book cover: baby's on fire

Recently, I had the privilege of designing the front cover for Liz Prato's upcoming collection of short stories, Baby's on Fire, due out in May from Press 53.

What a great title. I knew they didn't want actual fire in the design, and I agreed that fire would be too on the nose, but I had an instant thought about what I'd do as soon as I started mulling things over.

Here's the original photo I used for the design, which I found at the very wonderful Morguefile. You'll see I rotated it and added some more to the background and then altered the wisp of smoke at the top. Oh, and got rid of the candle or stick of incense or whatever that is, along with its shadow.

Really, it was three things that gave me the inspiration for the cover design. One was the quality of Liz' writing, and I think you'll get what I'm saying when you see the design. The second was the fire in the title, for sure. Third had to do with one of the elements you find on the covers of most books of fiction out there. I don't know if there's a term for this thing. The tiny text placed somewhere on the design, which says, "a novel" or "stories."

Not long ago, I had some back and forth with publisher Laura Stanfill (for whom I design book covers for her press Forest Avenue Press) about this element in book covers and whether it's necessary, helpful, a waste of space, a distraction from the design or what. Personally, I like it. It's cute and does help a reader know the kind of book they're buying - but mostly I like it because often book designers use it in fun, clever ways.

With Baby's on Fire, I used the tiny word "stories" as, not an incidental, tertiary part of the design, but one of the most important elements of the cover, which I hope conveys the power of these stories. Because it's not just Baby who's on fire; it's these stories.

Here's a sample from the book, to show you what I mean. Spoiler alert: f-bomb coming:

...and while he fucks Shelby she looks up at the sky and notices it for the first time: you can see stars here. All of them. Every star that was ever made, whether it still exists or not, looks down at Shelby in the back of the brown pick-up truck, and they don’t twinkle or glow or any of those other things you expect stars to do. They just burn.

Baby's on Fire will be out in May from Press 53.