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| Illustrated by Erwin Madrid |
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| the book jacket |
I'm entirely delighted to reveal the cover
of my third novel for middle grade readers, entitled, DESTINY, REWRITTEN, which
will be released March 1, 2013, from HarperCollins. Molly O’Neill is the editor. I am so fortunate to have worked with her on
this book because Molly is one of those editors who somehow knows the exact
thing a manuscript needs but has not yet been put into words. Her suggestions are often perfect, and she has
a gentle way of making it seem as if the (perfect) idea was mine all
along!
The brilliant book designers were Joel Tippie
and Amy Ryan. They made the book jacket
look a bit roughed/scratched up, as if it has been sitting on a shelf in a used
bookstore somewhere. (There is a very
good reason they did this, you’ll see why when you read the book.)
The illustrator, of course, is the wonderful Erwin
Madrid. You can find his website here: http://www.erwinmadrid.com/ www.erwinmadrid.com
Mr. Madrid also illustrated the paperback
cover of THE YEAR THE SWALLOWS CAME EARLY.
I couldn’t be happier with the DESTINY, REWRITTEN cover. It’s ideal and completely captures Emily’s
quest.
For my twentieth birthday, my grandmother,
who was a science fiction author, gave me a copy of THE COMPLETE POEMS OF EMILY
DICKISON. Inside the front cover, she
wrote, E.D. is a revered poet.
Perhaps the same will be said of you one day. The inscription was the starting point
for this story. Several days after she
passed away, I made a copy of that page and hung it in my home office. With its fancy handwriting and loving words
of hope, it is almost like having her here, but not quite.
Writing a book about destiny has a way of
making one think about the choices that have been made, and about all of the
people who have helped along the way.
Do we make our own destiny? Or is
it preset? You will get a thousand
different answers to this question depending on whom you ask.
And in case you’re wondering what this book
is about, here is the flap copy:
Des·tin·y: |destinē/
(noun)
The hidden power believed to control what will
happen in the future; fate.
Eleven-year-old
Emily Elizabeth Davis has been told for her entire life that her destiny is to
become a poet, just like her famous namesake, Emily Dickinson. But Emily
doesn’t even really like poetry, and she has a secret career ambition
that she suspects her English-professor mother will frown on. Then a seeming
tragedy strikes: just after discovering that it contains an important family
secret, she accidentally loses the special copy of Emily Dickinson’s poetry
that was given to her at birth. As Emily and her friends search for the lost
book in used bookstores and thrift shops all across town, Emily’s understanding
of destiny begins to unravel and then rewrite itself in a marvelous new way.
Thank you to everyone who worked on the book at HarperCollins, most especially, Molly.
