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Detour
This poetry collection explores the breaking apart and remaking of a woman's identity in the middle of her life, through a son's birth and a painful divorce. Subject matter that in a lesser poet's hands would be merely confessional here takes on a haiku-like precision and open-endedness, intimate yet unbounded by the confines of one person's experience. This feat is accomplished through White's use of the second-person voice and the way she narrates major events obliquely, through peripheral details described with quiet beauty.
Diane Gilliam Fisher
Fisher's stark, plain-spoken verse shows a gift for inhabiting the voices of her characters and the world they inhabit. We especially recommend her second book, Kettle Bottom, which tells the story of the West Virginia coal miners with tenderness and a quiet rage for justice.
Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
Word-lovers will appreciate graphic designer and filmmaker John Koenig's list of words he's invented to express subtle, familiar, as-yet-unnamed feelings. Some are illustrated with video clips. What imaginative person hasn't experienced "onism: the frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time"? E-books have their merits, but they'll never evoke "vellichor: the strange wistfulness of used bookstores".
Digital Poetry
Brian Kim Stefans presents "the dreamlife of letters". Words from A to Z scamper, dissolve and deconstruct themselves in this 11-minute animation, Stefans' playful response to postmodern jargon. Read Teemu Ikonen's commentary on the genre, "Moving Text in Avant-Garde Poetry".
Digital Transgender Archive
The Digital Transgender Archive is an online compendium of source materials and original documents of transgender history, including oral histories, periodicals, correspondence, and activist pamphlets and posters. Invaluable for researching your historical novel or writing characters outside your personal experience of gender and sexuality.
DILF: Did I Leave Feminism?
By Jude Ellison S. Doyle. This incisive and funny memoir-in-essays explores the fraught but inseparable relationship between transmasculine people and feminist movements. A prominent feminist cultural critic before his transition, Doyle found that his experience was erased or his credentials questioned in spaces he had once fought for, even while he remained subject to patriarchal oppression as a gender minority. The book weaves personal anecdotes with important reassessments of Second Wave thinkers, recovering a complex historical record that reveals the gender essentialism of contemporary TERFs as a deviation from the movement.
Directions of Folding
By Heather M. Browne
I saw a horrible accident
Ocean blue papered Holiday dry cleaning
Bundled tight
Not her place to cross
Not between the lines
Ignored directions
She flew
High
Confetti tossed skyward
Red, green, blue, skin
A holiday popper
So odd to see a body fly
Twist, turn
Somersault tumbling in the air
A baby doll thrown
Kaleidoscoped view
Her body forgot the order in the sky
Directions of folding
As the potpourri of cloth, paper, skin
Crumbled to the soiled ground
A towel after washing
Clothes from wearing
Napkin following a meal
Body after crash
No care of bend, fold, crease
Done with use
Discarded directions
She crumpled amongst rumpled napkin, paper, cloth
Scattered littering the road
Not along the creases
So unnatural the folding
Origami limb
Director’s Notes: Holocaust Memorial Day, Tel Aviv
By Ricky Rapoport Friesem
Pan across the bustling plaza
bursting with the energy
of busy people on the go.
Zoom out to a long shot
as the siren's piercing howl
brings them to an abrupt halt.
Hold on the shot of the plaza,
still now, and silent.
Zoom in on a pair of sandals
glistening with wet sand.
Cut to a series of tight close ups
of dusty shoes, trendy shoes,
soldiers' boots, high heels,
low heels, new shoes, old shoes,
bridled feet twitching with life.
Tilt up to motionless legs and torsos,
faces settling into solemnity.
Pan the plaza until the siren's
howl is sucked into the void again
and the crowd lets out a collective sigh,
like swimmers coming up for air.
Zoom out to a long shot of the crowd, stirring.
Zoom in to their shoes, in motion once again, then
cut to tight close ups of fancy buckles, worn heels,
burnished leather, delicate straps and tangled laces.
Zoom out to reveal they belong
to the tumbled mass of shoes on display
behind glass in the Auschwitz museum where
they rest now, undisturbed and unclaimed.
Slowly fade to black.
Disability in Kidlit
Disability in Kidlit is a multi-author website dedicated to discussing and improving the portrayal of disability in middle grade and young adult literature. They publish critical essays, reviews, and interviews. Their goals are to help readers, editors, and libraries find books with accurate and respectful treatment of disability, and to educate writers and editors about problematic portrayals. All contributors and editors identify as disabled.
Disability Writes
Online forum for disabled writers to post poetry, fiction and articles, and receive feedback and news of writing opportunities. Website is managed by Just Services, with funding from Arts Council England.
Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space
By Amanda Leduc. A hybrid of memoir and literary criticism, this important and engaging book challenges us, as writers, readers, and myth-makers, to resist the habitual misuse of disability as a symbol of tragedy or villainy. Canadian novelist Leduc interweaves her thesis with personal memories of growing up with cerebral palsy and interviews with modern disability activists.
Dispoet
Insightful blog about poetry and disability includes brief reviews and discussions of contemporary poets writing about the subject (Floyd Skloot, Jim Ferris and others), plus contests and resources.
Diverse BookFinder
Diverse BookFinder is a searchable collection of children's picture books with characters who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color. Books can be requested from DBF by inter-library loan. DBF strives to collect all books in this category that have been released by trade publishers since 2002, in order to track publishing trends and encourage conversations about improving representation. This is not a "recommended books" archive. They accept donations of eligible self-published books, as they do not have the resources to find all qualifying books on their own. Other website features include an archive of author interviews, topical groupings (e.g. books on intercultural friendships), and articles on curating and teaching from a diverse book collection.
Diversity Style Guide
The Diversity Style Guide is a resource to help journalists and other media professionals cover a complex, multicultural world with accuracy, authority, and sensitivity. This guide, a project of the Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism at San Francisco State University, brings together definitions and information from more than two dozen style guides, journalism organizations, and other resources.
Divining Bones
By Charlie Bondhus. This third collection from an award-winning poet stakes its territory in the liminal spaces between male and female, fairy-tale and horror, the archetypal struggle in the psyche and the mundane (but no less dangerous) conflicts of domestic life. The presiding deity of this shadow realm is Baba Yaga, the child-eating forest witch of Eastern European folklore, who guides the narrator to embrace traits rejected by mainstream gay culture. Aging, emasculation, and the grotesque lose their stigma and become sources of transgressive power.
Djelloul Marbrook
Award-winning poet and journalist's weblog features essays on contemporary poets, contextualized with reflections on politics and culture.
DL Shirey’s Short List
Fiction writer DL Shirey curates this list of journals that publish short fiction and nonfiction, sorted by length, from publications for 50-word micros on up.
DMQ Virtual Salon
Online literary journal DMQ Review began their Virtual Salon in 2020 when in-person poetry readings were cancelled due to the pandemic. Each month they publish three videos of contemporary poets, most of them former DMQ contributors or editors, reading from their new books. Featured authors have included Nin Andrews, JP Dancing Bear, Meg Eden, Christopher Salerno, and W. Todd Kaneko.
Do Daily Deal Services Work?
In this 2017 article at Writer Unboxed, Laura Heffernan, self-published author of the romantic comedy novels America's Next Reality Star and Sweet Reality, compares sales figures and Amazon rankings from 19 "daily deal" sites where she advertised her 99-cent e-book sale.
Do You Think Your Father
By Lesléa Newman
DO YOU THINK YOUR FATHER
would take me to the theatre?"
A woman pulls me towards her,
her pointed red nails digging
into the doughy flesh of my bare
upper arm. It is a hot August
afternoon, made hotter still
by the heat of the oven
which I have just opened
to take out a pan of kugel
a neighbor brought by and needed
to be warmed. How did I wind up
alone in the kitchen with this
woman who does not look unlike
my mother? Styled and stiff
thinning brown hair dried out
from too many years of dyeing,
lipstick two shades too dark,
forehead lined like notebook paper
hope springing eternal
in her made-up myopic eyes.
I drop the metal pan of food
on the counter with a clatter,
open a drawer near the sink
and lift my mother's gleaming
kitchen knife. What is this woman's
name? Edna, Edith, Estelle,
Esther! A woman my mother used
to play canasta with and never
particularly liked. "She cheats,"
my mother told me on a scorching
afternoon not that long ago.
"She picks out all the cashews
in the bridge mix. And she has eyes
for your father." I cut the kugel
into even, sharp-edged squares
missing my even sharper-edged mother
who would curl her lip and shoot
me a silent "I told you so" look
to hear Esther ask me if my father
would take her to the theatre
the very afternoon after
the morning of my mother's funeral.
Do’s and Don’ts of a Winning Book Cover Design
It's not always easy for wordsmiths to express their book's core ideas in visual form. In this post, head North Street Book Prize judge Jendi Reiter breaks down their book cover do's and don'ts, with concrete examples.
Annie Mydla, Managing Editor
So you've written your book. The long slog is over...or is it?
Not quite. Without a standout cover to get readers' attention, your book might have a hard time getting off the ground.
Readers are picky. They need to know at a glance what a book's genre, tone, and main ideas are before they commit to a purchase.
Contest judges are even pickier. In the North Street Book Prize competition, perhaps 1% of our 1,000+ annual submissions will win an award. So, while we don't judge books solely by their covers, an attractive, professional-looking cover can make the difference between books that are equally strong in other ways.
Being open about our book preferences is a core value at Winning Writers. That includes our reactions to book covers. So if you're curious about how to improve your chances in North Street, and potentially your book sales too, read on. Head North Street judge Jendi Reiter's insights are concrete, specific, and actionable.
Front cover images
Your front cover is your book's greatest marketing opportunity, but so many North Street submissions miss their chance. Let's look at some of the most common pitfalls.
First, Jendi advises against using amateur illustrations. We know that self- and hybrid-published authors are often working with limited time and budget, but this is not a place to cut corners. A good cover can translate into sales, so it's worth prioritizing, even if the central image costs money.
Books for early and middle-grade readers are at special risk for looking unpolished. Jendi remarks that "even if it's a children's book, the cover shouldn't look like it was drawn by a child." Just because your intended readers are young doesn't mean they can't tell professional from unprofessional. And their parents—and contest judges—certainly can.
Sentimental stock photos on poetry book covers are another no-no. Jendi warns against "flowers, sunsets, or anything that looks like it belongs on a calendar." These well-known symbols may convey certain tones, like peacefulness and wistfulness, but they're not specific enough to give readers that lightning bolt of recognition that leads to sales. Old-fashioned and cliché images give the impression that the poems inside will have the same flaws.
To Jendi's observations, I'd like to add that AI images can immediately kill readers' and judges' interest. AI gives an impression of low effort and fakeness. Some authors think that we won't notice, but it's easy to spot AI once you've seen as much of it as we have. It's true that AI visuals can work when integrated into a larger design by a professional book cover designer, like our North Street co-sponsor, Laura Duffy. But for the untrained, it could be the biggest risk they take with their book.
For book cover success, Jendi says that one of the best things you can do is to research books in your genre from mainstream publishers to see what colors, fonts, and design elements are hot right now.
2024 North Street Genre Fiction Honorable Mention My Boyfriend Satan is a great example of taking cues from the industry. Jendi complements the cover design as "completely on-trend" with its "cute handwriting font and a sensual, playful illustration of [the main couple] against a Barbie-pink background". These design choices by author Leah Campbell smartly situate her novel alongside traditionally published romances and women's fiction like The Best Wrong Move (Joffe Books, 2025), Flawless (Piatkus, 2005), and mega-hit Confessions of a Shopaholic (Dell, 2000).
Patricia Striar Rohner's cover for her 2017 Fiction Honorable Mention Tzippy the Thief is another goodie. The luxury handbag is a symbol of the main character, an elderly kleptomaniac, but it also follows the popular women's fiction cover convention of featuring accessories associated with femininity, e.g. The Woman with All the Answers (Boldwood Books, 2025), Prep (Random House, 2006), and The Devil Wears Prada (Anchor, 2003).
The cover for Vacui Magia, North Street Genre Fiction First Prize winner in 2016, immediately communicates the book's horror/weird fiction genre. Its central image is a horror cover classic: a partially obscured human form inside a frame. Four recent covers sharing the same convention are What Kind of Mother (Quirk Books, 2023), Glass Girls (Gillian Flynn Books, 2025), Our Wicked Histories (Delacorte Press, 2024), and The Ladie Upstairs (Baskerville, 2025). All four of these books make use of the "body in frame" idea in different ways, but they are united by the eeriness of the partially-concealed body and the frame's suggestion that the body is being presented or even served up to our gaze. Vacui Magia's cover is so successful partly because it harnesses horror readers' subconscious expectations about this type of image.
Remember, when it comes to choosing design elements, don't be afraid to follow the crowd. Readers need to know that your book is a good example of their favorite genre. Too much originality could signal that your book is an outlier which may or may not hit the spot.
Front cover text
You might be surprised how many covers fail based on text appearance. Font size alone can lower both professionalism and readability. Choosing the right typeface can make all the difference in what your cover communicates emotionally.
Chunky fonts often have a cheeky, upbeat, or in-your-face feeling. Thinner fonts can show that a book is elevated, thoughtful, yearning, serious—perhaps about psychology, emotions, complex relationships, or inner conflict. However, be aware that thinner fonts appear lighter and have less contrast against the page, which can cause readability issues, depending on your color scheme and font size.
The North Street Grand Prize winners in 2020 and 2023 both used thin fonts incredibly well on their covers. Christine Mulvey's memoir Mine to Carry has a delicate, wood-block typeface that communicates timelessness, yearning, and wisdom. Its Celtic style coheres with the book's setting in Ireland. Daniel Victor's literary novel The Evil Inclination uses a seriously skinny serif font to amplify the shock and stress of the black-and-white figure at the center of the cover.
At the same time, the wrong font can do your cover dirty! Readers are strongly conditioned to associate certain fonts with certain connotations, and might be angry if the impression they get from the cover is not what the interior actually delivers. For example, Jendi cautions against using fonts that belong on a pulp horror poster, "unless your book is in that genre or satirizing it." Authors would do well to extend that insight to their chosen genres, as well.
Low color contrast between text and underlying image can be another pitfall for covers. For example, Jendi has seen too many examples of hard-to-read small type against a low-contrast color (dark on dark or light on light). They also stress not printing important text over a multicolored photo or illustration, unless the picture is in such pastel or grayscale that it's more like a watermark.
2020 North Street Literary Fiction Honorable Mention Finding Land, a story collection by Marian Pierce, solves the problem of making text legible against a busy Japanese street scene by using a large, chunky font and keeping the title brief. In contrast, the author's name is in smaller print, but it still shows up clearly against the blackness of the sky.
Finding Messi: The Miracle Cat from Kyiv by Trevor Ostfeld and Iryna Chernyak, the 2024 North Street Children's Picture Book First Prize winner, employs high-contrast colors to its advantage. The bright yellow background and blue title text don't just stand out, they immediately reinforce the Ukraine focus because they're the colors of the Ukrainian flag. A similar but more subtle example of the blue/yellow color scheme for title and background can be found in the tree's leaves on the cover of the 2019 Picture Book Honorable Mention, Melissa Yap-Stewart's Little Moss, Big Tree.
The wrong color scheme can push readers away. Jendi remarks that "Many of our entrants have this predilection for a red title font over gray, sepia, or olive photo cover images, which can really clash!" But how to know what colors to use on a cover? Jendi recommends using a color wheel or color theory guide to ensure that your palette is harmonious.
The Corpse Bloom by Bryan Wiggins, 2024 North Street First Prize for Genre Fiction, is one of the best thriller covers we've ever received, and its color scheme is a key part of its success. The palette has shades of aqua and dark green for the most part, with red flowers and just a touch of red in the lower right corner. The red components work together to lead the eye through what web designers call the "Z-pattern"—important in an era when book covers are often viewed online first.
The cover for 2021 Picture Book Honorable Mention Mighty May Won't Cry Today by Kendra and Claire-Voe Ocampo might seem a bit busy at first look, with a more varied palette than, say, Finding Messi. But there's still a strong sense of order with the use of the Z-pattern from the title, to the window, down and across May, and back over the authors' and illustrator's names. The engine behind this movement is the alternation of the cool tones of the background and the warm tones of the title, window, and May's orange hair and pink skirt.
The design is more spare in the cover for Cameron Beach's young adult novel The Jigsaw Project, a Literary Fiction Honorable Mention for 2022. The palette is limited to the three primary colors, immediately giving an impression of directness. Meanwhile, the wide field of brick red creates a sense of high stakes even before we open the book.
Titles and subtitles
Less-successful covers sometimes have lengthy additions to their titles, like: Miss Fortune—The True Story of a Small-Town Girl Who Fell in Love and Almost Lost Everything (not a real title, but you get the picture). Jendi comments that subtitles like this are rarely needed for a novel and can make covers look amateurish. Remember—writers tend to be word people, but readers expect the visuals to do the heavy lifting on covers.
Here, again, reviewing covers in your genre for tips can be key. Jendi points out that "certain images, fonts, and background settings are commonly associated with thriller, sci-fi, historical fiction, etc." Use those tropes to your advantage to visually spell out for the reader exactly what your book is all about. There's plenty of time for text in the book's interior.
Subtitles aren't always bad, of course. They can be key in situations where the main title doesn't immediately indicate the umbrella genre of a book, like literary novel, memoir, or short story collection. In those cases, Jendi recommends that the genre subtitle be as brief as possible, for example, Mosses from an Old Manse: Short Stories or My Father's Glory: A Memoir of Provence.
And the shorter your subtitle, the more prominent your main title can be! Juliette Chen's 2018 North Street Poetry Honorable Mention Home Water: Poems, Stories, and Prints uses an evocative main title to convey mood, with a concise subtitle to indicate umbrella genres.
Meanwhile, the cover of 2020 Genre Fiction First Prize winner Kunda by Atukunda Rachael Mutabingwa conveys everything it needs to with no subtitle whatsoever, despite having a one-word title that readers without a connection to Uganda likely won't be familiar with. The gentleness of the watercolor wash, the slightly troubling feeling created by the blending of opposites yellow and purple, red and green, and the thoughtful, somewhat uncertain posture of the young woman's back as she gazes towards the horizon tell us that this is a literary fiction coming-of-age novel about navigating challenges that are new to the main character, likely in a country in Africa. Kunda's cover is brilliant in its concision and specificity.
That said, there's such a thing as too little text, too! Jendi advises never leaving the back cover or book spine entirely blank. Readers might think the book is just plain unfinished. Covers that leave out crucial information also create extra work for our contest admins. You'd be surprised how often we receive print books with no author name anywhere on the covers!
Blurbs and awards
It's not wrong to be proud of the awards your book has achieved, and wanting potential buyers to know about them, too. But beware of crowding your front or back cover with accolades. Jendi's experienced opinion is that it's enough to highlight a single honor that your book has received on the front cover and add a relevant sticker ("Book Excellence Awards Finalist"). Any more than that could make the front cover feel visually cluttered and give the impression that it's trying too hard. You may mention a couple more in the back cover copy, but not so many that you shortchange the description of the book.
As for blurbs, Jendi recommends putting them on the back, "unless it's from someone extremely famous or a prestigious source like the New York Times Book Review." In that case, don't give in to the temptation to quote at length! Put a single pull-quote of 5-8 words above the title, for example, "A groundbreaking memoir of surviving a shark attack—Roxane Gay". Just one complementary adjective and a few keywords from the book can make a difference without overwhelming the eye.
Back covers
Back covers can be a real danger zone when it comes to overcrowding. It's a chance for authors to use their word skills—but on back covers, as well as front covers, it's better to let the visuals do most of the work.
Jendi emphasizes making sure there's neither too much, nor too little, text. For example, they strongly advise against summarizing the entire plot, including the resolution. Keep in mind: "It's a hook, not a synopsis." They also warn against using fonts smaller than 9-point on your back cover. If you can't fit all your text at a larger size, it could be an indication that you have too much text!
Some authors make the mistake of filling the back cover with praise-blurbs that don't clue us in to the actual contents. Beware language that is generic or vague ("these are poems about love and motherhood"). Be specific. What's the unique perspective? Try giving concrete details of setting, or representative phrases from poems. Jendi comments:
From the back cover, I should be able to tell: Who are the main characters, what is the genre, where and when is it set, and what's the overarching goal or question that the protagonists will address in the narrative, along with a hint of the obstacle that causes tension.
This is true for memoir as well. For instance, "I wanted to grieve my complex relationship with my recently deceased father by revisiting his hometown, but then COVID happened and I was locked in with my mother instead."
Jendi says of the back cover of My Boyfriend Satan, "Though light-text-on-dark isn't always the most readable, the author wrote the right amount of text and gave the essential hook and genre of the story." Similarly, the back cover text of 2015 Genre Fiction First Prize Prosperity, a dystopian satire by Jenna Leigh Evans, perfectly sets up the premise and main characters. However, its skinny block-capitals font is too cramped and positioned too low on the page to stand out well against the bright yellow background.
In comparison, Mighty May Won't Cry Today has a back cover as effective as its front. Jendi says, "It's simple, sweet, colorful, and it shows that she has two moms and gives the main moral of the story." This cover effectively targets the demographic of progressive parents who would buy the book.
2022 Grand Prize winner Diane Chiddister's One More Day, a literary novel set in an old age home, also gets both covers just right. The muted blue-to-orange gradient suggests the sunset years, while the photo of an older man gazing wistfully into the distance indicates that this will be a sensitive novel about taking stock of one's life. On the back, the same color scheme creates unity while the text says just enough about the main characters' goals and setting. Jendi says, "Consider how much more professional the front image looks because the color gradient also washes over the photo. If the face had been left black-and-white, it would look like an awkward Photoshop collage, and the coolness of the portrait would clash with the warmth of the background."
Trim size
Did you know that the size and shape of a book can instantly convey its genre? While text-dominant books of poetry and prose are typically a vertical rectangle, art books and children's picture books are often wider than they are tall. Defying those conventions can make readers subconsciously uncomfortable.
There's a special risk for improper dimensions between middle-grade fiction and picture books. Jendi recommends making your middle-grade novel the size and shape of a regular novel for adults, not oversized like a picture book, even if it's illustrated. "Kids are sensitive to appearing babyish, and adult purchasers will be confused about the target age group." An exception would be a middle-grade nonfiction book that is an illustrated reference text, e.g. mini-biographies of women role models in STEM. The emphasis on the visuals in these books makes the oversized dimensions acceptable.
2023 Middle Grade Honorable Mention winner Sally Hinkley's Elephant and Bird takes just the right approach with its trim size. The dimensions are like a normal book for adults, showing young readers that they've taken a step up from the wider-than-tall books of childhood. Meanwhile, the image of the elephant reaching up to the girl with its trunk gives a definite MG feel, perhaps drawing inspiration from other MG older child/larger creature images like Lucy and Aslan or Sophie and the BFG. And look, the cover even makes use of that emotionally resonant blue-and-yellow contrast mentioned earlier, with a combination of white tints and yellow highlights to guide the eye through the Z-pattern.
Physical materials
A cover's physical qualities can matter, too. Authors working in visual-based media are advised to use sturdy, non-bending covers for hard-copy oversized books such as art books and picture books. Soft covers can lead to floppiness, making the book hard to handle just when the reader wants to examine its visuals.
Glossy surfaces can be a pitfall if employed in the wrong circumstances. Jendi points out that a glossy cover will make text less legible because of reflected light. Additionally, the glossy film on the paper makes the text underneath a little blurrier than it looks on your computer screen. So just because the cover of the ebook looks good, that doesn't mean the design will automatically shine in glossy print (ironically, because it's shining too much!) Jendi observes, "It's rare that traditionally published trade paperbacks will have glossy covers these days, so give your literary novel or memoir a classier feel by opting for a matte cover." If you do decide on a glossy cover for your genre fiction or illustrated book, amp up the font size and color contrast for your back cover text to ensure readability in hard copy.
Sarah Halper, our first-round screener for North Street books that are submitted in hard copy, adds that some book covers have an unpleasant texture "as if there's some powdery residue that is going to come off on my fingers." She adds, "I dislike it when books have a scent, intentional or otherwise." Our retired final judge Ellen LaFleche also frequently noticed off-putting chemical smells from the illustrated books that she reviewed in the children's book, art book, and graphic novel categories. Don't make your book inaccessible to people with sensory sensitivities.
How can you avoid these turn-offs as a self-published author? Before publishing your book with a particular vendor, purchase one or two of their printed books in your genre to assess the quality of the materials. A press might even send you a sample for free. At BookBaby, a North Street co-sponsor, you can print a single copy of your own book before committing to a larger run.
Conclusion
If you've read this far and are thinking, "Wow, that's a lot to keep track of," my response is: Exactly. Cover design is a skill that takes professionals years to learn and many additional hours annually to keep up to speed on the trends and tricks of the moment. The irony is that readers, who lack all of that training and experience, can still tell in milliseconds whether a cover looks professional or not—building up or demolishing our first impression of the author's competence. The stakes are high.
North Street judges know that time and money are limited for most self- and hybrid-published authors. For some authors, there's also a moral or philosophical component: they might think that paying for a cover is cheating, or that a book can't really be self-published if they haven't done it all themselves. The integrity of the work might be harmed by "going professional". Or maybe our pride is just hurt when we consider that our skills might not be enough to make our book look its best.
No one would want to argue against what our consciences—or wallets—are telling us. And there are some contexts, like books written for family, where the cover matters less. But if you are writing with an eye to raising sales and winning literary contests, it really is worth striving, and perhaps sacrificing, for the best cover you can buy. Different distribution plans have different requirements.
At the very core of this post, we're asking you to develop this mindset: self- and hybrid-publishing isn't just about writing. It's more like a biathlon, where visuals and writing are both crucial to success.
So feel great after completing that manuscript.
Then gather your strength and continue to the next leg.
Documatica Forms: Publishing & Copyright Agreement
Online store for legal forms offers this simple publishing contract for free.
Dodge Poetry Festival YouTube Channel
This YouTube channel features videos of readings and performances from the renowned Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, held biennially since 1986 in northern New Jersey.
Does Poetry Matter? an essay by William Waltz
Prizewinning poet William Waltz investigates why there are more writers than readers of poetry. Today's highbrow poets, he ventures, should plumb their playful side. "Despite the messy state of affairs today, the poetry world is primed for (and maybe on the verge of) a roaring comeback. And, although many poets seem content to write poems that only connoisseurs and mothers could love, a growing populist movement seems bent on dragging poetry back into the mainstream."
Dog Throat Journal
Launched in 2023, Dog Throat Journal is an online quarterly magazine of flash fiction and prose poems. Editor Victor D. Sandiego says, "We want your odd, your offbeat, your unconventional, your beautiful poetic prose. Strangeness is good, healthy. It allows us to see other points of view. We look for well crafted articulate pieces that make language dance, that speak to themes that outlive the moment, work that may contradict itself, just like human beings do, work that explores and exposes the mysticism of everyday life, work from the edges of artistic expression and freedom. We want work that rises above and defies genre." They prefer unpublished work but are open to reprints.
Domestic Enchantment
By Reena Ribalow
Some spells turn a prince into a frog,
some tame wild girl to wife,
conjure mother out of woman,
tranced by cooking, tending, laundry.
Swaying from their pegs the colored clothes
are dazzling as the wings of
subjugated butterflies.
Sun scents the air with opiate of soap;
captivity subdues the blood like sleep,
with cleanly, sweet,
obliterating peace.
The kitchen table is set
with the artifacts of enchantment:
a jug of flowers upon a blue-checked cloth,
white mugs, a fresh-baked cake.
She herself prepared the potion,
self-bewitched,
the recipe her mother's song,
sung before memory.
A cup of flour, two eggs,
a handful of the magic
that fetters sense and soul:
that gilds the room the gold
of an imagined sun:
that heats her veins
like the tea which steams
from teapots,
with the smoke of dreams.
Don Dreams and I Dream
By Leah Umansky. Inspired by the hit TV drama "Mad Men", this chapbook captures the show's lingering atmosphere of cigarette smoke, perfume, and unfulfilled dreams. Rather than recapping events from the series, the subject of these poems is the cultural ambience of the 1960s advertising agency and the America it created. Catchphrases, images, and snippets of dialogue are layered atop one another like the collage of peppy poster girls and noir silhouettes in the show’s opening credits. Umansky understands that "Mad Men" is fundamentally about how our identities are constructed by what we desire. And what we desire–such is the promise of advertising–links us to whom we desire.
Don Schaeffer
Blog offers concise and thought-provoking lyric meditations
Don’t Call Us Dead
By Danez Smith. "Every day is a funeral & a miracle" in this award-winning poet and performance artist's second collection, a defiant record of life as a black gay man under the twin shadows of police violence and HIV. The pervasive image of blood links these poems and the boys, alive and dead, for whom Smith speaks: blood as kinship, as bearer of the memory of dangerous intimacy, as evidence of murders that white America wants to wipe away. Smith's honors include a Lambda Literary Award and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship.
Don’t Know Tough
By Eli Cranor. This heart-wrenching novel limns American toxic masculinity and small-town desperation. Billy Lowe is a small-town Arkansas football star who's only ever known abuse and poverty. His response to everything is violence, but deep down he wants to be a better person. His Coach thinks of himself as a heroic Christian mentor, but when it comes down to it, his savior complex and selfishness get in the way. Coach's daughter is the one who actually understands the meaning of sacrificial compassion. She not only sees Billy's innocent soul but is willing to share his stigmatized and dangerous existence in order to reach him. Their unlikely friendship revolves around literature. If anything can give Billy the self-awareness to break intergenerational patterns, it might be a book.
Don’t Make Violence and Abuse Just Another Plot Device in Your Novel
Rene Denfeld is the bestselling author of the novels The Child Finder and The Enchanted, as well as a journalist, nonfiction author, and death penalty investigator. In this 2017 essay at LitHub, she discusses how to depict sexual violence and trauma responsibly, from a perspective that humanizes victims and restores their agency, rather than exploiting and objectifying them.
Dora McQuaid
Poet, spoken-word artist, and activist.
Dora McQuaid
Poet, spoken-word artist, and activist Dora McQuaid raises awareness about domestic violence, child abuse, prisoners' rights, and other social justice issues.
Doubleback Review
Doubleback Review is a project of Sundress Publications, the literary press that sponsors the annual Best of the Net Awards. Doubleback Review specializes in pieces of any genre that were published by a journal that subsequently became defunct. Entries are accepted year-round for two issues to be published in April and October. Submissions are free. Writers from traditionally marginalized communities are particularly encouraged to submit their work. Managing Editor Krista Cox says, "In a churn and burn culture, to revisit and reflect is a luxury. Doubleback Review wants to hit the pause button on art that may slip from the public's eye (and therefore lose its potential for connection). It wants to resurrect your retired darlings, your dead art, your beautiful zombies—pieces that, like rare and precious artifacts, are worth dusting off, airing out, and putting out on display. Let Doubleback's talented team of editors help you recirculate your valuable relics, and offer them one more triumphant day in the sun."
Down the Hall
By Jennifer Davis Michael
I am going down the hall
in my childhood house.
Our father has summoned
my brother and me.
It feels like a dream, and not.
The hall seems shorter,
ceilings lower.
I let my brother go first,
though I was first. We pass
his bedroom door, then mine,
the photos in their frames.
At the end is our father's bed.
He has things to say,
not the last things, not yet,
and yet the movement feels
like last, and first,
down the hall,
a narrowing space.
I will be here again,
and soon.
Down the hall.
My father calls.
Dr. Mardy’s Dictionary of Metaphorical Quotations
This alphabetized online compendium of nearly 50,000 quotations on 2,500 topics is the work of Dr. Mardy Grothe, author of literary reference books on metaphors, oxymorons, and other rhetorical devices.
Draftable
Draftable software lets you compare two versions of MS Word, PDF, Excel, or PowerPoint documents, so you can easily see the edits and changes you made. See a free demo by uploading sample text to their website.
Dream of Things
Founded in 2009, Dream of Things publishes anthologies of creative nonfiction on a variety of themes: stories of forgiveness, coffee shop stories, travel writing, life in the modern workplace, Internet dating, and others. Their first anthology was 'Saying Goodbye', released in October 2010. Their books seek to fill the gap between popular anthologies that publish stories that are "short and sweet" (sometimes so saccharine-sweet they are hard to swallow), and the Best American Essays series, which are typically quite a bit longer. The goal for Dream of Things anthologies is to publish writing that is not short and sweet, but short and deep. The result is stories that are easier to swallow because they are authentic, and easier to digest because they average 1,250 words in length. See website for submission guidelines and special offers.
Dream Voices: Siegfried Sassoon, Memory and War
Online slideshow of the World War I poet's correspondence, drawings, and poems from the front, selected from the Cambridge University Library exhibit of his personal papers (open through December 23, 2010). The 5-minute video narrated by curator John Wells includes a discussion of how Sassoon's anti-war views evolved.
Dress Rehearsal
By Diana Anhalt
After 48 years together—Or is it 49?— the eventual
becomes inevitable. And I must teach you the secrets
of the pressure cooker, to sun-dry the sheets, water
the dahlias, and introduce you to a good woman, Anne,
perhaps, without arousing your suspicions.
Did you know mustard eases leg cramps?
A pinch of salt helps water boil? Toothpaste
takes the itch out of mosquito bites?
I won't tell you that someday—not long from now—
we'll become one with wind-blown silence, taste
of grass. I will tell you the password for my email,
and place the Christmas card list—grown shorter
every year—on your computer.
You'll need to know I hide spare keys inside
old shoes. You'll find my obit in the pocket
of your winter coat.
Duane L. Herrmann
Duane L. Herrmann is an American prairie poet based in rural Kansas. His books include the poetry collection Prairies of Possibilities and the historical work By Thy Strengthening Grace, published in 2006 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Topeka Baha'i community.
Duotrope’s Digest (Markets for Writers)
Free searchable database of over 875 print and online periodicals that publish fiction and poetry. Profiles can be sorted by genre, submission policies, pay scale and more. Mainly for fiction writers, but poets will also find it useful. (Search for poetry markets in the "length" field, not "genre".) Unlike many link directories, this site is updated daily and fact-checked every week. You can sign up for their Weekly Wire e-newsletter to receive new listings in your inbox.
Duotrope’s Digest: Editor Interviews
Duotrope's Digest, a directory of literary magazine submission guidelines, includes this extensive archive of brief and informative interviews with magazine editors about the unique characteristics of their publication. Featured journals range from heavy hitters (American Poetry Journal, Bellingham Review) to the quirky and obscure (Untied Shoelaces of the Mind).
Dusty Pearl
I wrestle with the shadows,
Wearing faces of those
Born before me,
Wielding the sword
Of repetitious sorrows.
And in the gamble
Of blind ambition,
I search wisdom
To understand,
How a grain of sand
Holds a sea of pearls.
I hunger for a love
That shines...
A child of captivity,
I hold the hem
Of a garment,
Passed through the ages.
I wear the dusty coat
Of choices made,
Tired and gray
Because it fit.
I seize the floating bits
That tease the light,
As dust returns to dust.
The kiss of Judas clothes me
In golden robes of fools
And crowns of tarnished silver,
Holding ransom
My simmering unrest,
Where blood runs on empty
Just under the skin.
In my search
To fill the depths,
I am blinded by the sand
In my eyes,
To the pearls
Lying in the expanse,
Of Him Who sees,
One in the other
It is His Will
To free the spirit,
And fill the void,
Building up
My sand foundation
Layer by layer,
Luster to luster,
Reflecting His vision
For me
In His eyes.
Copyright 2004 by Ellen Morgan
Critique by Jendi Reiter
This month's critique poem, "Dusty Pearl" by Ellen Morgan, caught my attention because of the many meanings it teases from a single metaphor. Though in a modern style, this piece recalls 17th-century metaphysical poets such as George Herbert and Henry Vaughan, who would build a complex theological argument around a central image such as a storm, a waterfall or a banquet.
"Dusty Pearl" presents a dialogue between two sets of images, corresponding to the speaker's imprisonment in destructive behavior patterns and her hope of transformation through God's love. The theme of heredity is set up by the title, which might suggest an heirloom long forgotten in the attic. We first encounter the speaker entangled in a conflict that seems to have no beginning and no end: "Wearing faces of those/Born before me,/Wielding the sword/Of repetitious sorrows." Those lines capture what it feels like to be trapped in family dysfunction, doomed to become both victim and perpetrator, down through the generations. "I wear the dusty coat/Of choices made,/Tired and gray/Because it fit." This garment, so worn and inferior, is chosen again and again out of habit, not because it is the best.
Contrasted to this coat is "the hem/Of a garment,/Passed through the ages." The speaker clings to this garment as salvation from her captivity. These lines recall the sick woman who was healed by touching Jesus' cloak in Luke 8:44.
Later in the poem, Morgan develops the metaphor further, by mentioning the false finery in which "the kiss of Judas" clothes the speaker. This might refer to the purple robe and crown of thorns in which the Roman soldiers clothed Jesus to mock his claim of kingship, a reading supported by the poem's overall concern with humiliation and the search for self-worth through faith in God.
The central metaphor of the pearl also has biblical resonance. In Matthew 13:44-46, Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a treasure hidden in a field, and then to a pearl of great price. In both parables, the protagonist sells everything he has in order to obtain the treasure or the pearl, but the precious thing itself takes effort to find.
Similarly, in this poem, the pearl of God's love is worth more than all of the world's withheld approval. However, the speaker must search for it amid the concealing sands of her own doubts and temptations. "In my search/To fill the depths/I am blinded by the sand/In my eyes," she confesses. What is the sand? It could be the dust of impermanent pleasures; the myriad irritations and worthless distractions of life; or the "blind ambition" that makes her erect a self on a "sand foundation."
But God turns this despised material into something precious. The grain of sand is the necessary irritant that prompts the oyster to create the pearl "Layer by layer,/Luster to luster." The promise of this transformation lends a hopeful gloss to images, such as the garment and the sand, that started out as symbols of spiritual bondage.
The one thing I would change about this poem is the stanza that begins "Holding ransom". While these four lines contain striking images, I wasn't sure how they fit with one another or with the poem's general argument. "Held ransom by my simmering unrest" would make more sense, since the unrest seems more like the obstacle than the victim. "Running on empty" is also such a familiar phrase that it weakens the impact of the line.
Where could a poem like "Dusty Pearl" be submitted? As I've noted before in this space, mainstream literary journals aren't always receptive to such traditional Christian verse. However, there are several quality journals that endeavor to bridge the gap between the language of faith and the world of modern poetry. See their websites for submission periods and guidelines:
Ancient Paths Christian Literary Magazine
Submit during October-April
First Things: The Journal of Religion, Culture & Public Life
Conservative Catholic intellectual monthly. Publishes 1-3 poems per issue
We would also recommend the following contests for this poem:
Soul-Making Literary Competition
Postmark Deadline: November 30
Poetry and prose contest for "personal writings that illumine the search for the sacred and the spirit"
Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Annual Poetry Prizes
Entries must be received by December 10 (changed to November 6 in 2006)
New contest seeks shorter lyric poems "celebrating the spirit of life"
Chistell Writing Contest
Postmark Deadline: February 28
Contest for unpublished writers, from a small press focusing on women's and African-American literature. Free to enter
This poem and critique appeared in the November 2004 issue of Winning Writers Newsletter (subscribe free).
DutchCulture/TransArtists
The website TransArtists posts listings of artist-in-residence programs from around the world. There are opportunities for writers, performers, visual artists, graphic designers, fashion and applied arts practitioners, and more. It is a project of DutchCulture, an Amsterdam-based center for international cooperation.
E-book Design Tips from Podia
This article from 2020 gives a user-friendly overview of design principles to make e-books more readable and engaging, from font choice to graphic and multimedia elements. Author Cyn Meyer is a content marketer for Podia, a platform for creating online courses, digital downloads, and membership websites.
Earth Abides
A classic in science fiction's end-of-the-world genre. As much wisdom about philosophy and society as you'll find anywhere, all in a gripping novel that never flags.
East Jasmine Review
East Jasmine Review is an online literary journal whose mission is to publish writers from diverse and under-represented populations, such as "LGBTQIA, ethnic minorities, women, lower socio-economic status, those who are older or younger, religious minorities, and non-American persons." They accept poetry, fiction, essays, book reviews, and articles on the craft of writing.
Ebook Launch
Founded in 2011, Ebook Launch is a self-publishing services company. They offer proofreading, copyediting, and interior and cover design for your self-published book. Their prices, though not cheap, are clearly stated up front, and their cover designs are professional-looking and unique for each book. It's worth investing in good design to make your book stand out.
ECRITUREartefacts
Looking for a stylish, quirky gift for a literary friend? Award-winning poet and ceramics artist Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingde's online store features a wide selection of objets d'art with conversation-provoking lines like "A Good Poem Beats a Dollar Burger", "Chief of Your Own Conscience", "Dadaism Rules/Stinks", "Easter Bunny in Animal Soup", "Madder Than Plath", and "What Gender Performance". Available products include journals, glassware, aprons, totes, t-shirts, pencil cases, iPhone covers, MacBook sleeves, and fine art prints. See more products by Desmond at Lulu.
