Babel Clash

David, Jeff & Paul,

Thanks for participating on Babel Clash.  It’s been a fun conversation.  Before you go, please take this opportunity to share with your potential new fans why your books are must-reads for this holiday season.

Good luck with the in-store event tonight.  Please let us all know how the event goes.

Fans, if you’re in the Boston area, please be sure to check out the live event.  As Jeff mentions below, they will be at the Borders on Boylston St. @ 7:00 (Friday, the 20th).

Also, special thanks to Annalee from IO9.com.  Annalee, you’re welcome to stop by anytime.

If you’re not checking out IO9.com regularly, then you’re missing out.  It’s a great site, and they have just added the new Book Vortex.  Check it out.

Mike Carey's take on the X-Men

We’re talking about genre hopping, but we also have medium or format hopping.  We have authors such as Mike Carey and Dan Abnett writing comics.  Jim Butcher wrote a Dresden Files comic.  Neil Gaiman is writing screenplays.  George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones and Charlaine Harris’ True Blood are connected to HBO.

Bill Willingham, a highly regarded comics writer, recently took his stab at writing comics.  So comics writers are coming over to the traditional book format, too.

Dan, Paul and Jeff, have you ever had an itch to write comics?  If you had the chance, would you adapt your own work, work with an estished brand name or try something totally different?  If not, is there another medium in which you’d like to tell your tales?  Would you tackle a screenplay for your own books?

Jeff is 100 percent correct in saying that his level of input on the design of covers is not the norm.  Though like Jeff, I was fortunate that Henry Holt came to me for some pre-input on what feel/look I wanted for the cover of The Little Sleep.

My novel features a private detective who blacks out and has incredibly vivid hallucinations that muddy the waters of his reality, so I knew we had to get the mix of odd with noir across with the cover.   My pre-cover input focused on an image from a movie poster a friend had sent me: Anatomy of a Murder.

movie poster!

I liked the use of primary colors, the title being prominent, and the sense of general oddness of the silhouetted body.

Fortunately, my vague ramblings and movie poster landed in the hands of the incredibly talented Lisa Fyfe, book designer at Holt.  The finished cover of The Little Sleep was featured at faceoutbooks (a blog devoted to cover design), where Lisa described her creative process in more detail.

The Little Sleep

I’m pleased to welcome three authors to Babel Clash for our next geeky debate. Please join me in welcoming…

Jeff VanderMeer, author of Shriek, Veniss Underground and brand new novel Finch. He has also edited several fantastic anthologies, such as the New Weird and Steampunk.

David Anthony Durham, author of several historical novels and also fantasy novels Acacia and the Other Lands.

Paul G. Tremblay, author of The Little Sleep and the upcoming No Sleep Till Wonderland.

Tune in tomorrow to read the first posts in our new debate. Thanks for joining us.