Gallery
Cover Art
This was the first cover art for Laugh, Kookaburra, Laugh. As you can see, at that time, the mascot of Blue Ridge University was the panther, the font was a little crazy, and the cover explained that the book was a NaNo novel. Someone on the NaNo forums started a "critique the above poster's cover art/synopsis/excerpt" thread, and the person who reviewed this image felt that it was a little too hard to read and difficult to follow. I agreed.
The second cover art for Laugh, Kookaburra, Laugh. At this point the mascot was eliminated, but the background got even crazier. The title fonts were what I at the time used as handwriting fonts for the ten main characters. In case you were curious: Cooper's font was "It Ain't Rocket Science", Sofia was "BrushScript MT", Frenchie was "Machine Script", Juniper was "Scriptina", Kanani was "Aerofoil", Jazz was "JazzText" (of course), Ruth was "SchoolHouse Cursive B", Bryn was "Handwriting-Dakota", Christie was "Pea Chris in a Hurry", and Logan was "Pea Kim". I liked this image solely because it took me forever and a day to do, but it was still not quite what I wanted.
The final cover art for Laugh, Kookaburra, Laugh. CreateSpace has several templates for cover creation, and I simply picked one I liked and modified it to my satisfaction. The picture is one I took while at a wedding in Bedford, VA, which, like the fictional town of Migusc where Blue Ridge University is set, is along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The mountains in the distance are called Otters Peak. (Incidentally, the picture was taken from the National D-Day Memorial.)
The original cover art for May Day. I liked it, but I didn't think it was quite right. I also couldn't figure out how to make it work with the template.
The final cover art for May Day. This picture is actually the Virginia Wesleyan campus when it snowed last February. I loved the picture and felt it captured the atmosphere of the place I was attempting to set the story, so I used it and I feel like it worked quite well.
Other Images
When I first started writing the book, I was having a little trouble visualising where everything was in relation to everything else on campus, so I drew up a rudimentary map. The only landmarks of importance on campus that didn't end up on the map are the student parking lot and the track/field where Jazz practices with the marching band. There are actually two parking lots--one behind the blue buildings (fraternity/sorority housing--sorry, the lettering somehow got a little blurred) for everyone in the yellow, green, and blue buildings, and one just off the map in the bottom right corner for the people in the purple buildings. The marching band field is off the top lefthand corner of the map.
This is actually the first page of May Day, but the book was printed in black-and-white, so you can't see the colors. I thought you might like to see this to get the full effect. It is the flyer for the National Ribbon Convention, such as would have been passed out were this an actual event. The ribbons are burgundy (headaches/migraines), green (missing children), purple (domestic abuse), orange (underage drinking), and teal (agoraphobia). Note that the causes I have listed here are the ones the ribbons correspond to in my book.
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