Kimberly Parish Davis is the director and founder of Madville Publishing. She sometimes teaches writing, and worked on the editorial staff of Texas Review Press for five years.
Editors Sam Pickering and Bob Kunzinger have announced their final choices for inclusion in Madville Publishing’s 2021 essay anthology, Being Home.
And here they are:
CONTRIBUTORS:
• Johnnie Bernhard “Ignorance or Innocence” • Rick Campbell “Celibacy and Ancestry” • Maryah Converse “Becoming Bedouin” • Susan Delgado Watts “Being Home” • John Flynn “Living Between the Leaves” • Debra Frank “The Accident House” • Karin Hedetniemi “Inheritance” • Anndee Hochman “2 Rms, Family View: The Ones We Call Home” • Richard Holinger “Cornwall Village” • Jamie Hughes “Making Room” • Robert Iulo “The Neighborhood”* • Kyle Ingrid Johnson “The House and Its Moments”* • Judy Johnson “My Brothers” • Deb Liggett “Marking Our Place” • Mel Livatino “Going Home Again” • Geoffrey Martin “Birdland” • Robert Miltner “Into the Bargain” • Vicky Oliver “Alice in Motherland” • Lea Page “Everything and the Kitchen Sink” • Rhonda Ray “My Rock” • Claude Clayton Smith “Blue Heaven” • Marsha Lynn Smith “4 Generations of Black Hair Matters” • Bill Stifler “Not From Around Here” • Elizabeth Templeman “In Place” • Elaine Terranova “Being Home” • Lee Zacharias “On a Rocky Inland Coast” • Madelaine Zadik “Triumph”
Book covers are amazing things. They can lure readers in, jolt their imaginations, prod them to, perhaps, pick up a book and read it. And during the reading of a book, its cover can be revisited, prompt additional exploration as to what the cover means vis a vis the contents, the characters, the story.
While any best-of lists will inherently miss some great book covers, when I reflect on covers that stuck with me, these are a few that come to mind:
The Great Gatsby: The painting by Francis Cugat is haunting and captures so much of the book’s vibe.
Jaws: Yeah, that image says it all.
Your House Is on Fire, Your Children All Gone: The image is arresting and creepy. The extra warning—“YOU TELL ON ME YOU’RE DEAD”—when the book’s held at a certain angle, heightens the creepy.
1Q84: I probably could’ve posted only Chip Kidd covers—he’s that good. I just happen to be reading this particular book now.
The Nickel Boys: Its stark design captures devastating heartbreak and loss.
When I signed with Madville Publishing to publish Mistakes by the Lake, Kim Davis, Madville’s Publisher/Director, sent over her first cover idea:
Initially, I liked it. It has the skyline of Cleveland in the background. And the viewfinder symbolically captures the many and varied views of the city that my stories themselves attempt to capture. I liked how the full image would serve as a nice wraparound cover, too:
We discussed playing with the font; I thought, perhaps, it’d be cool to mimic the font used on the Cleveland script signs (https://clevelandtraveler.com/cleveland-script-signs-guide/) that populate the city. But that didn’t look as cool as I thought it would:
And then I decided I wasn’t in love with it. You know, this might be—I hope not, of course!—but this might be the only book I ever publish. I wanted to love the cover.
One thing I appreciate about Madville is how involved their authors can be. So, with Madville’s blessing1, I went a little nuts.
From April through September 2019, I tried out different ideas. A ton of different ideas. I played with different Cleveland skylines, I played with various Cleveland maps, I played with overhead shots of the city, I played with iconic landmarks, I looked at (and even emailed) a few well-regarded Cleveland artists and photographers (Paul Duda [http://www.pauldudagallery.com/] and Jim Lanza [https://www.foundrywoodprints.com/], both of whom were kind enough to work with me should I find a piece of art I liked). As I stated, a little nuts.
One of the challenges, in my mind: Since my collection spans numerous decades of the city’s history, how could we get a cover to capture that timespan?
Here’s just a smattering of what I did. As you can see, I am in no way a designer, but it was exciting when, later on, I learned how to knock out a picture within the title (see the last two). You’ll also see a few early versions of what, ultimately, became the cover.
Madville patiently waited for me to work through my issues. And, finally, I sent six or so for their review.
They really liked the last one. (I liked that one a lot, too. I love how the old 1796 map explodes into the modern skyline. But, it was mildly problematic: as near as I could tell, the Western Reserve Historical Society owned the rights to that map and I had not yet worked out if we could use it or not. But after some back and forth, WRHS kindly agreed to let us incorporate the map in the cover. Also, it was an old map. The best reproduction of it I could find had elements that were roughed up and lost to wear or folds or both. So, I spent far too many hours digitally touching up and redrawing portions of the map to make it whole.)
Then it was in the capable hands of Jacqui Davis, Madville’s graphic designer: “I take the images and fonts the author likes, then, from the images, I establish a color palette. Ideally, this palette contains no more than six colors … three is better. For Brian’s book, the pinks came from a sunset picture he sent—then there’s the black, beige, and white from the map.”
Jacqui sent this back:
I liked it. A lot. And I loved what Jacqui did with the sky and the words and the overall composition. We thought my name might get lost in the busyness of the map, so that was one element to change. Plus, none of us were sure about the sky. We tried it in blue:
We all agreed the surreal pink was a better choice. (I should note that both sky pieces were photographs I took while living in Costa Rica. To not only have such a big say in my cover’s design, but to also use artwork of mine was all very cool.)
A few more tweaks: Could we see more of the map (so “Cuyahoga” was visible)? How would the map look using a parchment color? Could we try a different font? How would “by the” look in a slightly different and subordinated arrangement? From there, Jacqui made additional tweaks. “I chose this font because the letters are imperfect with a slightly organic feel that matches the lettering on the map and the splotchy ink blot textures of the skyline.”
Yes, I loved it. My publisher loved it. And, nearly a year later, I still love it.
1“Madville handles the cover design process a little differently from most traditional and indie publishers in that we involve our authors in the cover design process. This collaboration happens in different ways. We always ask our authors right up front to give us some idea of what they imagine for the cover. Their responses run the gamut from no idea what they want to some who have the artwork picked out and rights secured to use it. From there, the design process goes back and forth with the author allowed to give their input all the way up to the point where I step in and make the final decision, and I’m never going to pick a design the author doesn’t like!” —Kim Davis, Director, Madville Publishing
Brian Petkash was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from University of Tampa and his stories have appeared in Midwestern Gothic and Southword, among other publications. He currently lives in Tampa, Florida, where he remains an avid fan of Cleveland sports.
To fully appreciate this poem by George Drew for Brian Petkash, you may want to read Brian Petkash’s short story collection, Mistakes by the Lake.(Our authors find inspiration in each others’ work. That’s kind of cool, we think.)
Mistakes at the Table
How now, Sir John?
(Again, for Brian Petkash)
First: I’m sitting at the table.
Second: I’m sitting at the table trying to think,
but thoughts keep flitting away,
like butterflies on fire turning to ashes.
Third: The butterflies are real. Or aren’t they?
Fourth: I’m eating at the table, crumbs
littering the placemat dispossessed
of any value, clumps of empty calories.
Fifth: I’m watching on the table ants crisscross
its width and length like trolley cars
transporting crumbs on their last ride.
Sixth: The ants aren’t real. Or are they?
Seventh: I’m leaning on the table drinking coffee,
and when I knock it over, it spills,
turning the tablecloth’s pink purity muddy.
Eighth: I’m twitching at the table as the coffee
spreads over the tablecloth
like floodwater over a street, a yard, a field.
Ninth: I’m marking at the table how a lamp’s circle
of light shimmers like a moon,
fading outward into shade, shade into dark.
Tenth: I’m still sitting at the table.
---George Drew
George Drew is the author of eight poetry collections, with Pastoral Habits: New and Selected Poems, Down & Dirty and The View From Jackass Hill, winner of the 2010 X.J. Kennedy Poetry Prize, all from Texas Review Press. His eighth, Fancy’s Orphan, appeared in 2017 with Tiger Bark Press. Drumming Armageddon is his ninth collection. Recently George won the Knightville Poetry Contest, The New Guard, his poem appearing in the 2017 edition, and two other poems as Honorable Mention in the Steve Kowit Poetry Contest, appeared in the 2018 and 2019 San Diego Poetry Anthology. He was a recipient of the Bucks County Muse Award in 2016 for contributions to the Bucks County PA literary community. Recently, one of his poems from Fancy’s Orphan appeared in Verse Daily. George’s biography will appear in Mississippi Poets: A Literary Guide, University of Mississippi Press, edited by Catherine Savage Brosman.
Set in Cleveland, Ohio, from its earliest beginnings as a forested frontier to the urban blight of modern times, Mistakes by the Lake is a collection of ten thematically-linked stories spanning the many faces of the city’s history: A motorman navigates his 1920’s back-and-forth trolley until he snaps; A stockyards knocker encounters the Virgin Mary during the 1954 World Series; A wannabe wrestles his unruly mind along the flammable 1960’s Cuyahoga River; In a reinvention of Henry IV, a young man must either stick with his bumbling criminal crew or uncover legit ways to support his mother and transgender Gramps.
978-1-948692-32-8 paper 19.95 978-1-948692-33-5 ebook 9.99 5½x8½ , 204 pp. Short Fiction May 2020
