The wonderfully talented Deeanne Gist joins us today to talk about the making of her latest cover for It Happened at the Fair.

I got a call from my editor. “Do you remember back in the 90s when Christina Dodd’s cover had a heroine with three arms?”

“Very much.”

“Well, look at It Happened at the Fair. Do you see anything unusual?”

I quickly grabbed the book. The cover model had the right number of appendages. Then, I looked closer …

“Get out!” I half-choked. Then I giggled. Then I laughed out loud. “This is awesome!”

My editor gave a sigh of relief followed by light laughter. “I thought it was pretty funny, too.”

Can you see our little surprise—“little” being the operative word?

Yep. A bug. The heroine has a bug on her shoulder. That is not supposed to be there. I’ve already received fan mail about it.

A gal from Australia sent: “Why is there a bug on Della’s shoulder on the cover of the book? Once I knew about Cullen’s allergies, I spent the rest of the book dreading him being stung by a bee and going into full anaphylaxis or something!” LOL.

Am I upset? Quite the contrary. I’m delighted. I think it adds a wonderful bit of flavor to the cover. My only regret is that the publisher has already Photoshopped it out of all electronic images on the web and has corrected the color plates so that any subsequent printings will be bug-free. (So if you want the collectible edition, you’d better get it before they run out!)

I interviewed Jeff Miller, the graphic designer, and after learning how many steps are involved in making a cover, it’s easy to see how a little bug there or an extra arm here could be overlooked. Here’s the shortened version of his process:

Step One: Jeff offers three design directions for It Happened at the Fair.

I think it’s so interesting how each design reflects different moods, perspectives and character emphasis. My publisher chose the first option—the cover in which we see the heroine through the eyes of the man who will fall in love with her. This was also my favorite of the three. (Btw, no one—not me, not the photographer, not the designer, not the publisher, not my editor, no one—noticed our “friend” on Della’s shoulder, yet it was on there from the very beginning. LOL.)

Step Two: Since the cover model’s hair style was too contemporary and the color didn’t match the heroine’s, we needed to make some adjustments:

Step Three: The hair color on the right is now correct, but a woman in 1893 would never go out with her hair down. Quite scandalous! So she needs an updo.

Step Four: As you can see to the left, the updo looks great on the model, but once it’s tucked up under the hat, the texture becomes too coarse. It Happened at the Fair’s hero, Cullen McNamara, says, “Her light brown hair was silky and in a soft twist.” So … new hair, please.

Step Five: Much better.

Jeff is now ready to do the final tweaking. He meshed together several coloring and texture techniques to give the book an antiqued look which serves as an indicator to the reader that the story is an historical.

“The below image,” he says, “shows the final cover with all the pieces in the process that it took to construct one cohesive design that effectively and accurately depicted a window into the story.”

Pretty crazy, huh? You can see how there’s so much going on that it’s easy to miss some puny little ol’ thing like a cricket bug. But bug or no, that dress is yummy, the heroine’s curvy, her hair is perfect, and the backdrop is provocative. Everything you’d want in a cover.

So, have you ever thought much about how covers were made? What surprised you most about the process? Leave a comment here for your chance to win an autographed hardback, limited *bug* edition of It Happened at the Fair.

Contest ends midnight, Central Time, May 18, 2013. Must have continental USA mailing address to be eligible to win.

About the Author:

Speaking of great hair…Deeanne Gist—known to her family, friends, and fans as Dee—has rocketed up bestseller lists and captured readers everywhere with her very fun, very original historicals. She has received four RITA nominations, two consecutive Christy Awards, and rave reviews. Deeanne has a background in education and journalism and a degree from Texas A&M. She has written for People, Parents, and

Parenting. She lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband and has four grown children. She has a very active online community on her website IWantHerBook.com and at Facebook.com/DeesFriends. Read more about It Happened at the Fair here.

Deeanne is celebrating the release of It Happened at the Fair with an iPad Mini Giveaway and a Live Author Chat Webcast event on May 22! Details here.

Don’t forget to leave a comment on Jaunty Quills for your chance to win an autographed copy of It Happened at the Fair!

When I was in sixth grade, my best friend was this wonderful girl named Amy. She was everything I wasn’t: adorable, petite, a snappy dresser and a gifted gymnast. We were definitely the odd couple, you know? She was my first best friend, and I adored her.

Gymnastics were the in thing for girls to do, and with Amy as my friend, I found myself doing cartwheels on the front lawn and watching Amy with wonder and admiration as she flipped through the air. I improved a little bit, but I never could master things like backbends or walk-overs.

Because gymnastics were all the rage, the gym teacher came up with the idea of having a gymnastics demonstration. You’d have to audition to be in the demonstration; Mrs. G. didn’t want an afternoon of somersaults and ineptitude.

A word about Mrs. G.

You may have noticed a few comments in my books about gym teachers not liking children. Mrs. G., I’m looking at you.

She wore her whistle like a weapon. She was rail-thin and intolerant of awkward, bookish children (me, for example). We played dodgeball far too often, and we geeks often left gym class with red marks from balls whipped at our exposed legs and arms. If you got hurt in class, she’d look at you with disgust, then sigh and send you to the nurse…or just tell you to toughen up.

In sixth grade, I was already five-foot-seven and wore a C cup bra. I towered over Mrs. G., outweighed her, and already I knew that I would never be lean and athletic and coordinated. I felt like a giant marshmallow of a person around her, with her cool stare and impatient voice, her bountiful praise for the athletic kids and distaste for the rest of us. Auditioning to perform in front of the entire middle school? So not my thing.

But Amy was my friend, and very optimistic and upbeat about getting her best buddy into the demonstration. She helped me design a gymnastics routine, and we practiced and practiced in my front yard after school for weeks. When Amy was done with me, I was maybe a C+, just slightly better than average.

The day of the auditions came. Amy was a shoe-in; she could do an aerial and back flips and all sorts of cool things. Same with my friend Laurie, who could do a back and front walk-over. Mrs. G. called names, watched girls with her dead-eyed stare and made notes on her clipboard. I waited and waited for my name to be called. But the hour grew late, and finally, she blew her whistle and said, “That’s it. We’re out of time. We have too many people as it is.” Ten or twelve of us hadn’t auditioned yet.

In a rare show of spine, I left Mrs. G. a note, which I remember almost word-for-word still. “I practiced for weeks and you didn’t even give me a chance. THANKS A LOT!!! Kristan Higgins.” She came into the locker room while I was still there, read the note and looked at me. “That’s too bad,” she said. “We ran out of time.” With that, she left.

When I got home, my mom asked how things went. “I didn’t get to try out,” I said, and yes, I was crying. “There were too many girls.”

My mom was then and is still a pretty mellow person. As a mother, her advice to us kids was generally, “Work it out.” She was as opposite a helicopter parent as could be. If she couldn’t see or hear us and we weren’t lying in a puddle of arterial blood, she’d assume we were fine. We played in the woods, talked to strangers, beat up on each other and rode bikes and horses without helmets. Mom didn’t care if we had a mean teacher, because our mean teachers weren’t as mean as the mean nuns she had as a kid. If there was a bully on the school bus, we were told to avoid him. Fail a test? Study harder next time. I didn’t expect a lot of sympathy about the gymnastics things.

If I hadn’t made the cut, I think Mom would’ve patted my hand and told me “Good try.” But she’d seen me out there with my much more talented friend, working on my cartwheels and pikes. She knew exactly how untalented I was.

Without another word, Mom picked up the phone, called the school and proceeded to tear Mrs. G. another orifice. How dare she deprive a dozen girls the chance even to try? How was that fair? Her poor time management skills were her own problem. What kind of a message was she sending?

The next day, a very chastened Mrs. G. did something completely unexpected. She apologized. Of course, every girl would get a chance to audition for the demonstration. There would be another afternoon of try-outs. It was her own mistake; she had underestimated the amount of interest, and she was very sorry if anyone felt bad. She met my eyes, and I knew: my gentle, funny, hippie-style mother had kicked some serious ass.

The rest of us got to audition. I made the cut. The day of the demonstration, my mom came to school and watched from the back. I was terrified, shaking and not very good. Amy was magnificent.

“I thought you were the best one there,” my mom lied as she drove me home.

Thanks, Mom. Thanks for making sure I got my chance.

Kristan will be signing THE BEST MAN in Corning, NY, 4:30-7, Radisson Hotel at the Corning Glass Fest.

People Magazine reviewed Kristan’s SOMEBODY TO LOVE, calling it “filled with genuine emotion” and “thoroughly entertaining.” Kristan is thrilled, of course!

I buy books because of the covers all the time. All the time! Book covers fascinate me; they’re an art form done well. Done poorly, and they can really tank a book, too. My worst cover (which shall remain nameless) had the worst sales, too…until word-of-mouth took care of that, happily. For the record, My One and Only’s cover is my most favorite of all.

Like every author I’ve ever met, book covers are incredibly important to me. In fact, this very day, I’ll be talking to my editors about my next book cover. My publisher is quite nice and shows me the concepts beforehand, and we go back and forth a bit. I like having a dog on the cover, since it sets my books apart from the many other contemporaries out there. As an author and a reader, I prefer not to see the faces of the hero and heroine, because what if they don’t look like how I imagine them? But how can you keep doing the same thing over and over and not have the book covers feel tired? I’m not sure.

There are trends in book covers, too. Heavens, look at all the 50 Shades of Grey references out there…I think there should be a separate section for “Books about Kinky Sex Featuring Black & White Menswear on the Covers.” The marketing geniuses at Ms. James’s publisher should get a medal, I think, packaging that book the way they did.

Historical covers recently began focusing on the gorgeous dresses, and more power to that trend. Granted, I’d buy a Sherry Thomas novel even if the cover showed pictures of donkeys, but still. This cover is sumptuous.

Here’s a cover that struck me as really interesting and evocative. I don’t know what this book is about, but I downloaded it yesterday. It’s self-published, but it looks very professionally done, which is nice to see. Either the author is gifted in graphic design, or she hired someone who was.

I’ve heard great things about this book, but I hate this version of the cover.

But I really like this one and would be much more prone to buying it as such.

Here’s the original cover of To Kill a Mockingbird, one of my favorite books ever.

And here’s the cover of the version I bought last year.

I would never buy this version.

Here’s a book I would never read based on the cover alone. For the record, I’m a huge fan of Jonathan Tropper and even wrote him a fan letter (he has yet to respond…hmmmph), and I did read this book, but it was in spite of the cover, not because of it.

This one, though…I don’t care who published you or how good you might be, sir. I am not going to read this book.

Can you remember the last book you bought just because of the cover? Or a book you read in spite of the cover? How about your favorite book cover of all time? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

This was the threat of my sainted mother, should her children raise their voices to her or, heaven forbid, say a bad word. Ironic, considering that my mother taught me to swear by her example. We’re from a salty Hungarian family, blue collar workers, by and large. My great-aunt Mimi was the most creative—she was a waitress for many years and had a slew of not-quite obscene phrases that nonetheless seemed filthy: “Take a bite, mister!” or “Move it, you horse’s ass!” Mommy Dearest is famed for “Shitski!”

I personally have a very casual relationship with swearing. I don’t do it in front of the kids (unless we have a near-miss while driving). Once, Princess Daughter asked if she could swear when she was a grown-up (like Grammy, I believe she said). I replied, “Well, I suppose you could, honey; you’ll be an adult. But it just doesn’t seem right, a curse word coming from your perfect mouth.” The answer did the trick; at 17, my daughter has never sworn.
She does make up some great faux cursewords: wenis, which is the loose skin at the elbow. She says to her brother, “Don’t be such a wenis.” We all use the word now. My sister, who lived in Germany, swears in German. It always sounds much more impressive, I think.

I use the occasional curse word in my books when I feel it’s really necessary for realism purposes (Soldiers, Brits, Red Sox fans). We do tend to swear in New England. I realize that people from different backgrounds or areas don’t have the same casual relationship with certain words that I do, so I’ve made an effort in my books to invent my own bad words. Harper in My One and Only said Holy testicle Tuesday when surprised. I don’t know where that came from. Faith calls Levi a hemorrhoid in The Best Man, and her sister Honor says fungus instead of another word. My favorite one is from Posey in Until There Was You: Bieber.

Do you have any colorful phrases or words you use instead of curses? Do you mind when a character in a book swears? Does it depend on the story? I’m curious!

When I was a little kid, Easter was a much bigger event than it is for us today. The clothes, mainly. My sister and I would get matching or complementary dresses, with smocking and a little petticoat, maybe. We’d wear slips, one of the only times a year we’d do so. Also, those little lacy white tights, which usually involved Mom picking us up by the waistband and shaking us until we were all the way in, sort of the same way you put a pillow in a pillowcase. The shoes—white buckle shoes, tres glam. With a heel, and maybe some flowers on them, too, or a little pinhole pattern. White gloves! Oh, we felt so fancy!

But best of all were the pocketbooks. Little white straw things, adorned with multicolored pastel flowers, often matching the hats, which made our heads itchy and had the elastic that cut into our chubby little jowls. Mom would put some tissues into our purses, and a quarter for us to give during the collection at church. Mom would always have a corsage on Easter; Dad gave it to her. My parents were extremely good-looking, the couple to be, you know? They married young and had us three before they were 25, and I remember the sense of pride I had that my mommy was the prettiest one in church, and my daddy was so tall.

Church seemed endless on Easter Sunday, because it fell between candy in the Easter basket and the big dinner at my grandparents’ house, where we’d have lamb and mint jelly, and maybe custard for dessert. If it was warm, we’d sit on the porch and play, or ask our great-grandfather to tell us about the olden days and pepper him with questions about his age and when he thought he might die (we were little, what can I say?).

Seems I can still remember the smell of the house on Harbor Street, feel the sunshine of the early spring afternoon, still feel a little drowsy thinking about going home in the car, and the relief of getting out of those beautiful, itchy clothes.

Do you celebrate Easter? Passover? What are (or were) some of your  traditions?

Congratulations, Kristy Spangler! You’ve won a copy of MY ONE AND ONLY. Send your snail mail addy to k.higgins@snet.net, and I’ll get one out in the mail to you as soon as possible! Thanks to all of you who enjoyed my rescue at sea!

…or My Brush with Death (stop laughing, Jaunty!).

Yeah. So here’s the thing. I don’t really like the ocean. Jaws ruined me. Plus, you can’t breathe in the water, which I find disconcerting. I’m not a bad swimmer; I’m not a really strong swimmer, either. But when it came time to snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef during my recent trip to Australia, I didn’t want to miss out. Once in a lifetime chance, yadda yadda.

In the promotional ads and brochures, they show this very attractive couple frisking about in shallow water. Stand-up kind of water. They didn’t show the boat dropping you off in choppy seas with waves breaking on the sharp and jagged coral nearby. But drop us off they did. “Into the water, darling, good on you!” the merry captain said, not realizing that seven-foot swells were daunting for some of us (me, for example). I immediately flashed back to the summer I was four, when my swimming instructor tossed me in the deep end of the pool (my first near-drowning), and the time my brother bounced me off the diving board and I cut my head (my second near-drowning) and the time my dad lost his grip on me in the rough surf of Cape Cod (my third near-drowning). Are you sensing a pattern?

Nevertheless, I jumped (fell) into the water and looked. And yes, it was magical. Life affirming. Surreal.

It was also frickin’ deep! Fifty feet of clear blue water. Sharks possibly swimming nearby, not to mention moray eels, giant squid and clams that might at any moment clamp down on my leg and hold me underwater, like in that movie I saw when I was six. Did I mention potential sharks lurking nearby?

Lucky for me, McIrish, sainted husband and rescue swimmer, LOVES the ocean. So he held my hand, and we snorkeled away. Pretty fishies everywhere. Coral. Cool plants. More beautiful fishes. No sharks (that I could see), no giant clamping clams. There was, however, a great deal of saltwater, and while I do know not to drink it, I kept popping my head up (to see how far we were from the boat), and to take the snorkel out of my mouth, because I was freaked out from breathing through a plastic tube. And apparently, I swallowed some sea water.

Five minutes or an eternity later, I said to McIrish, “I need to go back to the boat. I don’t feel so good.” And then I puked. And when I puke, my throat closes up. Not in an allergic, Epi-pen way…just in an “Oh, gross!” kind of way. It caused something I hadn’t foreseen: a feeding frenzy. Disgusting, I know, but there was my Bircher Muesli, and there was the feeding frenzy. As I tried unsuccessfully to breathe, McIrish grabbed me in traditional rescue swim hold and began waving down the lifeguard. Who didn’t see us. My throat opened long enough for me to puke again. I mentally apologized to my fellow snorkelers, though hoped they would appreciate the thick cluster of fishies who were enjoying my breakfast.

A tiny German girl came swimming toward me like a Labrador, strong and brave, and gave me her floatie. Another swimmer came to hold my other arm. I began making elk-like, bugling noises as I sucked in air, then puked again. McIrish kept yelling, and I heard the engine of the rescue launch fire up. The whole time, I was thinking, “This is nasty/I knew I wasn’t meant to swim/Keep kicking so you don’t drown/Are there any sharks nearby?”

Then the rescue launch was there, and the mate cheerfully told me he was going to haul me into the boat, did the same, said, “Did you swallow salt water, darling? That was stupid of you, wasn’t it?” and took me back to the boat, where another crew member patted my shoulder and laughed. McIrish, who often rescues people in distress, was rather touchingly affected, since the vic was also his wife, and kissed me repeatedly, vomit-breath notwithstanding. The other 67 passengers were quite solicitous (hey, it’s not every day you get to see the rescue launch deployed), and seemed quite fond of me, as I’d made them feel better about themselves.

At the next stop on the reef, the water was calmer. Did I want to go in again? I did. This time, I kept my mouth shut.

And hey. It’s not everyone who can add “rescued at sea” to her list of life accomplishments.

As I’m filled with gratitude at still being alive, how’s about I give away a book to one of you? Leave a comment, and I’ll send one of you a signed copy of MY ONE AND ONLY, in which our hero and heroine have their own brush with death, though theirs happens on land.

THE BEST MAN by Kristan Higgins is a New York Times, USA TODAY and Amazon bestseller!