We got to spend some time with author Cathy Carr to talk about the cover reveal for her upcoming novel, 365 Days to Alaska. Read on to find out more about her inspirations for the book and the process that made it a reality.
First, tell us about your book!
After years of writing and rewriting, immediate rejections and close calls, thoughts of quitting and resolutions to keep going, I finally have my debut novel, 365 Days to Alaska, coming out in January 2021 from Amulet/Abrams.
365 Days to Alaska is about an eleven-year-old girl named Rigel Harman, who has grown up in the Alaskan wilderness. She hunts rabbits, snacks on salmon jerky, takes correspondence classes instead of going to school, and plays dominoes with her family in their two-room cabin. Rigel doesn’t mind not having electricity or running water—instead, she’s got tall trees, fresh streams, and endless sky.
But then her parents divorce, and Rigel and her sisters have to move with their mom to the Connecticut suburbs to live with a grandmother Rigel’s never even met. Rigel hates it in Connecticut. It’s noisy, crowded, and there’s no real nature. Her only hope is the secret pact that she made with her father: if she can stick it out in Connecticut for one year, he’ll bring her back home. Just one year. 365 days.
At first, getting through the year feels impossible. Surviving middle school is harder than surviving in the wilderness, and Rigel doesn’t connect with anyone . . . until she befriends a dumpster-diving crow living behind her school. If this wild creature has made a life for itself in the suburbs, then just maybe Rigel can too.
Can you tell us about your inspirations?
The inspiration for 365 Days to Alaska came from many different sources. There were my father’s stories about Alaska and there was John McPhee’s classic book Coming into the Country. Most of all, there was a random magazine article I read about a homesteading family in northern Canada. The parents’ marriage had ended, and the mother and her three daughters had to make a new life for themselves. Two of the girls adjusted easily to their new reality, to a big city and public schools, but the third girl had a bumpier ride. She missed her old life in the wilderness, but there was no going back to what she had had. That story stuck in my head through many years, like a burr. I wanted to tell that third girl’s story.
What’s your connection to The Writing Barn?
I had an MFA and lots of writing experience, but kidlit was something new and different for me. Everyone I knew wrote for adults. Kidlit was a specialized genre with lots of fiddly bits. I needed help to transform my cool idea into a manuscript ready for submission. Someone recommended The Writing Barn as a place that helped authors writing books for children. That was how I discovered the place. I really think that without the Writing Barn I would probably still be sending 365 Days to Alaska out to agents, and maybe even struggling to get to that all-important final draft. I’m grateful to everyone I worked with there—with a special shout-out to Bethany Hegedus, who worked with me so patiently through so many drafts.
When and how did you see the cover? Did you see initial sketches or designs, or just the final version?
I saw an early sketch in November of 2019 and loved it instantly. The colors, the design, the sketchy quality to the lines—everything. I even liked the font. I probably would have been happy with that preliminary sketch as the cover! But of course, the design team and the illustrator, Maeve Norton, kept working at the concept, and the final illustration was even better than the first.
Time for props to the team behind the cover!
Recently I read that a great cover remains one of the best ways for a book to grab a reader’s attention. I guess it’s always been that way, and apparently it still is. I feel a lot of gratitude toward Marcie Lawrence and the Abrams design team for the care and hard work that went into developing this representation of my work, and to Maeve for her powerful creation.
Via email, Maeve had this to say about the cover process:
“The cover process for 365 Days to Alaska was a pretty smooth one, and that does not happen often in publishing! The very talented Marcie Lawrence at Abrams reached out to me to see if I would be available for the project. Marcie and I had worked together at Little, Brown so it was great to hear from her and have an opportunity to work with her as art director. Marcie had a vision of the main character torn between the two very different worlds of Alaska and Connecticut. That description alone was enough to send me into a sketch frenzy–in a good way of course! Most of my covers start with research, and for this, I spent a lot of time looking at the Alaskan landscape and colors.”
“I also pulled inspiration from the neighborhood I grew up in outside of Boston for the Connecticut suburbs . . . A lot of time was spent figuring out how to make it look like the mountains were somewhat morphing into the suburban homes by playing with positioning and size. It was also really important to play with the color to get it just right. Color can convey so much emotion, and I think it is a particularly powerful tool for this piece . . . Once I got the general composition and color figured out, it was time to move on to the type which is one of my favorite parts of a cover. I also hand letter any opportunity I can–I think type can really help the illustration in telling the story.”
Maeve also did some cool line drawings for the book’s chapter headings.
You can follow Maeve online at:
Website: http://www.maevenorton.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/maeven27
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maevenn/
Where can readers find your book?
The book will be available online through Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and also through local independent bookstores at indiebound.org. Of course, you can also check in with your local independent bookstore directly, and ask them to order it if it’s not in stock.
Where to Follow Author Cathy Carr Online:
Website: https://www.cathycarrwrites.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/cathycarrwrites
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CathyCarrWrites
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cathycarrwrites/
More About Author Cathy Carr:
Author Cathy Carr writes fiction for both kids and adults. She has a BA and MFA and over the years has worked a wide assortment of jobs, from frying fast-food burgers to cleaning offices to writing software documentation. When she is not writing or looking after her family, she enjoys reading, cooking, watching movies, quilting, and spending time outside. She also likes to watch the surprising variety of wildlife that moves through her suburban yard, running the range from wild turkeys to hawks and from white-tailed deer to coyotes. Cathy lives in the New Jersey suburbs with her husband, their son, and a scrappy cat named Barnaby. She is represented by Rachel Orr at Prospect Agency.