Random Acts Books' First Cover Reveal! Muse, an Ekphrastic Trio

A lot has happened since my last post about our hiring an editor for our first Random Acts Books publication, Muse, An Ekphrastic Trio! George, Michael, and I thoroughly enjoyed working with Steve Parolini, our editor from Colorado Springs, who gave us perceptive and insightful feedback that we all agreed helped us truly polish our stories. Many thanks to Steve, who gave us some prodding and guidance in a larger sense, as well.

Originally, we had been referring to our first Trio simply as An Ekphrastic Trio, and it was Steve who suggested that such a title felt a bit empty and gave no real clue or feel for what the stories might be. Good point! We initially decided, briefly, on Illusions, An Ekphrastic Trio, but realized that title didn't really focus enough on the arts, and didn't make a connection with the concept of "ekphrastic," in the sense of one art riffing off or commenting on another.

We then hit on the word "etchings," with its connotations of a classic art form as well as some potentially sexual overtones along the lines of the old "Come into my bedroom so I can show you my etchings." Steve also liked those connotations and so we moved forward through our editing process working under the banner of Etchings, An Ekphrastic Trio.

Our next step, as we were fine tuning our stories under our new title, was to begin the process of cover design. We wanted to create an overall layout that could be used for all three of our planned trio's and that also reflected a bit of whimsy while nodding toward an artistic/literary target audience. As we all sifted through many different approaches to artwork, paintings, and of course etchings, I finally recalled a photographer whose work I always loved, and whose approach showed a delightful dose of whimsy! I had become acquainted with Joan Kocak's work several years ago when I went through an "art photography" phase and I bought a couple of her prints. We engaged in a lively email exchange about not only photography, but all the arts as it turned out Joan was an avid reader. (By the way, one of my favorite books, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery, was a recommendation from Joan and it's marvelous!)

I contacted Joan and she offered to even work on assignment--she read our three stories as well--if we didn't find one of her existing images to our liking. I quickly rediscovered one of my favorite photos, her marvelous image of a clown marionette whose strings are worked by a woman whose hand is all that can be see. It turned out Joan had contracted the rights to a company who provided, of all things, book covers, but she was able to recover the rights and we bought the image you'll see on our first trio. We plan to use Joan's images for our other two Trio's and look forward to working with her.

But, while we loved Joan's marionette photo, we realized our title Etchings no longer seemed ideal! Back to the verbal drawing board we went until I think George made the connection between the image and our stories--or maybe he was simply inspired--and hit on the perfect word for our title: Muse, with the connotation that we poor mortals--okay at least the men--are often being manipulated, like the hapless marionette, by creatures we don't understand. Alas, each of our stories reflect such elements in the relationships between men and those who lead the dance! So at last our title reached its full evolution: Muse, An Ekphrastic Trio.

Next, we engaged Ben Long, an awarding winning graphic artist, to incorporate Joan's photo into a cover design that could be replicated for our other Trio's. Ben came up with a fabulous, simple, yet elegant design we all fell in love with, and we're proud to show it off!

We plan to release both the print and electronic versions of the book by the end of March.