Susan Dexter's Blog

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Lots of discussion going on about scene-specific covers, characters not looking as the author describes them…so here’s my take on covers.
A cover is a selling tool. Its job is to make the potential customer notice the book. And done. Covers run in cycles & trends, not to mention genres. A woman in a diaphanous gown running along a clifftop, with a scary mansion in the background? You’re looking at a gothic novel, and there will be peril, and some sort of mansion—but not necessarily a cliff. A bloody knife? Probably a Mystery. Maybe Horror. Man and woman embracing? A Romance. He’s wearing a kilt? A Highland Romance! Covers give potential readers an idea of what sort of book they’re holding.
If you have the bucks of a major publisher, you can hire an illustrator. The illustrator will paint something that represents the book. Might or might not be scene-specific. Might or might not follow what the author wrote, how characters were described. If you are a small press or an indie author, you hire a cover designer. A cover designer will take stock images, either public domain or licensed for the project, and make a cover that represents the book. It can be magic. It won’t be a scene-specific illustration—unless you’re in a genre that has tons of affordable images available. If you write in an invented world like I do, those images do not exist, sorry.
Two covers, here, both for the same book: Moonlight, Wildside Press, 2001; Moonshine, Wildside Press, 2014.
Wildside was one of the early Print-On-Demand presses, and the 2001 cover is an Arthur Rackham public domain piece that has a really cool moon, and a spooky wood, both of which figure in the story. The kid in the tree is wearing a kilt, and there’s no sign of Thomas, the cat. Tristan’s not described as wearing a kilt, and Thomas is probably the most important character after Tristan, but the cover is attractive and interesting. It functions, but it’s not exactly exciting.
By 2014, Teddi Black was designing my covers, and I was ready to take the book back to its original title. (An internet search revealed loads of “Moonlights” but no “Moonshine” fiction.) When she showed me that title in the font “Rat Infested Mailbox”, we were on our way! I wanted a real big, full moon. Teddi found that, and stock images of a boy and a cat sitting by water. Is the boy dressed exactly the way I described Tristan? No, but it’s nothing he wouldn’t wear. Does Thomas have a big white marking on his chest? No, but he is a brown long haired tabby cat, and he is sitting there right beside Tristan. And this is the story of their first adventure together! So the cover represents the book much better than the 2001 cover. It’s a compelling cover, and one of my favorites. I love the way those sparkles Tristan is tossing suggest magic, and fantasy!

This image is a piece of fabric I purchased from Carol Law Conklin of Amity Farm Batik of Fort Ann, New York, through her Etsy shop. To me, it looks like Valadan, and I've framed it to keep near for inspiration.
I tend to forget abut Etsy--even though I have a shop there myself. (Endlessthread, not real active with it, though.) Shame on me! September 22nd, I ordered this batik, and it shipped out on September 29th.  Also  on September 22nd, I ordered some things from Amazon. The next evening, I ordered warp for my carpet loom from Leesburg Looms in Van Wert, Ohio, and some new heddles. I got a head's up the next day via phone message that the heddles were unavailable, but they were enclosing a refund with my order. Back to Etsy, and ordered similar heddles (the metal pieces the warp threads run through on my loom) from Ability Weavers in Michigan.
The carpet warp arrived, and the heddles arrived. Just like the fabric, all are perfect and arrived promptly. Fabulous Customer Service! The Amazon order--which by the way is a birthday present for a family member, a package of Stress Sheep and 3 boxes of Yorkshire Tea--has still not even shipped. It's October 4th, and I see the Zon trucks zipping all over, but the small businesses and the US Post Office beat you all hollow! I'm in Western PA, so those small businesses are on the same end of the US, but there was never any indication that the Amazon order had to ship from Outer Mongolia, either!

​I’d been passing up free kittens all summer of 2003. I wanted a cat, but none of them was the right kitten. I wanted a cat like Thomas, the kitten from maybe 1970, still remembered, the one Thomas in The Ring of Allaire was based on. And I’m never in Wal Mart on a Friday night right before Christmas. But I was. And there, on the Humane Society Pet Board, was…my cat. I knew it at once.
I had two dogs and a rescue staying till my brother was ready to take him. I went to see the cat at the shelter the next day—the last day they were open before the holiday. They told me she had walked into the shelter under her own power, lured by the food they put out to keep drop-offs around. No one claimed her, her time was almost up, and they didn’t want to put her down, but they weren’t a no-kill shelter. Someone had applied for her, but they had not shown up, and the shelter was closing in 15 minutes, so I could apply. (I knew she was my cat!) I picked Kira up the day after Christmas. Kira Nerys. A Maine Coon mix, with extra toes. Double thumbs on the front, thumbs on the back. (Most cats have NO thumbs on the back feet.) A long tabby coat, like Thomas. She fit in seamlessly. When the dogs ran to answer the door, she ran along the top of the couch and stood just behind—and above—them. (“Hi. I am the cat.”) When the dogs had their portraits done at Clark Studios in return for pet food donations, Kira did too. (She even explored the studio!)
I didn’t know if she hunted when she came to me—but she did. She was an indoor cat, but she got a lot of mice, two fully grown rats and a wild rabbit that somehow got into the basement. She slipped out a couple of times to explore the woods behind the house. I’d have to leave the patio door open a crack so she could slip back in. Then she got out in the winter and I didn’t realize it—and there weren’t any tracks in the fresh snow. Turns out that’s because she spent the whole time hiding in my neighbor’s bushes watching for a chance to slip back in, and I was out walking the neighborhood, putting up posters and crying.
She was good with all the dogs, even Misty who chased her and pulled her tail, and George, who stole the cool floor in her room his first night with us and then ate her food. And when I found myself dogless, she stepped up and tried to be a dog. Twice in her last five years.
Age got her. She was in her twenty-first year, down to her last 3 teeth, thin, and I wasn’t too sure she could see. She couldn’t get into her bed in the Morris chair, and she only navigated in circles, so she struggled to come to me—but I could always come to her, since her room was the bathroom. Still, I knew it was time. I made her final vet appointment. Got her some canned salmon, because she loved the broth on it, and she would drink if I held the dish for her. She had some that Sunday morning, and when I came home after church she was stretched out peacefully. She went on her own terms, the same way she came into the shelter all those years ago. She was the BEST cat!

I stopped by last Sunday just to confirm that I will be there Saturday demonstrating hand-spinning on my Scottish drop spindle. One of my favorite places to spin--and I will be next to Linda Szmara, who paints sheep--and other creatures--on river rocks. Saturday, November 25, 2023. Event runs 11:00 am to 4:00 pm--and remember, it's Small Business Saturday! I'm not selling anything this year, but there will be plenty of crafters to support! 

Saturday, November 18, 2023--here I am with Cathy Hester Seckman, selling our books at the Holy Spirit Parish Christmas Festival. Also there: several other writers, including Fr. Aaron J. Kriss, author of Spiritual Inspirations. Children's books, local history books--more kinds of books than they had kinds of pierogies!

A post I saw today: a mustang stallion made sure a young foal separated from her mother during a round-up was guided to the safety of her herd—even though it meant he gave up his own freedom in the process. It was witnessed, so it’s true. Some might find that an incredible tale—as the women of Cathy Hester Seckman’s Right Side Wrong Side would find it passed belief that a man would care whether or not he had a daughter, and long to see her.
A colony world. Limited resources, and part of them are killing others off. Saving the colony requires drastic measures—and a wall totally separating the sexes. Women to the Right Side, men to the Wrong Side. And generations pass.
The sexes meet at Red Cabins carefully managed by the women, because babies are necessary for society’s survival. Female babies stay with their mothers. Male babies are passed through the wall to the men who thereby learn they have fathered children. And both sides think they’re in a utopia—at least sometimes.
Because a story where all problems are solved and all characters are content…isn’t a story. Some problems just go with the territory—power struggles and politics, work-life balance. But people are…only human, even on a colony world.
The men of Wrong Side raise their sons. And a man without sons may wonder whether no sons means no children. The women of Right Side may find it difficult to give up a child unseen, unknown except for its male sex. But there’s a medication for that, right? Is running a government fulfilling—or duty? Is making art a spare time thing—or necessary to life? Right Side Wrong Side asks those questions, in a fast-paced plot with life & death stakes and memorable characters. 

​It goes on sale October 30, 2023.

​George. Arthur. Harry. Romeo. (Because his breed registry, the United Kennel Club, prefers to be able to tell the dogs apart, so I named him British Royals style. Four names.) George. English Shepherd. Son of Jake and Jenna.
It has been nearly five years since I brought him home, and he was an urban farm dog from the first. I brought him home on a Saturday. Next morning we were in the front yard, checking the above-ground potato farms when George spotted two very small dogs being walked up the street. He responded as a farm dog should: State your business. Now move along. When we took morning walks, we were moving the coos out to pasture. (Coos, because we had Highland cattle. Imaginary Highland cattle.) I believe the coos got home on their own, because we never had to bring them back. The background of the photo here is a piece of art I bought for his “room”, round bales in a field. He went to Farmer’s Markets every year but this one. He attended Pet Blessings, and church parking lot sales, and the St. Vitus Festival. (He loved the meatballs!) He loved pizza crusts. To be fair, anything I was eating, but pizza crusts especially.
He had a huge circle of friends. George didn’t care about race, or pronouns, or if you were really a “cat person”. If he said you were part of his circle, then that was that. He had his “posse”, little girls waiting for their puppy to be old enough to come to them, meanwhile waiting for George to walk by, and we’d hear them a block away: “Georgie, Georgie, Georgie!”
He had a pointy nose, and his breeder thought he’d be the last of his litter to go, because he had no flashy markings, just a tiny white patch on his chest and 4 white hairs in the middle of his back. His hair was long and black and silky, and he looked like his mom, Jenna. Movie star handsome.
He was very athletic. He wouldn’t jump on people—he’d jump beside me on his leash, in place, airs above the ground. He’d work off-leash around me, huge circles, never leaving me, except for a quick break to shout down a groundhog hole. Not to leave me out of the fun—more than once he tried to take me down the hole. Then there was his LOG—part of a downed tulip poplar too big for the mowing crew to shift except off of the cemetery road. Taller than he was, even full-grown. George climbed onto it. He walked along it. He jumped onto it. He jumped over it! He jumped off it to startle other, smaller dogs. And then, one day, it was gone. And George is gone, 5 years and not quite 2 months of age.
Five years. If you lose an English Shepherd at 5, it should be saving someone from a charging bull or a runaway tractor. Not from an aggressive, untreatable tumor that aged him 10 years in 3 months. It’s so unfair, there just are no words. I tried to keep him comfortable, I tried to give him good nutrition…but that last week, yes, there were pizza crusts! As many as he wanted.
Sleep well, Farm Boy. Sleep well.

​George. Arthur. Harry. Romeo. (Because his breed registry, the United Kennel Club, prefers to be able to tell the dogs apart, so I named him British Royals style. Four names.) George. English Shepherd. Son of Jake and Jenna.
It has been nearly five years since I brought him home, and he was an urban farm dog from the first. I brought him home on a Saturday. Next morning we were in the front yard, checking the above-ground potato farms when George spotted two very small dogs being walked up the street. He responded as a farm dog should: State your business. Now move along. When we took morning walks, we were moving the coos out to pasture. (Coos, because we had Highland cattle. Imaginary Highland cattle.) I believe the coos got home on their own, because we never had to bring them back. The background of the photo here is a piece of art I bought for his “room”, round bales in a field. He went to Farmer’s Markets every year but this one. He attended Pet Blessings, and church parking lot sales, and the St. Vitus Festival. (He loved the meatballs!) He loved pizza crusts. To be fair, anything I was eating, but pizza crusts especially.
He had a huge circle of friends. George didn’t care about race, or pronouns, or if you were really a “cat person”. If he said you were part of his circle, then that was that. He had his “posse”, little girls waiting for their puppy to be old enough to come to them, meanwhile waiting for George to walk by, and we’d hear them a block away: “Georgie, Georgie, Georgie!”
He had a pointy nose, and his breeder thought he’d be the last of his litter to go, because he had no flashy markings, just a tiny white patch on his chest and 4 white hairs in the middle of his back. His hair was long and black and silky, and he looked like his mom, Jenna. Movie star handsome.
He was very athletic. He wouldn’t jump on people—he’d jump beside me on his leash, in place, airs above the ground. He’d work off-leash around me, huge circles, never leaving me, except for a quick break to shout down a groundhog hole. Not to leave me out of the fun—more than once he tried to take me down the hole. Then there was his LOG—part of a downed tulip poplar too big for the mowing crew to shift except off of the cemetery road. Taller than he was, even full-grown. George climbed onto it. He walked along it. He jumped onto it. He jumped over it! He jumped off it to startle other, smaller dogs. And then, one day, it was gone. And George is gone, 5 years and not quite 2 months of age.
Five years. If you lose an English Shepherd at 5, it should be saving someone from a charging bull or a runaway tractor. Not from an aggressive, untreatable tumor that aged him 10 years in 3 months. It’s so unfair, there just are no words. I tried to keep him comfortable, I tried to give him good nutrition…but that last week, yes, there were pizza crusts! As many as he wanted.
Sleep well, Farm Boy. Sleep well.