How could I capture my new novel in one cover? Not that it was my job—but when the warm, welcoming cover designer at my publisher asked me for ideas, the frustrated faux artist in me dove into Canva with the abandon of a kindergartener with fingerpaint.

I’m sure all authors feel this way about their books, but me-me-me: how to describe The Many Mothers of Ivy Puddingstone so it captures (as Steven King says) “the gotta know?” How do I capture:

• House meetings where five couples debate the pros and cons of monogamy vs. children escaping the daily grind of granola by shoplifting Hostess Cupcakes to The dance of familial love and communal ties,
• The lens of sociopolitical upheaval from the 1960s to the present day and
• The question of when sacrifices are worth the price.

How can a cover convey crisscrossing events? Scenes that made me laugh even while writing, remembering how seriously we took ourselves? Historic moments? A heartbreaking one?

How can one image capture children who want to watch Happy Days vs. political-activist parents who think sending them away to, as Ivy writes in her college essay, is a solution, sending them to:

“… an idyll where nature would nurture us. Fresh air! Organic vegetables we grew with our own hands! Milk from the cows we raised from calves! Neither cows nor calves materialized, and plucking disgusting bugs off the few vegetables that grew became automatic.

I longed for the Green Giant string beans with almonds my grandmother served alongside her roasted chicken—something else I craved. Poppy and I papered our room with ragged-edged advertisements torn from magazines. We woke to Chef Boyardee holding a can of his ravioli, staring at us with grandfatherly beneficence while our dealers-choice granola waited in the kitchen.”

Taking too much to heart that a picture is worth a thousand words, I mocked up (too many, cause, like fingerpainting: fun) imagined covers (in a former title iteration—before I realized the Ivy Puddingstone worked better (because Ivy is tired of being identified by her parent’s collective, of being one of the ‘Puddingstone kids’) stealing pictures of myself and my ‘group,’ of the poster that hung above my daughter’s crib, and of the mood of the seventies.

However, the novel moves from 1964 to 2020 (though the bulk of it takes place in the 1970s), and that is where the wisdom of professionals comes into deeply needed play. Capturing mood is difficult.

So, thank you, Lauren Sheldon, Becky Hilliker, Adrienne Folkerts, and your team, for translating my many covers and ideas into an array of phenom choices, for helping me choose two for a cover poll, and thank you, John Koehler (of the eponymous Koehler Books), for the brilliance of the cover poll!

Thank you, my friends, family, and readers who voted—and even more for the private messages that helped me see outside of my own scrim (but I love that color) and realize that ultimately, the cover, like the first line of a book, is an invitation to enter.

And the vote was close!

My novel is now up for pre-sale everywhere, from Barnes & Noble to Amazon, Indiebound, Bookshop.org, Books-a-Million, and more.

The Many Mothers of Ivy Puddingstone will be released on October 29, 2024.

And with the first lines of The Many Mothers of Ivy Puddingstone, I invite you in:

Once upon a time, I belonged to a tribe of kids who ran free. Too free.

I grew to hate and love many things while living in Vermont those years. The umpteen words for pot drove me crazy even before I hated smoking, smelling, or seeing the substance. I’ll never miss the choking odor of patchouli oil, the flavor of brown rice, or the sight of stir-fried vegetables drenched in tamari sauce.

I hated the word screwing. In truth, I hated all references to sex. Roundhouse, our commune in Vermont, practically made a nun out of me. And I’m not sure if I can use these words in a college admission essay, but don’t they tell you what Roundhouse did to me? Freedom of expression was sacred there.