This weekend I went to visit relatives on my husband’s side. One of them is a successful artist. She really ruffled my feathers.

I’m very annoyed with her. She just ASSUMED I’d gotten my covers done for free or cheap. I believe you pay the artist, artisan, writer or anyone else for their creative work! I don’t bilk my cover artists out of their money. I pay for my book covers, people.

The cover for The Best of Abyss & Apex, Volume One was done my my friends Kenn Brown and Chris Wren of Mondolithic Studios (now Mondoworks). They gave us quite a discount compared to corporate clients like Wired & Scientific American, but it was still hefty enough I had to make payments. They also did a back cover, so I felt like I was getting a two-fer, but…not cheap.

I paid the same hefty amount, several hundred dollars, for the cover of The Best of Abyss & Apex, Volume Two. This was to an artist I found on Deviant  Art–Jeff Lee Johnson.

Jeff Lee Johnson was also paid nicely for the cover for Confessions of a Female Safety Engineer. He earned it.

The covers for my Better Dating Through Engineering books, for men and women, and my poetry chapbook were done by a graphic freelance artist who goes by the name of Bombyx. And yes, he was paid, too, including a bonus for the updated covers this year.

Luke 1, verse 7, says “A workman is worthy of his hire.” These artists made my visions a reality and deserved my support.

Support the artists!

A short story of mine is up at Little Blue Marble: “Free the Sky.”

And why, you ask, does the sky need freeing? Read it and see.

These are pecans we picked and washed, spread out to dry. Our ginger cat was batting them from underneath, over and over, for the longest time, absolutely thrilled with the rattling sound they made as they banged together. In other words. Tigre was nuts about nuts. #simplethingsforsimpleminds

For those who request a paperback version of my chapbook, the final cover design for the print version of Plant Garden Around Your Life was sent to the printer today. I should have the printed proofs in about a week. the paperback version will debut on the first day of Spring, March 20, 2018.

Plant Garden Around Your Life explains, with a poet’s voice, what depression really feels like. It also chronicles what wellness feels like, the aftermath of the disease, and what you can do to help.

A reviewer showed some appreciation for the magazine I run, Abyss & Apex, here at this link. Basically, they listed almost all the stories in the edition as recommendations (skipping a fantasy piece) and then highlighted one of our book reviews, and finished off with a plug for our fundraising. Very nice.

My short story, “The Groundskeeper’s Tale,” has been published by Gathering Storm Magazine. It’s available on Amazon. Here’s the cover: