I got an email last week from Thomas Allen publishers happily letting me know that three of the books I’d designed covers for have been nominated for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize — Sarah Selecky’s This Cake is for the Party, Caroline Adderson’s The Sky is Falling, and Jack Hodgins’ The Master of Happy Endings. Kind of crazy to have three out of the twelve books shortlisted for Canada sport covers by yours truly!
Sara Selecky’s Cake was also shortlisted for the Giller Prize last year (thank goodness I didn’t have to figure out where to put the sticker proclaiming the shortlisting, since I’d probably still be trying to figure out the ‘best’ place for it on the cover). Fishtailing, by Wendy Phillips (my first YA cover), won a Governor General’s Literary award –and fortunately I didn’t have to figure out that sticker, either!.
And while, of course, the nominations have nothing to do with the covers, there’s still a nice warm feeling knowing I participated in the creation of the printed books for these fine authors. Congratulations to all of them!
