Thaliad and the artist's path--

Thaliad (Montreal: Phoenicia Publishing, 2012) involved a good deal of work by Welsh painter Clive Hicks-Jenkins. I've been meaning to collect a sort of index to all his labors on the book. With the links below, you can follow his making of the art for the book from his first day, cutting out leaves from painted papers for the collage. I am leaving out the work he did on the bookplate, which we gave to the first people to purchase copies, and some ephemeral pieces.

1. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/thaliad/
An initial sketch, some birds, some leaves... Clive is pleased about the project:

 It is a work of staggering beauty and imagination, and I’m enormously proud to have been asked by the author and her publisher, Elizabeth Adams, to create the image that will speak for it on the cover. As with The Foliate Head, I’m also responsible for the page decorations inside. I’ve roughly laid out the cover design and today have been painting collage papers and snipping out leaves and tendrils from them. The foliate is present in the design for this cover as it was in my last for Marly, but this time presented in a quite different way. I shan’t reveal much today other than a handful of leaves, a sketch of a detail and a couple of trial birds.

2. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/thaliad-2/
Lots and lots of preparatory sketches!

3. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/yellow-bird/
The little yellow bird appears. The collage for the jacket of hardcover and cover of paperback is already taking shape.

4. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/the-foliate-girl/
Clive shows two sources for the cover--one in fabric, one in paint.

5. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/title-lettering/
Lettering for the title.

6. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/marly-youmans-on-the-cover-for-her-book/
Clive shows the finished cover art and has a long excerpt from me; I talk about needlework and family, and end with this quote: "Or we might well call her The Quilted Girl. This Thalia is an interesting solution to the difficulty of making a cover/jacket image for a long blank verse poem that travels widely in time and space, portrays some ferocious events, and clings to the shape of the epic while moving toward the character and scenic development of the novel. Clive settles on the child and matriarch-to-be, Thalia, and he gives us an image that is startling, almost shocking (that eye!) That she is foliate reflects the intense natural world of the poem. That she is “quilted” suggests the return to knowing how to do things by hand that occurs in the narrative. That Thalia is flowering and fruiting is also an essential property of the protagonist…"

7. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/page-decorations-for-thaliad/
An abundance of page decorations for the interior.

8. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/06/24/clive-writes-to-beth-at-phoenicia-publishing/
Clive contemplates the mode of interior decorations in a note to the publisher.

9. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/06/25/more-page-decorations-for-thaliad/
All the Thaliad interior art to date (June 25th, 2012.)

10. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/06/26/thaliad-emerges/
The first matching of text with images by Elizabeth Adams, who is an expert designer.

11. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/beths-scriptorium/
Clive admires the preparatory work of publisher Elizabeth Adams.

12. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/another-for-marlys-thaliad/
A new collage... a farm on a winter's night.

13. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/tinkering/
The artist tinkers with the collage of the farm to improve it. That one's illuminating to see his method and perfectionism.

14. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/another-image-for-marly/
Horse collage! Clive is a great lover of horses, and not long ago made art for Equus for Old Stile Press.

15. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/the-process-of-preparing-the-thaliad-page-decorations/
Clive reveals how he makes the collages for Thaliad, using a Noah's ark vignette. This post is the best one for a revelation of "how to."

16. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/grey-glove/
Clive shows the last vignette--to see more, one has to look at the book.

17. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/08/16/leaf-litter/
Sifting through the images on Clive's work table... Thaliad and more.

18. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/10/29/pre-order-thaliad/
Clive reflects on his 17 vignettes and cover for Thaliad, as well as other work we've done together.

19. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/11/28/thaliad-is-icumen-in/
Head of Thalia, interior. A letter from Beth Adams to Clive.

20. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/thaliad-in-paperback/
Thaliad in paperback.

21. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/making-a-cover-for-thaliad-the-publisher-and-the-artist-in-e-mail-correspondence/
This post is especially good on the evolution of the jacket/cover, and has lots of correspondence between artist and publisher.

22. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/a-review-from-the-red-room/
Tomcat on Clive's art!

23. http://clivehicksjenkins.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/james-artimus-owen-on-thaliad/
Clive pilfers remarks from novelist-illustrator James A. Owen on my facebook page: "It's a high water-mark of what's possible . . . It's old school book-crafter perfect. With that book you leapt from being one of my favorite writers to a game-changer. The literary sphere will have to catch up to what I and others have already seen--but there is no doubt it is a remarkable achievement."

There it is, a long and beautiful progress from dream to book. If you want to see the Phoenicia Publishing page (how plosive!), go here. If you want to see some more review clips, go here.

Kickstarter projects by friends

Gary Dietz 

"A book of stories for, by, and about fathers of children that experience disability. (And the women who love them.)" This one is a very worthy project that has not yet reached its goal. Please share with anyone who might be concerned with the topic! And if you are lucky enough that this issue has not touched you or your family, think about dropping a few dollars in the kitty.

I am choosing a few poems for the book as well. See here for more information on the associated poetry contest.

Ruth Sanderson 

"The book will span my career as an illustrator and fine artist, reproducing both published and previously unpublished paintings, as well as showing my process.."

James Artimus Owen 

"The 20th Anniversary Nearly Complete Essential Starchild"

Makoto Fujimura 

The Golden Sea.

This one is over, and I'm looking forward to receiving the book!

4th publication of "An Incident at Agate Beach"

"Ocean Sky" by Nathan Allworth.
On the Oregon coast. Courtesy
of the photographer and www.sxc.hu.

“An Incident at Agate Beach” is online! The story originally appeared in James Artimus Owen's handsome Argosy Quarterly 3 (2005) and has proved popular. It was reprinted in the anthology Northwest Passage: A Cascadian Odyssey (Windstorm, 2005) and in The Year’s Best in Fantasy and Horror, edited by Ellen Datlow, Gavin Grant, and Kelly Link (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2006.)

Today the tale is published for the fourth time at weirdfictionreview.com, a site (what an attractive home page!) dreamed up by the well-known-for-weird team of Jeff and Ann Vandermeer and managed by also weirdoholic Adam Mills. It is, indeed, a strange, fantastic thing, and I hope will find many new readers.

The day I visited Agate Beach in Oregon, I knew that I would write a story about the place. But this is not the one I expected. If you have comments, there's a spot to leave them at the close of the story. Enjoy!

Oh, and thanks to Rebecca Beatrice Miller for that leading-with-the-chin, uncanny eyebrow portrait...

Light twice: on Thaliad

1.  THALIAD AT QUID PLURA?

Writer Jeff Sypeck friended me yesterday in the curious realm of Twitter, and today I find a lovely, long post about Thaliad on his blog, Quid plura? Here's a slice from the introduction:

But if we [Americans] don’t currently have an epic, the people who will live here someday may. That’s the premise of Marly Youmans’ eerie and beautiful Thaliad, a 24-book poem about seven children who survive a fiery apocalypse—and how one of them becomes the founding matriarch of a lakeside tribe in upstate New York.

Recounted 67 years later by Emma, a teenaged librarian who roves the wastes with sword and gun in search of unrescued books, the Thaliad fuses several out-of-vogue elements—formalist verse, narrative poetry, classical epic—to a familiar science-fiction trope. What grows from this grafting is a weird, fresh, magical thing: the story of a new world rooted in the ingenuity and optimism of ”one who / Was ordinary as a stone or stem / Until the fire came and called her name.”

Please have a read, as Jeff Sypeck sees the book clearly and has fine things to say, concluding:

If they’re willing to take a chance, fantasy and science-fiction fans and even the “young adult” crowd might all find much to love here. The Thaliad is rare proof that verse need not be difficult or obscure—and that even now, narrative poetry can still leave readers, like Thalian children eyeing strangers in their orchard, “[e]nchanted into stillness by surprise.”

As there are a great many writers in the world, and I am busy with a great many things (three children and so on) other than books, I somehow have missed the wisdom of Jeff Sypeck until now! He is the author of Becoming Charlemagne: Europe, Baghdad, and the Empires of A. D. 800, the new Looking Up: Poems from the National Cathedral Gargoyles, and a translation of a Middle Scots poem, The Tale of Charlemagne and Ralph the Collier. Doesn't that sound like a fascinating mix? And his bog seems full of intriguing posts. I am infinitely grateful to him for writing about Thaliad.

2.  MORE LIGHT FOR THALIAD

Clive Hicks-Jenkins, the artist who decked Thaliad in her fabulous artwear, has gathered up some facebook comments from novelist-illustrator-graphic-novelist James A. Owen and made them into a post at his Artlog. They focus on Thaliad, and I would never have been so bold and cheeky as to gather them and share, but I am glad that he did. James Owen had some spectacular things to say about the book. See the comments at the Artlog.

This is Not a Post: New Books Alert!

No, I'm still taking a blog-sabbatical until after Labor Day. But I need to say that my friend Howard Bahr has sent me my very own copy of his brand new book, The Judas Field. Jump on the skateboard and fly down to your favorite independent and buy it! And if you hurry, you can be the very first soul to say a word about the novel on the Amazon River of book sale web sites. I met Howard via the horrid institution of The Blurb Request, but our penpaldom has brought me much pleasure, in and out of books.

In addition, another friend has a new nonfiction book that will be out at summer's close: In the Morning: Reflections from First Light, to be published in September by Mercer University Press. "This book of quiet essays is a very personal look at morning from many aspects—scientific, artistic, philosophical, and religious." I was supposed to meet Phil Williams at the Nashville Festival of the Book, but fate put his back out of joint. But we've been loyal penpals since then. Oddly enough, NFB is where I met Howard with his famous professor pal, Randy Cross.

Meanwhile, somebody I 'met' through magazine acceptances--the editor of Argosy Quarterly--has the first in a big fat series of young adult books coming soon: Apocatastasis, his livejournal blog, contains many of his pictures for Here, There Be Dragons. His plethora (and I mean plethora) of enterprises is featured on his Coppervale web site. You can even find Argosy there. I'm expecting that the dragons will bring him treasure and further issues of Argosy. That's James A. Owen, projector on a grand scale.

Oh, and be sure to go by Laurelines, where Laura Murphy Frankstone has moved on to the most delicious glass and silver and vegetable still lifes. Above is July 21st's watercolor, and you can even read what I said about Laura, Hawthorne, the Other, and the mysterious and infinite replication of artists--or something like that! Just don't take my story seed. Pilferage is mine!

And confetti and happy July 22nd birthday to B, my eldest! He's six-foot and seventeen, fresh home from Turkey and Greece.