand now, and she will be sharing the book with children and their grown-ups in an event at the Golden Land Solidarity Collective in Chiang Mai on December 28. I love that our book is making its international debut, and I enjoyed seeing the below social post that the Golden Land Solidarity Collective (one of the coolest names for a business, I have to say) posted recently.

Another lovely thing: David Ciminello’s novel The Queen of Steeplechase Park made Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2024 list! You can see the whole list here. They said about the book, “Love, pain, and nearly magical meatballs make the story of Bella Donato a delightful read.”

I was also excited to learn that Dian Greenwood’s novel Forever Blackbirds made the longest for the Chanticleer International Book Awards Hemingway Award for Wartime Fiction.

Lastly, an announcement for writers out there: Forest Avenue Press is opening for submissions on January 6. As the image says, “We’re seeking unpublished literary novels by US residents to add to our small catalog of delights, curiosities, and wild tales. Forest Avenue is a traditional, royalty-paying press, and our titles are distributed by Publishers Group West. We expect to select two or three manuscripts for the 2026-27 publishing season. Learn more about our work and what we’re seeking: forestavenuepress.com/submissions.” The open submission period runs from January 6 through February 9.

December 15, 2024

Today my upcoming novel Who Killed One the Gun? was included in Locus Magazine’s “People & Publishing Roundup, December 2024.“ Every little step, every little moment in the life of this book makes it feel realer and realer, and I want to celebrate every one.

Each book has so, so many moments in its life. When you have a publisher like Laura Stanfill and Forest Avenue Press, you get moments like when she signed David Ciminello’s The Queen of Steeplechase Park up for book dating app BookyCall. A book dating app?? Folks can check out books and swipe right if they like what they see and want to have a bit of a roll in the hay with a new book. Their slogan hashtag is #PeopleSuckDateABook. Hee hee!

And what do you know, David’s book landed on their list of Top 5 Right-Swiped Books of Last Week on December 12.

There’s been all sorts of fun stuff going on for David and Steeplechase lately, including being named one of the 45 Independent candidates for the US Republic of Consciousness Prize, 2024. You can check out David’s mention (at the 6:39 mark) and the mentions of the rest of the candidates in this YouTube video by one of the prize judges, Chris Via of Leaf by Leaf.

December 1, 2024

Yesterday was the book launch of The Magic We Miss, published by Believe in Wonder and curated by Brian and Josie Parker. We celebrated at Powell’s City of Books and then at the Rose City Book Pub. The launch event at Powell’s brought in 75 people and sold a mess of books. Brian commanded the stage in conversation with contributor Benjamin Gorman, and we heard readings from fellow Magic authors Annie Carl, Niyyah Ruscher-Haqq, Colleen East, Sean Fishback, and John Slovacek. Because we had a number of the contributors on-hand, including in the audience, Powell’s had to set up a couple of extra tables for us to sign books, and it was a whirlwind of a signing line. A truly joyful day.

I wanted to share some photos below, most curtesy of Laura Stanfill, as well as a quick pic of the PNBA holiday catalog (in use at Annie Bloom’s Books) featuring my cover for Scott Nadelson’s novel Trust Me.

November 13

Lots is going on, as always, in my little book world.

Recently Nui Wilson appeared at the Oregon Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Fall Conference with our book A Tree of My Own. Thanks to publisher Frances Lu Pai for the photo below. She’ll be at BOLD Coffee and Books in Portland for storytime this Saturday at 10:30, and on December 28th, she’ll be celebrating the book overseas at the Golden Land Solidarity Collective in Chang Mai, Thailand.

Meanwhile, David Ciminello took Bella to Hollywood, with a reading at LA’s Book Soup. I liked the graphic they made below, putting our “Queen” in sunglasses.

On October 30th, Publishers Marketplace posted a deal report for my upcoming novel Who Killed One the Gun?, and I couldn’t help but want to share that below.

I’m also excited to celebrate the book launch of The Magic We Miss, published by Believe in Wonder. The launch event will be at Powell’s City of Books Saturday, November 30th, at 3 PM. As one of the writers in that book, I’ll be in the audience to cheer on fellow Magic writers Annie Carl, Niyyah Ruscher-Haqq, Benjamin Gorman, Colleen East, Sean Fishback, Stephanie Carrier-Boodram, and John Slovacek, as well as publishers Brian and Josie Parker. The Facebook event for that is here.

One of those writers, Benjamin Gorman, also publisher of Not a Pipe Publishing, has been having the Magic We Miss authors on his podcast Writers Not Writing. It was a lot of fun to be on the show alongside Laura Stanfill, Nancy Townsley, and Jess Graff. Info on how to find the podcast is here.

November 1, 2024

The Portland Book Festival is coming up this weekend. There are loads of readings and panels going on, and if you go, don’t forget to check out the publishers tabling in Portland Art Museum's Kriedel Sunken Ballroom. Presses I’ve worked with and/or been published by will be there, including Forest Avenue Press, University of Hell Press, Not a Pipe Publishing, and more. A number of authors will be stopping by the Forest Avenue table (63) tomorrow to sign books. The schedule is in the images below.

October 26, 2024

I have some exciting news I’ve been sitting on. Forest Avenue Press is going to be publishing my novel Who Killed One the Gun? in 2025! Today I met publisher Laura Stanfill for coffee and to sign the contract, and then we had our official announcement.

I’ve been working on this book for a number of years and recently finally felt like I was ready to try my hand at finding a home for it. Thinking through my next steps, I let myself muse on where I would most like to see my book come to life, and of all the publishers in the world, I knew my number one was Forest Avenue Press. When I screwed up the courage to send a pitch to Laura, I was overjoyed to hear her say yes.

Here’s the description from the official announcement up on the Forest Ave. site here:

Third-rate gumshoe One the Gun and his trusty sidekick Two the True Blue are hired to track down the killer of Five the No Longer Alive. But while he grills suspects and hunts for clues, One the Gun starts to notice that today is exactly like yesterday—in fact, maybe actually is yesterday—and he’s also pretty sure that at the very end of yesterday he was shot to death. Time continues to loop back on itself, and one murder case becomes two as the private eye races against the clock to discover his own killer before the day that was yesterday turns over to become tomorrow. Gigi Little’s noir-soaked and delightfully surreal debut pays homage to the old-time radio classics of the forties and fifties while investigating themes of greed, sexism, and the consequences of unchecked power. 

I am over the moon and can’t wait for all the little steps it will take to bring this book to life.

October 19, 2024

Today was the book launch event for A Tree of My Own! Wow, what a morning. Publisher/editor Frances Lu Pai and I joined author Nui Wilson in the Pearl Room at Powell’s City of Books for a storytime presentation and a discussion about the book, the Karen culture, and the Karen community in Portland. The crowd was standing room only and we sold out of all the books except for the five the Powell’s folks held back to put on display. We had lots of folks from the Karen community on-hand, and it was just a really joyful event.

Also, on Friday Nui was on KATU TV’s Afternoon Live. Thank you to Frances for the photos of that below. I’m sure the segment will be archived, and when it is, I’ll share that link here.

Today is also the three-year anniversary of the publication of Shawn Levy’s book of poetry A Year in the Life of Death: Poems Inspired by the Obituary Pages to the New York Times, a book I was honored to design inside and out. Shawn posted about this on social media, and with that alongside the beautiful book launch morning, I’m feeling very lucky right now to have had the opportunities I’ve had to be a part of so many wonderful books.

October 1, 2024

Today is the kickoff for the Kickstarter campaign to fund the art book Art Born Words, published by Demagogue Press. The below isn’t a graphic I made, but I have a story in this book and am excited about the project. Each story or poem in the collection was written using the prompt of a different etching by artist Steve Graziani. If you want to learn more about, or even support, the project, you can check it out here. The press is hoping to raise $1000 to fund the printing, or stretch to $3000 to be able to have a big opening at a Portland art gallery.

Also below are a couple pictures from this year’s PNBA, including the Forest Avenue Press table (quite low stocked by the end of the convention) and author Scott Nadelson standing by a blow-up of this year’s PNBA holiday catalog that features (wow) his novel Trust Me. I was honored to have a bit of my designwork grace the cover of the catalog.

Today is also the book birthday of Frankenstein Chicano, the Spanish language edition of Daniel A. Olivas’s Chicano Frankenstein, just out from Planeta USA. Below are my cover and theirs. It’s so fun to see what different presses will do with the same work.

And last but definitely not least (in fact it should be first, because I somehow thought I’d already posted this here and hadn’t), September 22 was the cover reveal day for Sunshine Girl by Nancy Townsley. It was fun to design this cover and I wrote about the process here. Sunshine Girl comes out next April through Heliotrope Books.

September 29, 2024

A few photos from the reading last night at le Salon Rouge in Portland. Host (and reader) Doug Chase, writer Bradley K. Rosen who banged the gong to get us started, me, Steve Arndt, Liz Asch, Holly Goodman, and Kerry Cohen. It was a lovely night and as I expected, there were loads of remembrances, on stage and off, of our mentor Tom Spanbauer. It was noted that we had, in the crowd, both the last ever student to Tom’s Dangerous Writing class, Brian Stephen Ellis, and the first, Monica Drake.

For my part, I read the story I wrote for the upcoming anthology The Magic We Miss, which comes out in November with a launch event at Powell’s City of Books (downtown) on November 30.

September 28, 2024

My writing teacher, mentor, and good friend Tom Spanbauer died on September 21st. It’s hard to write that. He was a noble, generous soul who taught so, so many people about, not only good writing, but authenticity and joy, and brought together a huge community in Portland. I will miss him terribly. I was so lucky to have known him.

I was honored to have been invited to share some remembrances and thoughts about Tom for OPB alongside his husband Sage Ricci and author Suzy Vitello. It aired during All Things Considered yesterday and is archived (along with a remembrance, in writing, by publisher Rhonda Hughes) here.

My writing group the Gong Show is made up of all former Dangerous Writing students of Tom, and we will certainly be paying tribute to him tonight at the Gong Show Works in Progress reading at the Salon Rouge.

September 27, 2024

Recently I got together with my Qilin Press mates, publisher Frances Lu Pai and writer Nui Wilson, to sign a mess of copies of our upcoming book A Tree of My Own. Some of those copies are heading overseas to Thailand to our illustrator Kayor and some have been hand delivered to one of the newest (not yet open but getting there!) Portland bookstores Bold Coffee and Books (the photo on the right is one they put together to advertise the venture, and if you look close, a couple of the books in that stack are Forest Avenue Press’s No God Like the Mother and Half-Light, the book Stephen O’Donnell and I published together of his short stories. Proprietor Ali Shaw plans to give loads of love to indie-press books when they open their doors.).

It’s also National Hispanic Heritage Month, and Daniel A. Olivas’s Chicano Frankenstein is up on display at Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing. There are many great books up on different Hispanic Heritage Month displays at all Powell’s stores right now.

Oregon ArtsWatch did a lovely piece on David Ciminello and The Queen of Steeplechase Park on September 23. You can check that out here.

September 15, 2024

Saturday was the book launch event for Linda Watanabe McFerrin’s new poetry collection POST-Apocalyptic Valentine, at Book Passage in Corte Madera, California. I’m glad she had a packed house and I hope it was a lovely event. Thank you to Lowry McFerrin for the photos. Her next reading will be at A Great Good Place for Books in Oakland, California, on September 19.

September 10, 2024

I’ve been neglecting my news page, so here’s a bit of a wrap-up on what’s been happening lately with books I’ve designed.

September 4 was the book launch of Scott Nadelson’s novel Trust Me at Powell’s City of Books. We had a great crowd and it was a lovely night. I hope to have some photos I can share soon.

The next day, David Ciminello and Forest Avenue Press publisher Laura Stanfill were live on Everyday Northwest, chatting about The Queen of Steeplechase Park. It was a very Portland experience, with the duo sharing the airwaves with a centaur and the Unipiper, who were there to promo Weird Fest. We have something called Weird Fest? The show is archived here.

David’s book, along with Dian Greenberg’s Forever Blackbirds, are up on Powells’ Staff Picks table, and I copped a photo (below) from a social post Powell’s did recently.

The photo on the right-hand side is a quick pic of the first ever window display of Portland’s nearly-here BOLD Coffee and Books. Since the store’s stock has not arrived yet, proprietor Ali Shaw (Executive Editor and Founder of Indigo: Editing, Design, and More) populated the case with books from her own personal collection, including Kesha Ajose-Fisher’s No God Like the Mother and Stephen O’Donnell’s Half-Light.

Linda Watanabe McFerrin’s new poetry collection from 7.13 Books, POST-Apocalyptic Valentine, was written up in “Fall 2024: Poetic perspectives from ‘Undocumented Diaspora’ — and 10 new books for a season of change,“ in the SanFrancisco Chronicle. You can check that out here.

And authors Jessi Howard and Marie Parks have launched a campaign to fund the audiobook of their novel Unrelenting from Not a Pipe Press. Folks who are interested in learning more or backing the project can check it out here.

There are also upcoming events to talk about.

I’ll be reading at Works in Progress, the Gong Show Writing Group’s quarterly reading series, on September 28th at the Salon Rouge. Fellow Gonger’s Doug Chase and Holly Goodman will join me, along with our special guests Steve Arndt, Kerry Cohen, and Liz Asch.

David Ciminello and Stevan Allred (The Alehouse at the End of the World) will be reading at Annie Bloom’s on October 3rd.

And Scott Nadelson’s book tour continues with the Sisters Festival of Books (September 14), the Salem Poetry Project (September 19), PNBA Signature Dish (September 30), Magic Barrel: A Reading to Fight Hunger, in Corvallis (October 4), and the Portland Book Festival (November 2).

Scott also had a lovely interview write up in Oregon Arts Watch. You can read it here.

September 4, 2024

Portland and Portland-area writers, we’re less than a week away from this year’s Portland Writers Picnic! Today, writers Steve Arndt (the founder of the picnic), Carmel Breathnach, and Kate Ristau chatted about the picnic with host Ken Jones of KBOO Radio. It was a super fun conversation and it’s archived here. Come join us for fun, food, and community this Sunday, 11 to 4, at Laurelhurst Park, picnic area D.

August 10, 2024

Wow! Soul Jar (Forest Avenue Press) made the Top 10 SF/Fantasy & Horror 2024 list on Booklist! Big congratulations to editor Annie Carl, publisher Laura Stanfill, and all of our authors. My little selfish extra bit of glee was in seeing that of the handful of books whose covers were shared in the list, mine was one of them. Incidentally, I’m reading the first book on the list right now: Lev Grossman’s The Bright Sword, and I’m really enjoying it. Here’s a line I liked so much I had to stop and write it down: “And set off just as the sun pulled stickily free of the rim of the world and began heating the steaming meadows.” Check out the rest of the honored titles here.

August 6, 2024

Upcoming events! Plus one picture from a recent event to round out the photos.

The photo is from the July 29 reading featuring Dian Greenwood (Forever Blackbirds) and Suzy Vitello (Bitterroot) at Annie Bloom’s Books. Thank you to Laura Stanfill for the picture (and if you look close in the lower right, you’ll see a face-out of copies of Liz Prato’s short story collection Baby’s on Fire, whose cover I designed years ago. It was sweet to see that.)

On to some upcoming events. On August 16, publisher Frances Lu Pai will be appearing at the Pacifica and Asian American Community Science Night at OMSI and reading A Tree of My Own (Qiliin Press) for storytime. The book is not out yet, but copies can be preordered through Powell’s here.

Then on September 4, Scott Nadelson will have his book launch for Trust Me (Forest Avenue Press) at Powell’s City of Books. He’ll be sharing the stage with Matt Young with his novel End of Active Service.

Finally, on October 19, I’ll be appearing with author Nui Wilson and publisher Frances Lu Pai at Powell’s City of Books to launch A Tree of My Own with a storytime event in the Pearl Room. Portland-area folks, take note of that location as storytimes are usually presented in the Rose Room but they honored us with the chance to appear behind the famous podium up in the Pearl Room.

July 28, 2024

Recently, Scott Nadelson got a wonderful review of his upcoming novel Trust Me (Forest Avenue Press) in Publishers Weekly. They said about the book, “Thanks to the affecting family story at its core, this stands out among the recent spate of climate fiction.“ You can read the whole review here.

Laura Stanfill, publisher of Forest Avenue Press, has also announced her newest venture, Author Avenues, in which she’ll be helping new authors who can’t afford their own publicists. She had this to say in her announcement: “Cost is $100/month for this inaugural group. Personalized responses to all your publishing questions! Community interactions! Pitch edits! Topics I've covered so far: book cover release best practices, cover design feedback, how far in advance to pitch bookstores, and blurbs.“ It was fun to design a logo for Author Avenues, playing on the logo I designed for Forest Avenue Press. Authors, this is a great opportunity. You can check it out here.

Lastly, July 18 was the official pub day for the American edition of Like Every Form of Love by Padma Viswanathan (7.13 Books). Its Canadian release was published by Penguin Random House, and it was fun to design the American release cover. Padma’s been doing launch events, starting at The Center for Fiction in New York City. You can check out the book here.

July 23, 2024

Thank you to everyone who came out and packed the house at Powell’s City of Books for Dian Greenberg’s reading event for her new novel Forever Blackbirds! I so enjoyed tag-teaming the hosting duties with publisher Laura Stanfill in conversation with Dian and hearing her read from her lovely book.

Thank you to Laura for the marquee shot and thank you to Brian McDonnell for the rest of the photos below. Brian is a skilled photographer in Portland who does great headshots in particular. You can check out his website here.

July 11, 2024

Upcoming event! On Tuesday, I’ll be in conversation with Dian Greenwood and Laura Stanfill in celebration of Dian’s book Forever Blackbirds, at Powell’s City of Books downtown. 7 PM. I designed the cover and tag-teamed designing the interior with Laura, and both of us can’t wait to chat with Dian about her book, her writing, the craft of writing, and our great writing community.

Laura and I had a surprise yesterday when we discovered that Forest Avenue Press book The Queen of Steeplechase Park by David Ciminello was used in this ad for Frame Central in Seattle Mag. Isn’t that fun?

David is home after his book tour and continuing to promote the book. He was recently on the This Queer Book Saved My Life podcast talking about More Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin, which is archived here. He also chatted with host Ken Jones on KBOO’s Jonesy, archived here.

June 27, 2024

A while back we had our cover release for POST-Apocalyptic Valentine, the poetry collection by Linda Watanabe McFerrin, upcoming from 7.13 Books. I hadn’t yet finished my usual blog post about the process, but here it is now, for anyone who’d like to learn about, not only the design, but also the personal quest ongoing by the artist Iröndäd, who created the art installation that we used on the cover.

June 20, 2024

Happy World Refugee Day! In honor of that, we’re having our cover reveal for A Tree of My Own. This is a project dear to my heart. Well, all projects are, but this one is in particular. The brainchild of Frances Lu Pai for her new nonprofit Qilin Press, A Tree of My Own is a picture book written by Nui Wilson with beautiful art by a Thai illustrator known as Kayor. It tells the story of a young girl from a Karen community in Burma who is displaced from her home, fleeing war to Thailand and eventually to America. I confess that before this project I didn’t know about the Karen culture. It’s a fascinating culture (you can read more about it here) and there is quite a large Karen community here in Portland.

I was brought into the project primarily to work with Kayor and refine the visual storytelling. To do so, I used some of his early sketches, added some of my own, restructured the book, and storyboarded everything. It was a fascinating process and the whole thing was very collaborative. Here in America, Frances, Nui, and I worked together on editing words and tweaking visual details. Once we were done, Kayor, in Thailand, used the storyboard to create the finished art.

But I was also designer for the book and, as such, I get to do a cover reveal. I wrote about the cover process here. You can find more info on Kayor’s art here, and on the book and Qilin press here.

June 18, 2024

Just wanted to share some of the photos of David Ciminello taking Bella out on book tour this spring. He’s done events and signings in at Provincetown Bookshop in Provincetown, Massachusetts; the Bureau of Central Services, Queer Division in New York City; Wachung Booksellers in Montclair, New Jersey; Fabulosa Books in San Francisco, California; and more. He’s back home in Portland with an event at Broadway Books on June 26. Photos by Brian Delaney.

June 12, 2024

June 7 was the cover reveal day for POST-Apocalyptic Valentine, by Linda Watanabe McFerrin, forthcoming from 7.13 books. I have a blog post on the process of creating the cover, but we’re waiting on one thing before I can share. The image is “Free Love Phone Booth” by Iröndäd, photo by Lowry McFerrin. The book comes out in September. More info on the author is here.

Other stuff going on! I have a short story forthcoming in a cool kids’ anthology called The Magic We Miss, published by Believe in Wonder. Look at that great cover illustrated and designed by Brian Parker! Due out this fall.

David Ciminello is out on book tour for his novel The Queen of Steeplechase Park, and I’ll share some fun photos soon. But in the meantime, the audiobook is on sale half off for the rest of this month. Ten bucks, people! More info on that is here.

The book launch for Jamie Yourdon’s Swanya is coming up on June 27 at Up-Up Books. (The graphic below left wasn’t created by me; I just did the cover shown there.)

On June 2, Forest Avenue Press publisher Laura Stanfill and Daniel A. Olives, author of Chicano Frankenstein, were in conversation in a lit event through Busboys and Poets. That fun discussion is archived here.

June 9, 2024

What a lovely surprise! Forest Avenue Press anthology Soul Jar: Thirty-one Fantastical Tales by Disabled Authors, edited by Annie Carl, won the bronze medal in the 2023 Foreword Reviews INDIE Awards in the Anthologies category!

Congratulations to Annie and to Forest Avenue and, of course, to all the authors whose stories make up this collection. Congratulations, too, to some fellow Portland authors who also got nods: Anne Gudger took silver in the Autobiography and Memoir category for The Fifth Chamber, Dian Greenwood took bronze in the General Fiction category for About the Carleton Sisters, and Scott Nadelson got the honorable mention in the Stories category for While it Lasts. In the little cover grid below, I should mention that the only cover I did the design for is Soul Jar. (But I did recently do the cover for Scott’s upcoming novel Trust Me, out in the fall through Forest Avenue, and I did the cover and interior design for Dian’s novel Forever Blackbirds, which is out now.)

May 20, 2024

What are we, eight years down the line from when this book came out, and it’s still going strong out there in the world. City of Weird is up on Powell’s new local interest sale Portland Like a Pro. And look: this graphic they made for the homepage of their website features it along with a handful of other titles from the promo. That graphic was made by Powell’s designer Julia Taylor. City of Weird, and 24 other Portland-related books, will be 20% off at Powell’s through June.

May 13, 2024

Gosh, there is so much going on. And I’m going to admit that I’m being a little selfish here, because I couldn’t wait to share the below-left image because, not only was Daniel A. Olivas’s interview for NPR’s Code Switch just a great interview, not only was it a feather in the cap of Forest Avenue Press to get our author on NPR, but… I mean, that’s my cover… on NPR! I mean, you go on the website and look under books, and there it is (at least for now). You go to the page for the Code Switch podcast, and there it is (at least for now). The show broadcast on Sunday and it was so fun to listen to Daniel discuss Chicano Frankenstein right there on the air. The entire segment is archived here (for always).

Daniel was also recently on Latino Book Chat with another great conversation. And the grid of book covers in the middle below was put together by the Boston Public Library for their “Actually, It's Frankenstein's Monster: 9 Riffs on the Gothic Classic“ list, which also features Chicano Frankenstein.

Speaking of interviews, David Ciminello and publisher Laura Stanfill were interviewed recently on Peace, Love, and Soup, and it was a really lovely, engaging discussion. Anyone who was disappointed that Laura was sick and couldn’t make it for the Powell’s City of Books book launch of The Queen of Steeplechase Park should listen to this podcast and hear what they missed out on. David and Laura were just really great conversation partners and the interview is super fun and fascinating. In the same episode Peace, Love, and Soup also interviewed Lisa Schroeder of Mother’s Bistro, a beloved Portland restaurant, while she made cioppino, a soup that’s one of the recipes in the book.

And speaking of Mother’s, they have a feature called Mother of the Month where they… feature one mother every month—and make up a special menu just for her—and what do you know, Belladonna Marie Donato, star of David’s book The Queen of Steeplechase Park, is May’s Mother of the Month! Lisa made up a menu for Bella based on some of the recipes in the book. The menu includes an image of the book cover and a photo of the real-life woman who was the inspiration for Bella.

And speaking of that photo, you can see it below, not only on the menu but in David’s hand as he showed his great aunt Emily off to the crowd at the Powell’s book launch last Wednesday. (One more bonus pic below right just in order to show off my dress.)

Oh, one more thing. Queen was included in this list “Celebrating Small Presses: A Round-Up of Debuts” on Bloom. Also included (although I didn’t design the cover, but I love the author and did design her next book) is Dian Greenberg’s About the Carleton Sisters.

May 8, 2024

Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate David Ciminello and The Queen of Steeplechase Park! We had a lovely night with a big crowd that asked loads of great questions. Sadly, publisher Laura Stanfill was sick and couldn’t appear, but David and I had a wonderful conversation. Thank you to Hadley Stanfill and Domi Shoemaker for these photos of the event.

May 7, 2024

It’s a two-book-birthday day! First, Forever Blackbirds by Dian Greenwood. Gosh, I’ve known Dian for nigh on twenty years. We met in Tom Spanbauer’s Dangerous Writing workshop sometime back in the mid-oughts, and when she more recently said she was going to put out this book, I jumped at the chance to design it (with some interior-design tag teaming by Laura Stanfill). Laura and I will be appearing with Dian at Powell’s City of Books on July 16.

Second, The Queen of Steephechase Park by David Ciminello, published by Forest Avenue Press. When I saw this book come through the submissions queue last January, I flipped my lid. I’ve known David, too, since my early Dangerous Writing days, and I’ve known and loved the book that long because David was working on it all the way back then. I’m so excited to be in conversation with David and Laura tomorrow night at Powell’s. Portland, come celebrate with us! The Facebook event page is here. And David just got a starred review in Kirkus! Wow. They had this to say: “Love, pain, and nearly magical meatballs make the story of Bella Donato a delightful read.“

In other book news, Daniel A. Olivas has been cutting a rug at Lit Fest in the Dena in Pasadena, California, doing panels and signing copies of Chicano Frankenstein. The book was recently on Electric Literature’s list “15 Indie Press Books to Read This Spring.”

April 28, 2024

A few photos from Independent Bookstore Day at Powell’s! Below are the tables of some presses I’ve worked with, Forest Avenue Press, Not a Pipe Publishing, University of Hell Press, and Hope Well Books. I haven’t done design work for Believe in Wonder, because Brian W. Parker (pictured middle bottom) does all the design and illustration himself (he’s amazing), but I’m including this pic because I love Believe in Wonder. I hope everyone who was out and about celebrating Independent Bookstore Day had a great time.

April 25, 2024

Saturday is Independent Bookstore Day! One of the things Powell’s is doing is having small presses and lit organizations table in two of the stores, and some of my favorite presses, including some I’ve worked with (Forest Avenue Press, University of Hell Press, Not a Pipe Publishing, and Hope Well Books), are among them. It’s going to be a really fun day no matter what indie bookstore(s) you visit. The below graphic was created by Powell’s graphic designer Lauren Rockett.

April is also Autism and Neurodiversity Acceptance Month, and I was excited to see that Zaji Cox’s Plums for Months is up on display at Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing.

May 7 is the book launch of David Ciminello’s The Queen of Steeplechase Park. I’m getting very excited to appear with David and publisher Laura Stanfill at Powell’s downtown May 8 for his big book launch. More of his book tour is below.

Also below is the cover for David’s audiobook. It was fun to hand over the elements of the book cover to the folks at Tantor Media and see how they tszujed it up into an audiobook cover.

Daniel A. Olivas is out there joyfully making the rounds with Chicano Frankenstein. He made a fun soundtrack for the book. And he was interviewed by Mariela Pinilla for Latinx Pop Magazine. He just did another exciting interview, but I can’t disclose the details yet. More to come.

April 15, 2024

Today was the cover reveal day for Like Every Form of Love by Padma Viswanathan. The book is out in Canada through Penguin Random House, and 7.13 Books is putting out its American release. It was a really fun challenge. I love making something out of nothing; for instance in this case, I got to create a design and make it look like a piece of torn fabric. I detailed the process in my blog here.

April 7 was the Powell’s event for Daniel A. Olivas and Chicano Frankenstein. It was a really fun event and he and conversation partner, author Jude Brewer worked really well together and sparked a fascinating conversation about story, politics, and the state of the country.

Then on April 11, he was on KBOO Radio’s Jonesy discussing the book with anchorman Ken Jones. That great conversation is archived here.

April 6, 2024

Last night was the kickoff for S2: Small and Self-Publishing Faire, cohosted by Two Rivers Bookstore and Indigo: Editing, Design, and More. The reading event was lots of fun, including appearances by Kesha Ajọsẹ-Fisher (No God Like the Mother) and featured reader Stephen O’Donnell (Half-Light). One thing that made it extra fun is that Portland artist Gabriel Liston was in the audience sketching the performers. Below is the finished piece he did of Stephen reading his story “Miss Maureen.” Today the faire continued with more readers and tabling by authors and small presses, including Forest Avenue Press (pictured below including publisher Laura Stanfill and author Zaji Cox (Plums for Months).

And we learned that Plums for Months made Library Journal’s Autism Acceptance Month 2024 | A Reading List.

Also recently I got to be a part of the launch of a new small press imprint, Limit Zero, doing the interior design for their first two books, Against Common Sense by Brian S. Ellis and Predators Welcome by Dylan Krieger. I already reported a bit on that process in my blog post about designing Brian’s book, but I liked the graphic the LZ folks put together to finally share about the press on social (they’re a little mysterious about who they are, but I can say that they’re distributed by University of Hell Press), and I wanted to share. The graphic, logo, and book covers are by Joel Amat Güell.

April 2, 2024

Just found out that Daniel A. Olivas will also be appearing at the LA Times Festival of Books. Other guests include Naomi Hirahara, Jonathan Lethem, Myriam Gurba, Lisa See, and more. Info is here.

March 31, 2024

Happy almost April. I’m in the backyard with my computer, enjoying the sunny, if a little chilly, early spring day as I share updates on books I’ve had a hand in.

Daniel A. Olivas is out and about with his new novel Chicano Frankenstein. Recently he was at the Tucson Festival of Books. That’s Daniel along with publisher Laura Stanfill at his table at the festival, lower left. I’m looking forward to celebrating with him in person when he’s at Powells downtown next Sunday.

I got my own copy this week when Laura dropped by with some contributor copies for me: Chicano Frankenstein plus ARCs (advanced reader copies) of Trust Me and The Queen of Steeplechase Park, as well as the tote I designed for Forest Avenue Press. I’m so happy with how it looks, how they all look.

Speaking of contributor copies, I had a surprise package in the mail with a copy of Swanya, Jamie Yourdon’s retelling of Snow White, which will be officially out in the world in May, and which I designed inside and out.

And speaking (before) of book events, Brian S. Ellis is about to head out on a book tour for his poetry collection Against Common Sense. I’m really excited that he’s going to be on the east coast, including at the Cantab Lounge in Cambridge Massachusetts, where he famously performed slam poetry back in the day. In his fiction, published and not-yet-published, he writes about his east coast days so beautifully that it feels extra special to know that he’s going to be back there, reading from this book I love so much.

Lastly, Stephen O’Donnell is one of the writer headliners reading at the Small and Self-Publishing Faire in Portland next weekend. He reads on Friday, April 5, promptly at 7:27 PM. (no typo) More info is here.

March 8, 2024

Wow, more accolades for Chicano Frankenstein! Just heard that it’s included in the “10 New Horror Novels to Keep You Scared this March” list on Book Riot.

And two other Forest Avenue books, No God Like the Mother by Kesha Ajọsẹ-Fisher and Soul Jar edited by Annie Carl, are finalists for the 2023 Foreword Reviews INDIE awards!

March 5, 2024

It’s launch day for Chicano Frankenstein, the newest book out from Forest Avenue Press! I got a little excited and had to make a happy birthday graphic. It was also selected as the Book of the Day over on Foreword Reviews. And the novel is on Literary Hub’s "Mythical Retellings, Mars Colonies, and Reincarnated Lovers: March's Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books" list. Daniel has his book launch tomorrow at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena. Then he’ll be at the Indie Author Pavilion at the Tucson Festival of Books on Sunday, March 10, followed by his event at Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Sunday, April 7.

In other news on books I’m involved in, this interview with publisher Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito in Bold Journey talks about, among other things, her indie publishing projects and gives a sneak peek into the picture book we’re working on, A Tree of My Own.

February 10, 2024

Upcoming events! First up is the second in the Works in Progress series put on by my writing group the Gong Show. Reading from their works in progress will be Robin Carlisle, Christy George, and Holly Goodman, with our special guests Dena Rash Guzman and Jewels, as well as Stephen O’Donnell reading from his book of short stories, Half-Light. Saturday, March 9 at Le Salon Rouge. The Facebook event page is here.

Then two upcoming book launches of Forest Avenue Press novels at Powell’s City of Books in downtown Portland. First up on Sunday, April 7, is Daniel A. Olivas presenting Chicano Frankenstein, in conversation with Jude Brewer. More info is here.

Then on Wednesday, May 8, David Ciminello will be debuting The Queen of Steeplechase Park. I was honored to be asked to join him in conversation alongside publisher Laura Stanfill. I’m really looking forward to it. More info is here.

Both Powell’s event graphics were designed by Powell’s designer Julia Taylor.

February 8, 2024

For a while, I’ve been working on a really wonderful book project that I can’t wait to talk more about—and I’m going to continue to keep it in the bag until a formal announcement is made, but I do want to share this photo of one of our brainstorming meetings—plus something really special. The photo on the right is a gift our writer gave me when the crew arrived. The book involves the Karen culture, which I’m embarrassed to say I hadn’t heard of before. The Karen people come from Southeast Asia, and there are small pockets of Karen people in different places around the world, including here in Oregon. Some background info on them is here. I’ve been learning so much about this culture. One really cool aspect of this culture is their weaving, like these items below. There are two pillow covers, a top, and a shoulder bag. Such care is taken with the hand-work, you can tell. This gift was such a lovely surprise, and I just had to share.

February 2, 2024

Forest Avenue Press has tote bags! It was fun to take the figure of eMa the octopus monster from the cover of City of Weird and reimagine her in one color, using knockouts to define space, for our new souvenir tote. More info and how to buy is here.

While eMa was getting her makeover, Rachel Stolzman Gullo had her launch event for the reissue of The Sign for Drowning (7.13 Books). That’s her pic reading the book second from the right. She tells me the event took place in the Dumbo district of Brooklyn in New York City, and I had to look it up to find out about that area. Fun.

I was excited to hear that author Zaji Cox was awarded a grant, alongside filmmaker Adam Sweeney, from the Regional Arts and Culture Counsel, to make a documentary about Zaji and her book Plums for Months (Forest Avenue Press). Will be interested to see that come together.

And Stephen O’Donnell’s great interview on KBOO is up here. Radio personality Ken Jones always asks such thoughtful, interesting questions and the whole show was just charming and fun. I loved the snippets of Half-Light that Ken chose to read during his remarks.

January 28, 2024

My contributor copies of Mountain Bluebird Magazine arrived yesterday. It was so nice to contribute to this lovely publication. I’ve wanted to submit some writing to them and have just been so busy, but last September I was invited by Leigh Anne Kranz to submit something together and I jumped at the chance. She’s got a great eye as well as being a beautiful writer, and she had posted a photo on Facebook that she’d shot of her cat watching a crow through a doorway with the only evidence of the crow being its shadow in the light reflected on the door. I thought it was such an evocative picture. As I sometimes do with really good photos, I instantly thought of it as the background of a book cover and commented as such. Leigh Anne was thinking of submitting the photo to Mountain Bluebird but unfortunately it wasn’t high-res enough for print—so she asked if I’d be interested in making an illustration of the photo to submit. And then she wrote a gorgeous story to go along with it, and we submitted the two together.

What luck that our pieces were chosen, and now they’re side by side in this lovely magazine. Below left is Leigh Anne’s original photo. In the center is my illustration, and then on the right, Leigh Anne’s nice shot of the two in print. More info on Mountain Bluebird Magazine and how to subscribe (if you do, you get to read her entire beautiful piece) is here.

Another reason I’m touched by this publication is that, like Leigh Anne, I had some (maybe not as magical but still memorable) encounters with crows this past spring and summer, including some seeming crow gifts (one, I swear, was a broken-off ceramic Chihuahua head with coloring like Nicholas). I wrote a post about another encounter here.

January 24, 2024

Radio personality Ken Jones has invited Stephen on his KBOO Radio show Jonesy for a chat about his book Half-Light. You can listen at 11:00 tomorrow, and then the show will be archived, both at the link here.

January 11, 2024

Happy New Year! I had a very bookish New Year’s Day. First, it was the cover reveal for Dian Greenwood’s upcoming novel Forever Blackbirds. I’ve known Dian for, gosh, getting close to twenty years. I met her in Tom Spanbauer’s Dangerous Writing workshop. Back then, she was working on her novel About the Carleton Sisters, which is out now through She Writes Press. When she decided to put out her next two books (a duology) independently, I jumped at the chance to do the design work. We’re finishing the interior now and the book is slated for spring of this year. My blog post detailing some of the work for the cover is here.

Then Powell’s always comes out with its Staff Top Fives on New Year’s Day. For my entry, I offered some indy favorites. My number one this year was Pretty Much the Last Hardcore Kid in This Town by Brian S. Ellis (Alien Buddha Press).

This Monday, January 8, Forest Avenue Press did the cover release for Imagine a Door, due out in 2025. It’s a different sort of venture for Forest Avenue. Usually we do novels and the occasional memoir. Imagine a Door is a book on writing, publishing, and living a creative life. I worked closely with publisher/writer Laura Stanfill on the cover, and wrote about that process here.

I’ve got two more cover releases coming up soon. In the meantime, David Ciminello has been getting some great blurbs for his upcoming Forest Avenue novel The Queen of Steeplechase Park, including from authors Adriana Trigiani, Lidia Yuknavitch, and Fannie Flagg. Wow! I am so in love with this book. I wrote a tiny bit about my love of and my relationship with this book for Powells’ Books that Got Us Through list. This list is a backlist list (list list list), but they made an exception for me to include this preorder. It truly is a book that helped get me through 2023.

December 25, 2023

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and happy holidays to all. It was my turn this year to come up with our family holiday card, and I decided to take this painting by Peter Paul Rubens (second from the left, of course) and update the outfits a little. I was swamped with projects while working on it, so Stephen offered to do some of the final touches. He wrote a bit about it here on his blog.

Speaking of swamped, I’ve designed one book cover after another lately, and two have had cover releases recently.

First up on December 18 was The Sign for Drowning by Rachel Stolzman Gullo, out now from 7.13 Books. I used artwork painted by her cousin Faye Stolzman. I wrote about that project here.

Then on the solstice, we released the cover to Scott Nadelson’s upcoming Forest Avenue Press novel Trust Me. Trust Me is due out in fall of 2024. I wrote about it here.

December 14, 2023

Forest Avenue Press books and authors have been getting some accolades!

Kesha Ajọsẹ-Fisher’s No God Like the Mother was named a “Best Books We Read in 2023” selection by Independent Book Review.

Soul Jar’s editor Annie Carl had this lovely write-up in the Seattle Times about the impending closing of her/our beloved Neverending Bookshop.

Parts per Million, by Julia Stoops, which came out in 2018, recently got some lovely praise in Wolfson Review.

Daniel A. Olivas’s Chicano Frankenstein, which comes out in March, has been getting some early buzz from Fearsome Fiction, Jumpscares, Somos en escrito, and The Boston Review.

And Zaji Cox made the Autism Books by Autistic Authors list of 2023 releases with Plums for Months.

November 29, 2023

The reason I’m neglecting my news page this time is that I’m soooo busy with projects. Wonderful, interesting projects, but it’s making it hard for me to stop and do anything else.

But lots have been happening. We had the Soul Jar book launch at Powell’s downtown. It was a great crowd and a great discussion. And Zaji Cox (Plums for Months) had a pop-up at the Portland Book Festival. You can see her below left, talking to a customer at the the Forest Avenue Press table. Kesha Ajọsẹ-Fisher (No God Like the Mother) was also on hand to sign books.

We had the book launch for Brian S. Ellis’s Against Common Sense in a fabulous… I don’t know what that event space is… like a huge empty industrial building. I absolutely love this collection of poetry. I designed the interior of the book for the new press imprint Limit Zero. It was a fun project because, in designing the book, I got to have a hand (albeit a small one) in creating the new press’s brand. I wrote a little bit about it here.

The super fun book launch of Jonah Barnett’s Moss-Covered Claws (Blue Cactus Press) took place at Portland’s Bishop and Wilde.

Daniel A. Olivas was invited to share an excerpt of his upcoming Forest Avenue Press novel Chicano Frankenstein in the Boston Review here.

David Ciminello’s advanced readers have arrived for The Queen of Steeplechase Park, ready to be distributed to reviewers. That’s David, bottom center, excited after opening the box and seeing them for the first time.

And the aforementioned Soul Jar, which pubbed on October 17, got a starred review in Booklist. I mentioned this below, but now that the review has come out, I can share what they had to say:

“The stories are all amazing and utterly unique, and even the most seasoned readers of speculative fiction will find something they didn’t know they needed here.”

Wow. You can read the whole review here.

Oh, and see? There’s so much going on that I’m forgetting. On November 2, Powell’s started their Best of lists for the year with my Best Books of 2023: Kids and Adults list. You can read that here.

September 22

The Pacific Northwest Bookseller’s Association tradeshow was September 19 through 21. Publisher Laura Stanfill took these great photos of the action at the Forest Avenue Press booth and others. That’s Laura in the upper left-hand corner, showing off the advanced reader for Daniel A. Olivas’s novel Chicano Frankenstein. Editor Annie Carl was onhand to sign copies of Soul Jar—and the book won the BuzzBooks honor for 2023. How fun is that! Also pictured is Jonah Barnett’s reissue of Moss-Covered Claws, soon to be out from Blue Cactus Press, and an array of zines at the Microcosm booth, including two that I designed covers for: I Don’t Believe in Popular Kids, and Updates from the Senior Center.

September 7, 2023

The Portland Writers Picnic is coming up this Sunday. On Wednesday, Steve Arndt (the number one organizer of the event since its inception nine years ago), Carmel Breathnach (writer, friend, and volunteer helper (read her great New York Times story here)), and I got together with KBOO Radio host Ken Jones to do a little ten minute spot about the picnic. It was a lot of fun. You can hear it here, and for Portland-area folks, the Facebook event page for the picnic is here.

August 12, 2023

Today was the cover release day for the third edition of Moss-Covered Claws, by Jonah Barnett, and published by Blue Cactus Press. Their original cover, with art by Sam Breaux, is on the bottom left. For the third edition, they added some new content inside, including a new afterward and a readers’ guide, and they wanted to refresh the cover. My cover redesign is next to the original cover below, and it was such fun to create. Going all vintage-book-cover on this refresh gave me a chance to do things like create an ornate gilt-stamped-style spine for the book. I detailed some of the process here.

I also did a bunch of work on the interior, including adding the below title page. The new edition pubs very soon, and more info is on the Blue Cactus Press website here.

One unrelated note: I recently also designed a new logo for Heavy Feather Review, here.

August 1, 2023

I’m neglecting my news page, and lots has been happening. Some good, some sad. The sad is that I lost two very close friends this spring. First my childhood friend Mara, and then Robert Hill, who I’ve been friends with a long time but was also honored to be able to design a book cover for when Forest Avenue Press published his novel The Remnants. I miss them both. I shared a little about them both: here and here.

But also lots of happy book news. July 2 was the cover reveal day for Forest Avenue’s next novel, Daniel A. Olivas’s Chicano Frankenstein. I wrote about that here.

July 8 was the official book birthday for a project Stephen and I have been working on. In the spring, he had the idea to compile and put out a book of his short stories: Half-Light. I technically had my hands on the controls for the design of both the interior and exterior, but it was a collaboration all the way. They’ll be finding their way to Powell’s Books soon, and he’ll be adding info and a way to purchase to his website as well.

And then some news for some books I’ve done design work for: Michael Shou-Yung Shum’s Queen of Spades, which came out in 2017, had a sweet review here in the Cascadia Daily News. Annie Carl’s Soul Jar landed on this list of “Indie Books We’re Excited About” on the Independent Book Review, and Kesha Ajose-Fisher’s No God Like the Mother landed on this list of “15 Small Press Books You Should Be Reading This Summer” on Electric Literature. On July 21, Forest Avenue’s Laura Stanfill, along with Joe Biel, publisher of Microcosm, which I’ve done some work for as well, were profiled for this piece in Publishers Weekly all about “Disability Representation in Publishing.” Both Soul Jar and the Forest Avenue Press book Plums for Months were included in the piece. Below left is a photo of author Jessi Honard manning the booth at the Columbia Book Festival with her fantasy novel (co-written by Marie Parks) Unrelenting (Not a Pipe Publishing). And lastly, what do you know, Doug Chase, one of my authors from City of Weird, spotted the book for sale at the Kennedy School gift shop just the other day. Coming up eight years down the line, and that little book is still going strong. It’s wonderful to see it out in the world.

June 25, 2023

It’s been too long since I’ve shared any news. Too much going on.

But I did want to share a couple photos from Zaji Cox’s book launch for Plums for Months at Powell’s on May 15th. She had a nice, big crowd and a great conversation with Lidia Yuknavitch. She’s been continuing to do book events, including Coffee Talk on June 6th, and she’ll be at Annie Bloom’s bookstore this coming Tuesday, June 27.

On May 18th, Forest Avenue Press announced the acquisition of The Queen of Steeplechase Park by David Ciminello. I was so excited that we acquired this book because I’ve read pieces of it in workshops and have been in love with it for years. My excitement is also due in no small part to the fact that I get to design a cover for this lush, saucy, beautifully audacious novel. In fact, I’ve been working on it this weekend and am pretty obsessed.

Also, author Kate Ristau got the first batch of copies of the first book in her new series Mythwakers. Those copies went out to Kickstarter patrons, and the book will be officially out in September.

May 9, 2023

It’s official pub day for Plums for Months by Zaji Cox! Come join us on May 15th for the book launch at Powell’s City of Books.

Then she’ll be reading at Portland’s Annie Bloom’s on June 27th, in conversation with Nastashia Minto.

Zaji will be a guest on KBOO Radio’s Jonesy at 11 o’clock on May 11th. You can listen—and the show will be archived—here. Zaji also spoke with publisher Benjamin Gorman on Not A Pipe Publishing’s Writers Not Writing series. Writ Large Projects chose Plums for Months for its next box, and the book also landed in this Book Riot list of new titles and a special Publishers Weekly starred reviews article.

Meanwhile Kesha Ajọsẹ-Fisher’s No God Like the Mother got a wonderful starred review from the Independent Book Review, and made this list of 15 Books for Mother’s Day That Aren’t About Parenting on The Cut.

April 17, 2023

I have a few recently-done book covers that I’m itching to share, but we have late cover-release dates for those, so it’ll be a little bit. Meantime, I interviewed Cathy Camper, kids’ book author of the Lowrider’s series, the sublime Ten Ways to Hear Snow, and her newest, the joyful Arab Arab All Year Long. She had wonderful things to say, and you can read them all here.

April 5, 2023

Last night was the book launch of the Forest Avenue Press reissue of No God Like the Mother by Kesha Ajọsẹ-Fisher at Powell’s City of Books downtown. Her conversation partner Omar El Akkad guided her in a really fascinating discussion that included questions about how Forest Avenue came to acquiring the reprint rights and how I created the new book cover referencing the original issue’s cover. We had a big audience that was eager to celebrate Kesha and her wonderful book.

Ahead of the event, Kesha was invited to chat about the book on Everyday Northwest (KOIN) and that interview is archived here.

To slip in some other news, Forest Avenue has acquired Scott Nadelson’s novel Trust Me, the second acquisition to come from our January/February open submission period. I’m looking forward to getting my hands into the cover design for this upcoming book.

March 31, 2023

Happy Transgender Day of Visibility. I was pleased that Powell’s put Neil Cochrane’s The Story of the Hundred Promises on this great list of “9 New Books to Read This Transgender Day of Visibility.“

March 25, 2023

So excited! Zaji Cox got a starred review in Publishers Weekly for her upcoming memoir Plums for Months (Forest Avenue Press)! They called it, “a tour de force, layered with complexities and wonder, that alchemizes Cox’s unique girlhood to something almost divine.“ Wow! You can read the whole review here.

Her book launch event is coming up on May 15 at Powell’s City of Books. More info is here. The event image below is not mine. I designed the cover in there, but the rest of the design was made by one of Powells’ great designers.

In other Forest Avenue Press news, we signed the contracts for the first acquisition from our 2023 open submission period: Chicano Frankenstein by Daniel A. Olivas. Looking forward to digging into the cover design for that.

I’ve been working on another book cover that I’ll be showing off soon, but I’ve also been doing some promo work. Below is one of the promo images for the upcoming Big Show of Emotions. Super fun to work with the joyful images of hosts Courtenay Hameister and Chris Williams. And next to it is a social image for a really cool reading at KGB Bar in New York City. So I got to spend some time putting a fur hat on a pigeon.

Back in Portland, this coming week is the last week to view Stephen O’Donnell’s show Belle Époque at Russo Lee Gallery. More info on that is here.

March 19, 2023

Happy weekend. We’re doing taxes over here—are you doing taxes over there?

What news since I last wrote? On February 24 (the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine), AP Books released Eye on Solidarity, the memoir of reporter Sonya Zalubowski’s experiences chronicling the rise of the Solidarity movement in Poland as the Polish people fought for their freedom against the Soviet Union in 1981. It was an honor to work with the Associated Press and the author on the cover of the book, using a great historic photo. AP ran a press release that you can read here, and the book is available here.

And look how the back cover for Forest Avenue Press’ Plums for Months turned out! I’m very happy with it. Author Zaji Cox has her big book launch at Powell’s City of Books on May 15. More info on the event, and to preorder, is here.

And OK You’s big variety show the Big Show of Emotions has its new performance date so I got to update the poster. It’s now May 21 at 6 o’clock, still at Polaris Hall in Portland. For more info or to purchase tickets, go here. And I can never talk enough about the great things OK You is doing to help kids get inspired and be their best selves. More information on this fantastic program is here.

February 15, 2023

Submissions are closed for Forest Avenue Press. Thank you to everyone to submitted. The team has a lot of work to do, going through all the great offerings, and I’m enjoying thinking about what designs I might get to do next.

Meantime, we just had our cover release day for Forest Avenue Press’ next anthology, Soul Jar: Thirty-one Fantastical Tales by Disabled Authors. It was a fun and, at times, confounding project. I wrote about it here. The cover is below with the requisite stand-in blurb (I hate sharing them without since the blurb adds to the balance of the design).

Kesha Ajọsẹ-fisher has her book launch coming up for the Forest Avenue Press re-release of No God Like the Mother: Tuesday, April 4, at Powell’s City of Books. (That event graphic isn’t mine, just the book cover. The event graphic was created by a Powell’s designer.)

And Mark Lawton recently presented his zine Updates from the Senior Center (Microcosm) at Annie Bloom’s Books. He was joined in conversation by Jackie Shannon-Hollis, author of This Particular Happiness.

February 12

Shepherd.com invited me to curate a short list for them on the best sci-fi and fantasy books that take you to unexpected places. They like these lists to be completely personal, so it was a lot of fun to do. If you want, you can check that list out here.

January 2, 2023

Happy New Year!

Submissions are now open for Forest Avenue Press! Send us your books! Here are the details, from editor-at-large Liz Prato:

We’re looking for:

• Literary novels

• Contemporary fiction, genre-blending tales, historical fiction, and language-driven fantasy

• We prioritize historically marginalized voices, including BIPOC, queer, neurodivergent, and/or disabled authors

• Send us your most polished manuscript!

• We ONLY accept submissions through Submittable

We will not consider:

• Short story collections, memoir, essays, children's literature or poetry

• Submissions from authors living outside the U.S.

• Early drafts and incomplete manuscripts

• E-mailed queries, or queries made through social media

• Generally, we're not the right place for novels that include depictions of violence and sexual assault

• We do not consider or tolerate stories or language that is racist, homo- or transphobic, ableist, fat phobic, or misogynistic.

Me again. If you’d like to submit, go here. Submissions will be open through February 10.

Speaking of Liz, that’s her picture below in the short array of our first Forest Avenue Press trading cards, a fun little thank you item Publisher Laura Stanfill dreamed up to help celebrate our 10th anniversary this past year. The cards are not for sale and are mainly created to give to the folks in our FAP family. The first batch we made contains editor-at-large Liz Prato, editor Samm Saxby, authors Robert Hill (The Remnants), Michael Shu-Young Shum (Queen of Spades) and Julia Stoops (Parts per Million), and longtime supporter Steve Arndt.

A few year-end accolades for Forest Avenue Press: Beth Kephart’s Wife | Daughter | Self was chosen by Debra Gwartney on this LitHub list of 88 Writers on the Books they Loved in 2022.

And Ari Honarvar’s A Girl Called Rumi made Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2022 list!

November 20, 2022

Lots to celebrate. For one thing, the Mythwakers Kickstarter campaign was a success! It was a nail-biter, or, as one supporter said, a hoof-biter, but things got going fast on the final day and the project was funded. I’m so excited for author/conceptor Kate Ristau, and of course for myself since the cover I had such fun with will get to see the light of day.

Then, big surprise: The Story of the Hundred Promises by Neil Cochrane was in the Washington Post’s “The 9 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels of 2022” list. Wow. Big thanks to Charlie Jane Anders for choosing the book and championing it alongside some other really great books. The list is here.

I got to do a little list curation of my own, recently, with Powell’s “Best Books of 2022: Kids’ and Young Adult,” and a guest spot in Powell’s “Best Books of 2022: Fiction” list, with my favorite book of the year, Laura Stanfill’s Singing Lessons for the Stylish Canary.

Speaking of Laura Stanfill, she was interviewed in Publishers Weekly in an article about women publishers, and she talked all about Forest Avenue Press—how it started, how it grew. That article, “What Women (Publishers) Want,” is here. And in the print edition, they also ran our below ad celebrating 10 years of Forest Avenue Press.

Meanwhile, Ari Honarvar (A Girl Called Rumi) is continuing to tirelessly fight for women’s rights in Iran. An interview with her aired on MBC Persia, and she was recently in a segment on NewsNation. One thing she’s advocating for: voting for the Iranian protesters to be Time magazine’s Person of the Year. She says: “More eyeballs on Iran = Less the regime’s ability to commit crimes against humanity in the comfort of darkness.“ If you’d like to add your voice, you can do so here.

October 30, 2022

Some more accolades and news about a couple Forest Avenue Press authors.

Neil Cochrane’s The Story of the Hundred Promises got a great review in Shelf Awareness. And the book was recently a Book of the Day on Foreword Reviews.

On October 13th, Neil was on KBOO’s Jonesy with a great discussion about his book, his love of folk tales, inclusion, gender and pronouns, his next project, and more. The extended version of the show is available here. He will also be popping up at the Portland Book Festival next weekend.

Ari Honarvar recently wrote about the struggle for women’s rights in Iran and what that foreshadows for women in America, in this article in Newsweek.

October 23, 2022

A couple books I did design work for have just launched! I love to see how publishers and authors celebrate their work when they’ve gone to press.

First up was Glory Guitars, by Gogo Germaine and published by University of Hell Press. I didn’t design the cover (below in red) (although they have an array of colors to choose from when you buy direct from UHell!), but I did the interior design using assets the publisher gave me, by cover designer Joel Amat Güell. Here’s an example page (below in black and white)—punk skull and CD by Joel, the rest by me. A fun project. Gogo celebrated her book launch with her name in lights—literally: splashed across the historic Daniels and Fisher Tower in Denver. Her official launch was October 11, with an event at The Tattered Cover Bookstore.

Next was Please Be Advised, by Christine Sneed and published by 7.13 Books. It pubbed on October 18 and can be ordered here. She’s doing a bunch of events, including a reading at KGB Bar in New York City coming up on Tuesday.

October 13, 2022

Gosh, this image is pretty huge but it was the best way to arrange all the covers of the books Forest Avenue Press has published in the ten years of our existence, and not leave spaces or leave anything out. Yes, we’re celebrating our ten-year anniversary this month. It astonishes me, all that has happened in these ten years. I wrote a bit about it here.

October 9. 2022

Eek, it’s been nearly a couple months since I’ve updated my news page. Well, October 4th was the pub day for The Story of the Hundred Promises, by Neil Cochrane, published by Forest Avenue Press. The book launch event was that night at the downtown Powell’s and Neil was so charming and engaging and funny - and look at that outfit. He had a good turnout and sold a bunch of books and it was a really lovely night.

Here’s the very nice Foreword Reviews review of the book.

And BookRiot included it in their list “10 of the Best SFF Releases out in October, 2022.”

I’ve been at work on a number of projects, big and small. I had fun designing a demure (I’m kidding) poster for the upcoming Big Show of Emotions, a benefit for OK You, one of my favorite organizations around. Hosted by Chris Williams and Courtenay Hamster, with loads of talent on the bill—at Polaris Hall on November 13. EDIT: this event is being postponed. I’ll share about it again when there is new information.

I’ve also been working on the cover of a super fun kids’ book, the interior of a book about the history of hip hop, and some promotional materials for a couple different presses. More to come.

August 13, 2022

Had a couple of cover releases this past month-plus for Forest Avenue Press titles. First Plums for Months, Zaji Cox’ lovely, elegant memoir. The image below has no blurb yet because we haven’t decided, but I am just on the verge of designing the back cover and spine for the book and we’ll soon be sending it off to print. It’s due out next May. More info is here. I wrote about the process of creating the design here.

Next, I designed a cover for the re-release of Kesha Ajọsẹ-Fisher's award-winning story collection No God Like the Mother. Such an interesting project because we wanted the new art to pay homage to the original edition’s cover art, which was created by Kesha’s own daughter, Omo’Dara Ajọsẹ-Fisher. I hope I did her honor with the new design. You can see the original along with bits and pieces in my process in my blog post here. More info on the book, which will be out later this year, is here.

And then today I wrote up a little post on a project I’ve been having such fun with, the interior design for the memoir Glory Guitars, by Gogo Germaine, which will be published in October by University of Hell Press. The image I share below is the title page which I put together using bits of the cover art by Joel Amat Güell. My brain really likes interior book design, laying down the text and making it flow elegantly, but this project was even more fun, full of lots of embellishment I got to do using Joel’s art and my own, as Gogo put it, “punk doodles.” One of the cool features of this book is that, if you preorder (which you can do now) through the University of Hell website, you can choose from five different colored covers. If you want to read more about the project (at least my part in it), you can do so here.

June 27, 2022

Some Forest Avenue Press books in the wild! The American Library Association annual conference. These photos were taken by Laura Stanfill who’s out there representing her lovely book Singing Lessons for the Stylish Canary and speaking on the “Chapter One” Stage. At the Publishers Group West booth she spotted upcoming FAP novel The Story of the Hundred Promises and our anthology Dispatches from Anarres, whose honorable mention for the Foreword Reviews INDIES is noted on the flyer shown on the right.

June 26, 2022

It’s hard to write about happy things while women’s rights are being stripped away and covid is out there raging with no regulations to help tamp it down. But I want to keep up with announcements of little joys in my world, for the authors and publishers I work with.

Ari Honarvar (A Girl Called Rumi) was San Diego Public Library's Author of the Month this June.

In honor of Beth Kephart’s Wife|Daughter|Self being a finalist for the Big Other book award for nonfiction, The Big Other invited her to read a passage from the book. Here she is reading a lovely piece about her father.

Charlie Jane Anders gave Neil Cochrane’s The Story of the Hundred Promises this great shout-out in her piece about “sweetweird storytelling,” in her latest newsletter.

Dispatches from Anarres won an honorable mention in the Foreword INDIES Awards, in the anthology category. How cool is that? Here’s the page with the announcement, and here’s a link to the rest of the winners.

And Forest Avenue Press recently acquired the reprint rights to Kesha Ajọsẹ Fisher's story collection No God Like the Mother. It was originally published in 2019—and in 2020 won the Ken Kesey Award for Fiction!—but the press that published it, Portland's Inkwater Press, closed its doors and the book went out of print. It’s been an honor to work on a new cover for this wonderful book. More info about the acquisition is here.

I’ve also been at work on a cover for the next Forest Avenue Press memoir, Plums for Months by Zaji Cox, and we’ll be doing a cover release for that very soon.

May 18, 2022

It’s pub day for House Fire by Jim Nawrocki, published by 7.13 Books! It’s available here.

Recently, I’ve been working on a very fun project for a book interior, but I took a break to make updates on a couple of book covers. First, just as we were heading to print on Neil Cochrane’s The Story of the Hundred Promises (Forest Avenue Press), we got a great new blurb. From Charlie Jane Anders, author of All the Birds in the Sky, among other books. It was so wonderful that we had to put it on the front cover. So I jumped back in and made updates to both the front and back cover of the book. Here’s the full blurb:

“This book made me cry in the middle of an airport. I love the story of Darragh, a transmasc sailor, going back home to visit his dying father and then going on a quest to find the legendary Enchanter who helped him to transform himself when he was a child. I hope every queer person (and everyone else) who loves fantasy checks out this book. It is full of trans, agender, non-binary and asexual representation, along with widespread use and acceptance of neo-pronouns. And gratutious kindness! The whimsical, quirky tone of this book and its loving reinvention of fairy-tale forms reminded me of Daniel Lavery, in a very good way. I never wanted this book to end! The Story of the Hundred Promises is the trans fable the world needs right now.”

Second, I got to add this shiny badge to the book cover of Ari Honarvar’s novel A Girl Called Rumi (Forest Avenue Press), which has won silver in the Nautilus Book Awards. The Nautilus Book Awards recognize "exceptional literary contributions to spiritual growth, green values and sustainability, high-level wellness, responsible leadership and positive social change and social justice, as well as to the worlds of art, creativity and inspirational reading for children, teens and young adults." All the winners can be found here.

April 20, 2022

Yesterday was a two-book-launch day, one book I had a hand in and one that I didn’t but that I am so in love with.

First: Unrelenting (Not a Pipe Press), the book whose cover is so huge just below this note (sometimes it’s impossible to get this website to do what I want it to do, and I can’t get it any smaller). Author Jessi Honard reported that, with preorders, the novel is ranked #95 for LGBTQ+ Fantasy on Amazon.

Second: Laura Stanfill, my friend and publisher of Forest Avenue Press, welcomed her own debut novel, Singing Lessons for the Stylish Canary (Lanternfish Press) into the world. I had the chance to read a review copy and I love this book! Here’s the blurb I wrote:

The writing is whimsical but transcends whimsy. The story is magical but transcends magic. Laura Stanfill's Singing Lessons for the Stylish Canary is deceptively delightful, exploring real-world themes of connection, loss, feminism, death, and identity, all wrapped up in lyrical language, bountiful cleverness, and endless wit. Resplendent and transcendent.

Fellow writer/bookseller Doug Chase and I interviewed Laura for Powell’s Books. You can check that out here.

April 17, 2022

Oh, I’m neglecting my news page again. Here’s a bit of a catch-up.

I was excited to listen to a segment about Dispatches From Anarres on a recent episode of OPB’s Think Out Loud, hosted by Allison Frost. It was a great conversation with editor Susan DeFreitas and authors Curtis Chen and Rachael K. Jones.

Then found a cute mention of the first anthology I was ever in, Portland Noir, in this great story about the Portland mobile library Street Books. The story is so not about the book, so I’m being totally self-involved even to mention it here, but I just loved the fact that the the book was included in the innaugural offerings of Street Books, back when it was a one-person, one-bike enterprise.

March 21st was the official cover release day for the novel Unrelenting, by Jessi Honard and Marie Parks and published by Not a Pipe Press. LGBTQReads.com gave them an exclusive cover reveal here. And I wrote about the process of putting together the book cover here.

And Ari Honarvar’s A Girl Called Rumi was one of three books spotlighted in this lovely feature, “Celebrating the Great Writing Found in Indie Books” in Kirkus Reviews.

Finally, I’m over the moon excited for the launch, coming up this week, of the debut novel by Forest Avenue Press publisher Laura Stanfill: Singing Lessons for the Stylish Canary. You can find more info about the book, including my staff pick, on Powells.com here. And I can’t wait to celebrate with Laura at her Powell’s book launch event this coming Thursday, April 21.

March 25, 2022

Another happy nod to Beth Kephart’s Wife | Daughter | Self: the memoir is up for the 2021 Big Other Book Award for Nonfiction!

And here’s a story by Ari Honarvar (A Girl Called Rumi) about her arranged friend group in The Atlantic.

March 14, 2022

What a lovely surprise. Three Forest Avenue Press books are finalists for the Foreword Reviews INDIE awards. Ari Honarvar’s A Girl Called Rumi, in the Multicultural category, Beth Kephart’s Wife | Daughter | Self, in the Autobiography and Memoir category, and Dispatches From Anarres, edited by Susan DeFreitas and with so many great stories by so many great writers, in the Anthologies category. All the categories and finalists are here.

February 26, 2022

My heart is with Ukraine. It’s hard to share good things when big, bad things are going on.

But I do have a few new book covers that I want to share. The first is House Fire, by Jim Nawrocki. Jim died of cancer in 2018, and it was an honor to be able to design the cover of his book of poetry and short stories. It was a bittersweet experience, which I wrote about on my blog here. The book will be out on May 18th, published by 7.13 Books.

The second is Please Be Advised, by Christine Sneed, also published by 7.13 Books. It’s a very funny novel written in office memos, and it was a really fun project. I wrote about that one here. It will be out this coming October.

Info on these books, and others, can be found on the 7.13 website here.

The third happened last month but somehow didn’t make it into my news lineup. That’s the Forest Avenue Press book The Story of the Hundred Promises, an adult fairytale that’s loosely based on Beauty and the Beast, but from a trans perspective. Written by Neil Cochrane. I wrote about that one here.

January 29, 2021

I can’t believe it’s almost February.

I’ve been so loving going to the different online events for Dispatches From Anarres and listening to my fellow dispatchers read from their pieces and talk about their relationships to Ursula K. Le Guin’s work. And suddenly my own event is coming up next Sunday, February 5th, at noon.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a lit event, so I’m both excited and a little freaked (freakcited) about this online event that also features writers Michelle Ruiz Kiel, Stewart C. Baker, and Tim O’Leary, and hosted by Annie Carl of the Neverending Bookshop. Info and the Zoom link are here.

Annie is also editing Forest Avenue Press’ next anthology, and submissions are open now, for science fiction and fantasy stories written by disabled writers. 5000 words or less. The submission period lasts through March 17th and you can submit here.

In my current projects, I’ve been working on some interior details for Forest Avenue Press’ next novel, The Story of the Hundred Promises, plus front covers for three other books for other presses, and I’m soon to be working on the cover for Karena Stoner’s next children’s book. It’s good to be busy, and I’m enjoying how different all these projects are.

December 31, 2021

Happy New Year’s (Eve), everyone. I hope you are healthy and safe on this, the last day of another difficult year.

I’ve got some book news I’m thankful for, for books I’ve had a small hand in. Ari Honarvar’s A Girl Named Rumi landed on the Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2021 list! I’m so excited for her and for Forest Avenue Press. You can check out the special issue here. Ari’s book is listed on page 260 and reviewed on page 271.

And how cool is this? NPR’s Scott Simon interviewing Shawn Levy about his book A Year in the Life of Death.

There are more events coming up for Dispatches from Anarres. The first features authors Tina Connolly, Kesha Ajọsẹ Fisher, Rachael K. Jones, and TJ Acena, and will be moderated by the book’s copy-editor Bailey Potter. It takes place virtually, on January 6th, at Annie Bloom's Books. More info is here.

And I was surprised and tickled to find that my Oregon Arts Watch spotlight from earlier this year ended up re-featured on their end-of-the-year list, The People Who Made the Art. Thanks to Bob Hicks and Oregon Arts Watch. There are loads more cool profiles of art and artists of all kinds in the wrap-up. You can check it out here.

December 15, 2021

Some updates on the lives of some books I’m involved with…

Ken Jones of the KBOO Community Radio show Jonesy interviewed Shawn Levy about his book A Year in the Life of Death on Thursday, November 11th. That great program is here.

Then on Thursday, December 9th, he welcomed Susan DeFreitas, editor of Dispatches from Anarres, as well as David Naimon, who wrote the foreword, and they had a great discussion about the book and about Ursula K. Le Guin. That is archived here.

We were also excited that Dispatches appeared on this list of “13 Books by Oregon Authors for Holiday Giving,” in The Oregonian.

And Beth Kephart’s memoir Wife | Daughter | Self made this list of “Impressive Indie Press Books of 2021,” up on the Independent Book Review.

November 19, 2021

The Powell’s virtual launch for Dispatches from Anarres was lovely. I took a few screenshots of editor Susan DeFreitas in conversation with contributors Curtis C. Chen, Leni Zumas, and David D. Levine. It was such a fun evening with about 85 attendees and a wonderful discussion about Ursula K. Le Guin and some great questions in the Q&A, and look! The book rose as high as #4 on the Powell’s bestseller list!

November 15, 2021

Books in the world! Here’s Dispatches from Anarres up on Powell’s Picks of the Season and A Year in the Life of Death on Powells’ Great Gifts $25 and Under display. Also a shot from the University of Hell Press booth at the Portland Book Festival this last weekend. And then I thought this Halloween idea from Not a Pipe Press was fun: the publisher carved jack-o-lanterns with the titles of some of his books, including Maren Anderson’s Sparks.

November 10, 2021

Got my contributor samples of a patch I designed for the Anxiety Society. They ended up so cute!

The deal is, if you become a member of the Anxiety Society, which helps fund the fabulous Create More, Fear Less program, you get a pin as a thank you gift. I designed those last year and it was such a fun project. Then the folks at Create More, Fear Less decided they wanted more thank you gifts so that, each year you complete in the Anxiety Society, you get one more. So, this year I got to design these merit patches - and if you were a Brownie like me, you’ll understand why they’re so fun. The first patch, which all members receive after the first full year of membership, just got manufactured. You can see the whole set (collect all five!) on the right. I love designing for this program because it is so darn wonderful. If you’re interested in finding out more about the Anxiety Society and the program Create More, Fear Less, and its parent program OK You, check out their website here.

October 23, 2021

I’ve been doing design work on a series of children’s books. They’re written by Cristianne Lane and illustrated by William Bolls - so I can’t take credit for this adorable doggy. I designed the covers using Bolls’ illustration and created the lettering by hand in Illustrator. I also laid out the interiors using Bolls’ artwork and per Lane’s specifications for design. It’s a sweet story in which a dog adopted to a very sports-minded couple gets out of the yard on game day to have an adventure at the stadium.

You can check them out here: Bronco (Boise) ~ Bronco (Denver) ~ Gator ~ Bear. (I generally link to independent bookstores or publisher websites, but this series is published exclusively through Amazon.)

October 19, 2021

Two launches today! Well, three, but two in my family.

First is the twin book launch of A Year in the Life of Death: Poems Inspired by the Obituary Pages of the New York Times, by Shawn Levy, and 2020*: The Year of the Asterisk, edited by Greg Gerding, both just out from University of Hell Press. I’m so excited for Shawn’s book to be out in the world, not only because I designed it inside and out, but because I loved the book so much. I didn’t do any design work on Asterisk, but some favorite writers of mine are in it and I’ve already started reading it and it’s super good. More info is on the UHell website here.

And my husband, Stephen O’Donnell, has his launch of his art show "Re:Pose - Subverting the Gendered Gaze in the Historical Nude," which will be on view at Froelick Gallery from October 19th to November 27th. More info, and images, are on the Froelick Gallery website here.

Thirdly (not a launch), Powell’s came out with its Best Books of 2021: Kids' and Young Adult list, which is something I curate each year. You can check the list out here.

October 16, 2021

Announcing Forest Avenue Press’ next anthology project!

It will be an anthology of science fiction, fantasy, and speculative short stories by disabled authors, edited by bookseller Annie Carl, slated for publication in 2023. I’m so excited about this! Submissions will be accepted through Submittable beginning in January 2022. Here’s Annie’s bio!

Editor Annie Carl was born with a rare spinal birth-defect (lipomeningomyelocele) and is a Stage IV Non-Hodgkins survivor. She owns and runs The Neverending Bookshop in Edmonds, WA. She is the author of My Tropey Life: How Pop Culture Stereotypes Make Disabled Lives Harder. When not running an award-winning bookstore, Annie reads massive quantities of science fiction, fantasy, and romance; pole dances; knits; and hangs out with her goofy family and friends.

You can find more info here.

October 10, 2021

I’m going to probably be talking a lot about Dispatches from Anarres on this newsfeed for a while. It’s going to be launching in a month and there’ll be loads of events coming up because we want all the authors to get a chance to participate.

Here’s info on our first two:

We were invited to do an in-person event at the Portland Book Festival! That will be at 10 AM on Saturday, November 13, at the Portland’5 (no, that’s not a typo) Brunish Theatre, at 1111 SW Broadway Avenue in Portland. That event will feature authors Jason Arias, Rene Denfeld, Juhea Kim, and Jessie Kwak, with Arwen Spicer as moderator.

All attendees to in-person events at the Portland Book Festival must show proof of vaccination, or a negative covid test taken within 72 hours of the event date to attend. Masks must be worn in accordance with local mandates. (Note: I know I’m being grammatically incorrect in the way I’m spelling covid but, damn it, I can’t stand giving the word the power of all-caps.)

More info on the event is here.

More info on the Portland Book Festival is here.

And our virtual Powell’s launch will be at 5 PM on Thursday, November 18. That event will feature editor Susan DeFreitas and authors David D. Levine, Michelle Ruiz Keil, Lidia Yuknavitch, Curtis C. Chen 陳致宇, and Leni Zumas.

October 5, 2021

Powell’s Picks of the Season have launched, and Dispatches from Anarres is on the list! Wow. Huge thanks to Doug Chase for advocating for the book and for his lovely blurb:

“Dispatches From Anarres is why I read. This remarkable anthology of short stories in tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin is filled with thoughtful, heartbreaking, funny tales. Some will remind you of Le Guin and others of her spirit. I found myself pausing to think and breathe after many of the stories. This book is both readable and deep.”

All of the Picks of the Season are here.

The book is available for preorder now. And, people! If you’re doing to be buying books as holiday presents, I and everyone in bookselling are strongly suggesting starting yesterday because of the supply chain issues hitting books just as much as other industries this year. Seriously, preorders are very important if you want to assure that you get the books you want this season. In fact, I wrote about it in our most recent post for Aunt Paige’s advice column (Aunt Paige is a conglomerate of three people, one of whom is me).

October 1, 2021

Today was the cover release for another project I’ve been working on that I couldn’t wait to share: Brownie’s Big PDXmas by Karena Stoner.

This was the first children’s picture book I’ve ever done a cover for, and I was so excited because I love picture books so much.

It was fun to work with the art of illustrator Anastasia Khmelevska. I took the Brownie from one illustration and the background from another and modified it all a bit to add extra on the edges for a bleed as well as toning down certain spots where I wanted text to go. For that text, I created the lettering by hand (my computer hand), which was a fun process.

I wrote about the whole thing on my blog here.

The paperback is already available at Barnes and Noble here, but Brownie’s Big PDXmas will soon be available in more places and in hardcover as well.

Interestingly, though this is the first book cover I’ve designed for a picture book, I’ve since designed the cover for another picture book, and it’s another book with a dog as the star. In that project, I designed the interior layout as well. More on that soon.

September 25, 2021

It’s the last Saturday for Journal On! this year, and here’s the final prompt. I want to say a big thank you to Kathleen Lane and Sara Guest and everyone involved in this lovely program for letting me be a part of it in my small way.

September 24, 2021

Ari Honarvar’s novel A Girl Called Rumi officially pubbed on September 21st, and her Powell’s launch was tonight. It was a virtual event and I took a few screen shots here and there in the evening.

I used to always complain about my bad photography skills at in-person events, and now I can complain about the quality of screen shots. But I loved the laugh I caught Ari’s conversation partner Ashleigh Renard in in the below shot.

They worked so well together and the conversation was so interesting and engaging. Ari is such a great storyteller. It was a really lovely event. A Girl Called Rumi is now available in all sorts of places, including here on Powell’s where you can click to see the whole event if you’d like.

September 18, 2021

It’s raining in Portland! Feels so good, although Chihuahua Nicholas is not happy.

This is the second to last Saturday for Journal On!, and the prompt is below. What brings you joy and energy? How would that energy look if you held it in your hands? It’s hard to find joy these days, with all that’s going on in the world, but it’s so important to try.

I get a lot of joy out of watching the books I design for live in the world. This month, it’s the first anniversary of Joanna Rose’s novel A Small Crowd of Strangers, and I loved the below photo that publisher Laura Stanfill snapped when her dog Waffles jumped up on top of the boxes of second-printing copies of Small Crowd. She wrote about that reprint, and so much more, in this piece up on Catapult: “Be Yourself and Sell More Books.”

She also recently did an interview all about Forest Avenue Press for Hub City’s “Meet a Press” series. And she gave me a shout-out in her newsletter The Bright Side, talking about, among other things, book covers, ones for the press, but also the one for her upcoming debut novel Singing Lessons for the Stylish Canary. It’s a lovely newsletter, well worth subscribing to.

September 11, 2021

Here’s Journal On! prompt #10!

September 8, 2021

A Girl Called Rumi is getting more buzz as it heads toward publication. It was included on Buzzfeed’s “18 Books from Small Presses You’ll Love” list and on the “10 Debut Books to Read This September” list just out from Debutiful.

September 4, 2021

For anyone following along, here’s prompt #9 for Journal On! As I’ve mentioned below, but it’s been a while, more info is on the Portland Art Museum’s website here.

September 3, 2021

Forest Avenue Press’ next novel, A Girl Called Rumi, by Ari Honarvar, comes out on September 21st. We were excited that the book was just featured in Ms. Magazine’s “September 2021 Reads for the Rest of Us,” a monthly list of new books by writers from historically excluded groups.

Ari has her book launch at a masked, socially-distanced in-person event at Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego, California, on September 22nd, at 7 PM. More info on that event is here.

Her Portland Powell’s event will be virtual, on September 24th at 5 PM, and she will be in conversation with Ashleigh Renard. More info is here.

I also discovered a little ink for a book series I designed covers for years ago. Jeff Johnson’s Darby Holland series is on the list “Portland: Noir in the City of Roses” up on crimereads.com. It was a fun series to design for.

August 30, 2021

Forest Avenue Press’ upcoming anthology Dispatches from Anarres has officially gone to print! So excited for this book to be out in the world. It officially pubs on November 9th.

I spent parts of the weekend working on the back cover and spine for Dispatches. As I did for the front cover, I used artwork created by my brother Frank in the design. It’s been so fun and such an honor to work with his art like this. More info on the book is here.

Today was also the cover release day for a project I’ve loved working on: A Year in the Life of Death, a book of poetry based on New York Times obituaries from 2016. The book is by Shawn Levy and published by University of Hell Press. I absolutely love the book and was honored to be contracted to design not only the cover but the interiors too.

I talked about my process working on the cover, and gushed about the book, on my blog here.

The book will be out on October 19 but is available for preorder now through places like Powell’s or through the U-Hell website.

Folks who order A Year in the Life of Death directly from the University of Hell can package it, at a discount, with their essay collection 2020*: The Year of the Asterisk, which is pubbing on the same day. Info on that is here.

August 28, 2021

Here’s Journal On! prompt #8.

August 21, 2021

I’ve been neglecting my website. Here are Journal On! prompts 5, 6, and 7.

I’ve been working on a bunch of projects, mostly book covers and/or interiors, and am sort of itching to show some off, but a few are in progress and a couple are done but I’m waiting on publisher OKs to do cover releases. I hope to have more to put in here soon.

July 31, 2021

Journal On! prompt #4!

I also want to report that my publisher of Forest Avenue Press, Laura Stanfill, has been getting lots of pieces of her own out in the world lately. Check out her lovely essay about writing with her daughters during the pandemic, up on Shondaland. And another essay, “Window Mail,” just went up on Santa Fe Writers Project's Quarterly journal as part of Disability Pride Month. And she was recently on the Imperfectly Polished podcast discussing publishing, writing, and neurodivergence.

July 24, 2021

Here comes Journal On!’s third prompt. How do you add an apostrophe-S to a name that contains an exclamation point? Ha. If you’re interested in learning more, check out their website here.

July 17, 2021

It’s Saturday, so the second Journal On! prompt has gone up. If you’re following along, here are two of the prompts, last week’s and this (you can use them however and whenever you want).

A bit of lovely news is that Forest Avenue Press’ novel A Small Crowd of Strangers by Joanna Rose has gone into its second printing - a huge accomplishment for a small press book that launched during a pandemic. The picture on the lower right is one publisher Laura Stanfill snapped when she was celebrating this recently with a trip to the beach.

July 10, 2021

A project I’ve really enjoyed working on recently was designing web and social graphics for Journal On!. A collaboration between the Portland Art Museum, Portland Public Schools, and OK You, Journal On! presents a prompt a week all summer long, inviting kids as well as adults to create art that will be gathered into, "one enduring art journal, made up of many, to capture our shared story of this unique moment in history."

Today is the launch of the 2021 edition of Journal On!, and here’s the first prompt. To join in or check it out, follow on Instagram @journal_on_everyone or go to their website. I wrote a bit about doing the designwork here.

June 25, 2021

Ramiza Shamoun Koya has been getting some more love for her book The Royal Abduls.

She won a bronze medal in the Foreword INDIES awards, multicultural category. Other winners are here.

The Independent Book Review featured the book in their article, "30 Indie Press Books You Might Have Missed from the Start of the Pandemic." The full list is here.

And lastly, writer Kristin Noreen included some of Ramiza’s story (fighting to get The Royal Abduls out in the world at the start of the pandemic while also at the end of her life due to her cancer) in the article “Releasing Books During a Pandemic” on Whatcom Talk. That story is here.

June 17, 2021

Dionne Irving just got a great review for her upcoming novel Quint in Publishers Weekly. So happy for her, and for editor Hasanthika Sirisena of 7.13 Books.

June 10, 2021

It’s publication day for Caitlin Vance’s short story collection The Paper Garden! Congratulations to Caitlin and to her publisher, 7.13 Books.

And Beth Kephart’s memoir Wife | Daughter | Self, published by Forest Avenue Press, is on Buzzfeed’s list of “18 New Books from Small Presses that You Won't Want to Put Down.” You can check out all eighteen titles here.

April 17, 2021

So excited to learn that Forest Avenue Press was awarded an Oregon Literary Fellowship! The money will go toward the publication of our upcoming anthology Dispatches from Anarres: Tales in Tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin, which is due out this coming November. Congratulations to all the fellowship recipients. You can check them all out here.

April 14, 2021

It’s cover release day for Dionne Irving’s novel Quint, due out in August from 7.13 Books.

Quint is based on the lives of the Dionne Quintuplets who were born in 1934 in Ontario. It was a super fun cover to design, and I wrote about the process here.

Check out that Wally Lamb blurb!

Here’s some literary news about other books I’ve designed covers for:

Publishers Weekly recently reviewed Caitlin Vance’s short story collection The Paper Garden (7.13 Books), calling the stories, “immersive and gripping.” You can read the whole review here.

The Adroit Journal has an interview with Beth Kephart, author of Wife | Daughter | Self (Forest Avenue Press), here.

Beth also recently had this gorgeous essay in Catapult.

The Big Other recently announced their book award winners. Ramiza Shamoun Koya’s The Royal Abduls (Forest Avenue Press) was a finalist for best fiction. I’m so glad her book has been getting the recognition it deserves.

For my part, I’m currently working on a project that’s very close to my heart and I hope to talk more about that soon. But it’s a writer I love and a publisher I love and a book that I have read cover to cover (digitally, of course, since it doesn’t yet have pages, or a cover, hence my part) and am completely in love with.

More to come.

March 21, 2021

Forest Avenue Press has a new cover for our upcoming anthology Dispatches from Anarres: Tales in Tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin!

Our original cover was very science-fiction in tone, and I started to really worry that I was getting it wrong. That I hadn’t adequately evoked Le Guin with my original concept. With the blessing of publisher Laura Stanfill and editor Susan DeFreitas, I decided to go back to the drawing board on this one and explore a direction that would be more focused on the natural world than space and technology, and I did this with help from my brother.

Not every book designer is lucky enough to have a brother who designs alien landscapes, but I thankfully do. Do yourself a favor and check out Frank Little’s work on DeviantArt here. I used his piece entitled “Hanging Artichoke” as the basis for the new cover.

It was super fun to work with his art, and I wrote about the process of creating the new design here.

The space at the top of the cover is waiting for a blurb, as we’re just at the point in the creation of this book where advanced reader copies will soon be going out to reviewers.

I’m super excited about this book, and it’s due to pub this coming November.

February 27, 2021

I was profiled for Oregon ArtsWatch. Big thanks to writer Carmen Burbridge and editor Bob Hicks for the story. You can check it out here.

This coming Monday is the official pub date for Sara Lippmann’s Doll Palace, published by 7.13 Books. And then Tuesday is the official pub date for Wife | Daughter | Self by Beth Kephart, published by Forest Avenue Press. I talked about both of these book covers in Oregon ArtsWatch.

Beth’s book launch event is on Wednesday, March 3, through the Free Library. Join us in celebrating Beth and her writing. More info is here. The Free Library put together a Facebook event page here. The event is totally virtual, of course, and she’ll be in conversation with actress and author Jacinda Barrett.

Also, check out this sweet thing! Writer Carmel Breathnach wrote a tasty blog post pairing five books with five teas and gluten-free treats, and one of the books she chose was Wife | Daughter | Self. Her post made me want to curl up with tea and a good book. You can read the whole post here. The lovely pic on the left is Carmel’s.

February 26, 2021

More from Taylor Swift as Books! So fun. I love creator Amy Lorraine Long’s eye as she pairs her images. What a clever series, and I love when she includes one of the covers I designed. She recently did Ari Honarvar’s A Girl Called Rumi and Beth Kephart’s Wife | Daughter | Self. Note the side-sweep of hair that works so well with the slant of flowers on Wife | Daughter | Self, and on A Girl Called Rumi, not only the sly peek of scrollwork on the chair that mirrors Ari’s calligram, but the side view of Taylor that matches the side view of the Simorgh’s head. Check out more of her work on Instagram here.

February 7, 2021

Today was the cover release for Sara Lippmann’s 7.13 Books release of her short story collection Doll Palace. When I sent the publisher and author an early draft of what would, with tweaks, become the final cover, Sara called it “funny and deranged,” which I felt was pretty high praise.

The collection was originally published in 2014 by Dock Street Press, and this March, 7.13 Books will be doing the re-release, with the new cover. In my design, I included a small homage to the cool original cover. I wrote about that, and the whole process of designing the new one here. The post includes the original cover, if you’d like to see it.

The post also contains one of the stories from the book reprinted in its entirety.

With the rest of my weekend, I’ve been working on Doll Palace’s back cover and spine, as well as the back and spine for Ari Honarvar’s A Girl Called Rumi, and I’ve been tinkering with a new design for another book that will be out this year from 7.13 Books. More on that to come.

January 31, 2021

Have you heard of this Taylor-Swift-as-Books meme? They pair pictures of Taylor Swift with visually-appropriate book covers, and recently they did Hot Season by Susan DeFreitas, a cover I designed. How fun is that? Sorry for the quality - I snapped that off of Instagram.

The Forest Avenue Press title This Particular Happiness has been shortlisted for the May Sarton Award from Story Circle! It was fun to go back in and add the award badge to that cover

And yesterday was the cover release day for Forest Avenue Press’ upcoming #ownvoices novel A Girl Called Rumi by Ari Honarvar. In designing this one, I got to work with a Persian calligram drawn by the author herself. I wrote about the process here.

January 14, 2021

So excited. Forest Avenue Press’ upcoming book Wife | Daughter | Self by Beth Kephart just got a starred review from Booklist! Here’s an excerpt:

"From the serenity of a kayaking-on-the-lake moment to fragmenting struggles with self-criticism, Kephart deftly and succinctly captures entire expanses of human experience."

And Monday was cover release day for Caitlin Vance’s story collection The Paper Garden, due out in June from 7.13 Books. I had a great time working on it, and I wrote about the process here.

I also recently designed a sticker for the upcoming (very soon) release of a book I love, Pity Party by Kathleen Lane. I didn’t design the cover for this one, but I enjoyed using the artwork to create a bit of swag for the book. It comes out in just a few days, on the 19th, and I can’t wait.

December 20, 2020

I can’t believe it’s almost Christmas. We’re staying in, watching movies, stuffing our faces, being safe, doing safe.

I can’t believe, also, that so many people out there are still planning on gathering.

I get it. It’s so easy to feel like you’re safe around people you love, people you know well. It’s so easy to feel like you’re doing all the right things.

OK, I lied. I don’t get it. No matter what I do, go to the grocery store or… OK, that’s all I do, I go to the grocery store, but no matter what I do, all I can think is, how am I failing to be safe and keep people safe right now.

I hear people say, I can’t understand how I got sick, I did everything right… well, I had dinner with so-and-so, but we only took our masks off when we were eating.

I get it. I do get it — kind of — that wish to make things normal again. But wishful thinking is a dangerous thing. We tell ourselves what we want to hear and then we believe it. I wish, instead, people would start by assuming the opposite. Start by telling themselves, whatever I’m going, it’s not enough.

It’s not enough.

OK, I’m ranting. Sometimes pictures do a better job than piles of words. I made this this morning, using an image of the poster for the film It’s a Wonderful Life. I was thinking about that line, “Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings,” and it occurred to me that every time we gather, covid gets its wings. I do hope that folks heed the warnings that have come out after the Thanksgiving surge, and just stay in.

December 5, 2020

One of the things that makes me most happy is doing design work for a truly good cause. Here's a poster I designed (I did *not* design the fab event logo within) for the Anxiety Variety Show, which is coming up on December 18th. It's going to be a terrific online event to benefit Create More, Fear Less. Here’s how they explain it on the event page:

Join us on December 18 for inspiring performances & appearances by Misfits Manifesto author Lidia Yuknavitch, dancer Mia O'Connor-Smith, singer/songwriter Stephan Nance, Mortified storyteller Melanie Moseley, multi-disciplinary artist/musician/lyricist Edd Han, "Self Love Workout" dancer Bethany Harvey, Create More, Fear Less students, and many more!

All will be sharing their own unique stories of how anxiety has deepened and fueled their art.

Me again. I can’t wait for this event and it was an honor to make something to help promote it. More info on the Anxiety Variety show is here. And you can check out Create More, Fear Less here.

December 1, 2020

I was excited to see that the Multnomah County Library included Forest Avenue Press’ novel The Royal Abduls, by Ramiza Shamoun Koya, in their Best Books of 2020 list. They included this staff pick:

Fans of A Place for Us and The Namesake - here's another complex story of families struggling to find belonging in an America that doesn't see or honor them.

— recommended by Alison K.

The full list is here.

Another sweet thing involving this sweet book: on Jaggery, an arts and lit journal, writer Soniah Kamal interviewed writer Madi Sinha, and Sinha’s answer to the question of her favorite book cover was The Royal Abduls. That was a nice surprise. The interview is here.

November 12, 2020

There’s so much going on in the world (for the love of god, people, don’t gather right now and wear your masks), but I wanted to report that Joanna Rose’s A Small Crowd of Strangers has been getting some love from Powell’s and Portland. Joanna recently filmed a pop-up for the Portland Book Festival (a video of her reading is here), and Powell’s put the book in not one but two important end-of-the-year lists: their Great Gifts Under $25 list and their Best Books of 2020 Fiction list!

November 1, 2020

It’s cover release day for Forest Avenue Press’ upcoming anthology Dispatches from Anarres: Tales from Portland Authors in Tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin, edited by Susan DeFreitas. I was very excited to design this one and had a lot of fun with it. I wrote a blog post about the process here.

This is our almost-final cover. You may notice the blurb in the upper left-hand corner is just a stand-in. We’ll soon be sending galleys out to start gathering blurbs and will update the cover once one is chosen.

The book is due out next fall and has stories by TJ Acena, Kesha Ajose Fisher, Stevan Allred, Jason Arias, Stewart C. Baker, Jonah Barrett, Curtis Chen, Tina Connolly, Mo Daviau, Rene Denfeld, Molly Gloss, Rachael K. Jones, Michelle Ruiz Keil, Juhea Kim, Jessie Kwak, Jason LaPier, Fonda Lee, David D. Levine, um me, Sonia Orin Lyris, Tracy Manaster, James Mapes, C.A. McDonald, Tim O’Leary, Ben Parzybok, Nicole Rosevear, Arwen Spicer, Lidia Yuknavitch, and Leni Zumas. And a forward by David Naimon.

I’ve had a sneak peek of the book and love every bit I’ve seen of it.

August 25, 2020

Here’s a fun thing. Powell’s just started their big “Indies Are for Everyone” site-wide promotion today, and as part of that, they tweeted a thread of featured books by independent bookstores. City of Weird was on the list. You can read the whole thread here.

By the way, the sale is 20% off nearly everything on the whole website. It runs from now through August 31st.

August 23, 2020

Joanna Rose has been signing the bookplates I designed for her upcoming virtual book launch event for A Small Crowd of Strangers, hosted by Powell’s Books. For that event, Joanna will appear in conversation with Portland poet Susan Leslie Moore, author of That Place Where You Opened Your Hands. The event will be Wednesday, September 16th, at 6 PM, and if you’re interested, you can preregister on Zoom here.

The Facebook event page is here.

I can’t wait to celebrate with Joanna and Forest Avenue Press.

July 18, 2020

My story “Search Bar” appears in the latest issue of Buckmxn Journal. Just got my contributor’s copy. Look how pretty. I’m always so impressed with their design work, and they feature lovely art alongside stellar writing (Kim Stafford, Stevan Allred, and Michelle Ruiz Keil, among others, appear in this issue). The second image below is one of the pieces of art that was paired with my story, and I thought it was a really great pairing. The artist is Josh Bryant. Info about Buckmxn Journal can be found here.

June 20, 2020

I recently designed a logo for a program I absolutely love: Journal On!, put together in conjunction with Create More, Fear Less, the Portland Art Museum, and Portland Public Schools. Together they’re “assembling one enduring art journal made up of many voices, to capture our shared story of this moment in time.” Kids, artists, journalers, you can check it out here. There are prompts you can follow, posted every Saturday this summer through mid-August. “Share your drawings, words, or photos. Use any creative expression you want. If you’re a musician, dancer, or other kind of artist that doesn’t fit on a journal page, we’d love to see your creation or process captured in a still image.”

Two versions of the logo are on the left below. The image on the right is courtesy of the Journal On! webpage and not designed by me.

June 8, 2020

I was sad to hear that Ramiza Shamoun Koya passed away on Friday. There was an immediate outpouring from the community that was lovely to see. She touched so many people’s lives. I was so glad that she was able to enjoy the publication of her book The Royal Abduls, to see copies on the shelves of bookstores before the pandemic shut things down, to have read the wonderful early reviews that came in, and to have experienced the huge virtual book birthday that the community threw for her on the official launch day on May 12th. Amy Wang wrote a lovely tribute in the Oregonian, just out today.

May 17, 2020

A project I loved recently: designing this pin for one of my favorite organizations, Create More, Fear Less. Through workshops both in-person (obviously not during Coronavirus times) and remote, as well as through projects kids can do on their own, Create More, Fear Less inspires kids to explore, create, share, and find their way through fear. The Anxiety Society is a community of supporters who help fund the wonderful things Create More, Fear Less does, and this limited-edition membership pin is given as a thank you to all members. They’re newly-minted and ready to go out to supporters now.

I cannot say enough about this great organization. I encourage you to check them out here. And if you’re interested in becoming a member of the Anxiety Society and helping Create More, Fear Less do the wonderful things they do (and getting one of these pins to boot), you can get more info here.

May 12, 2020

Recently Sally K. Lehman interviewed Laura Stanfill, Liz Prato, and me about Forest Avenue Press and the Main Street Writers Movement for the Corvallis Advocate. Her questions were great and it was a super fun conversation about a press I love. The story is here.

May 11, 2020

Here’s some of the stuff I’ve been working on lately.

I’ve done some ads for the upcoming Willamette Writers Conference. At the beginning of the pandemic, they were hoping that by the end of July, it could be an online-and-in-person event, but we changed things up once we realized summer was too soon to expect the world to be at all back to normal. But it’s going to be an amazing conference. If you’re in the Portland area, save the date! More info.

And two new book covers. Someone to Watch Over is forthcoming from Not a Pipe Publishing. The top of the design is holding space for a blurb, once they make the choice of which to use. More info and a book trailer is here. And I Don’t Believe in Popular Kids, due out in July of this year from Microcosm Publishing, was a project close to my heart. It's a beautifully-written collaboration between a neurodivergent tween and her mother, exploring inclusion and how to stand up for your unique self. Both books are available for preorder now.

Lastly, I’m super excited that Beth Lisick’s novel Edie on the Green Screen was the March-April #1 fiction bestseller for the very prolific distributor Small Press Distribution, even in these weird, shut-down times. Big congrats to Beth and to publisher 7.13 Books.

May 3, 2020

It’s cover reveal day for the upcoming Forest Avenue Press book Wife | Daughter | Self, by National Book Award finalist Beth Kephart, due out next February. Beth’s artist husband William Sulit is featured prominently in the memoir, and we used his art in the book and on the cover. Below are some pieces he gave me to work with, and on the right, the cover. Because we chose the flowers with stems to use on the cover, the mandala-like open flower drawing will be used in the interior (along with some other lovely drawings). It was wonderful to work with his art, which I think complements the book beautifully. I wrote about the process here.

April 10, 2020

How is everyone doing out there? I hope you’re all practicing social distancing and washing hands and staying safe.

One of the things I’ve been doing during this shelter-in-place is drawing some coloring pages for the new website Color In Place. People wanting to color for therapeutic self-care or for fun can download pages and print them out or use on a tablet, and the proceeds go to the artists and to Doctors Without Borders. For me, drawing these pages has been therapeutic during a very stressful and sad time. More artists and pages are being added every day. I have a little artist’s page here, and for anyone who is interested in submitting, info is here.

April 7, 2020

Beth Lisick’s Edie on the Green Screen pubbed on March 26th. Just in time for Coronavirus to bring book events, and all other events, to a screeching halt.

She’s been doing some creative online events, including a Twitter conversation with City Lights Books and an online event with Litquake.

Here’s a great story she wrote for Book and Film Globe about how Coronavirus Ruined my Stupid Book Tour.

February 9, 2020

Forest Avenue Press, the press for whom I’m staff designer, was recently included in Reedsy’s Best Independent Publishers of 2020 list. Yesterday was our cover reveal day for our fall 2020 title, Joanna Rose’s novel A Small Crowd of Strangers. I wrote a bit about the process here.

Jackie Shannon Hollis had a packed house for her event at Portland’s Broadway Books for her memoir This Particular Happiness.

We’ve also been gearing up for the book launch of Ramiza Shamoun Koya’s The Royal Abduls. The official pub date is in May, but because of Ramiza’s health issues, we expedited the printing to get the books out sooner. The printer was wonderful and the books are already starting to arrive! There are copies at Annie Bloom’s in Portland, and in fact, they made the book a staff pick. Publisher Laura Stanfill initiated a wonderful campaign in conjunction with PNBA (the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association) to start gathering Ramiza’s reviews early, and we’ve had a big response. Publishers Weekly wrote about it here.

On January 30th Joanna Rose interviewed Ramiza for KBOO Radio’s Between the Covers. A link to the recording is here. And Powell’s put The Royal Abduls on their 30 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2020 list!

January 14, 2020

Some news about some books I’ve designed covers for. Liz Scott’s This Never Happened is up on Powells’ Staff Top Fives displays. Kirkus has this to say about Beth Lisick’s upcoming memoir Edie on the Green Screen: “Lisick’s languid prose has a magnetic pull to it (not dissimilar to the experience of watching a Noah Baumbach film).… It’s pleasurable to tag along on Lisick’s winding tour through the Bay Area.… Lisick’s stringent humor is what makes this tale worth reading...” Jackie Shannon Hollis’ memoir This Particular Happiness is up on Buzzfeed’s “15 Small Press Books To Kick Off Your 2020 Reading Season” list here. And Ramiza Shamoun Koya has a date for the book launch of her novel The Royal Abduls. If you’re in the Portland area, come out and help celebrate this book and this wonderful woman at Powell’s City of Books on March 15th. More info is here.

November 10, 2019

We had such fun with our pop-up for The Untold Gaze at the Portland Book Festival. We packed our corner of the art museum, and Laura read her piece beautifully, followed by a truly unique performance by Stephen, accompanied on violin by Tomoki Martens. Here’s a video, thanks to our videographer Tracy Stepp.

October 26, 2019

Stephen and I are excited to have a pop-up for The Untold Gaze in the upcoming Portland Book Festival! Author Laura Stanfill will read her piece “All This,” and Stephen will be doing a little something special of his own. More information about it is here.

And the night before, I’ll be reading at Lit Crawl Literary Bingo, hosted by Lilla Lit! 7 PM on Friday, November 8, at CENTRL Office in Downtown Portland.

October 25, 2019

Stephen and I are supering with the Portland Opera right now, for their production of Madama Butterfly. From what we’ve seen of it, from on stage and off, it’s a beautiful show. Tonight is the first performance.

Here’s a quick dressing room picture: the Admiral and his wife.

One of the threads of my novel-in-progress revolves around supering for the opera, so whenever I get a chance to do this, I enjoy it for the “research” aspect of it as well.

I like to blog about little moments from my opera experience. Those pieces, and some thoughts on operas I’ve seen, are archived here.

Upcoming performances of Madama Butterfly are October 27 (2:00 PM), October 31 (7:30 PM), and November 2 (7:30 PM).

October 7, 2019

Forest Avenue Press’ newest book, This Particular Happiness, a memoir by Jackie Shannon Hollis, is just out. She had a standing-room-only book launch at Powell’s City of Books and info on her other tour dates is here. Meanwhile, I recently finished the cover design for Forest Avenue’s next book, the novel The Royal Abduls, which is due out May 12 of 2020.

Forest Avenue title The Alehouse at the End of the World, by Stevan Allred, is still up on Powells’ bestsellers a full six months after it first appeared there, and The Remnants, by Robert Hill, is on their 25 Books to Read Before You Die (Pacific Northwest Edition) list.

Other books I’ve recently designed covers for are This Never Happened by Liz Scott (University of Hell Press), Sparks by Maren Anderson (Not a Pipe Publishing), Outlier Heart by Joe Bardin (IFERS), and bestselling author Beth Lisick's first novel Edie on the Green Screen (forthcoming from 7.13 Books).

October 5, 2019

The book launch of Jackie Shannon Hollis’ new memoir, This Particular Happiness, happened last night at Powell’s City of Books. I was so honored to have designed her book cover and so excited to be there to celebrate her and publisher Forest Avenue Press

October 3, 2019

Hi. This is my new website.