A celebration of the season of "Weird" - this year's Christmas/holiday card

As I posted then, October saw the début of "City of Weird", the book that Gigi spent the last year and a half editing, illustrating, and designing the cover for. I was pretty sure the book would do well - we were all quite hopeful - but it's done even more spectacularly than we ever could have imagined. Already in its third printing, its "Weird Tales" cover design inspiration seemed the perfect inspiration for our own holiday card. Since G and I now alternate the creative duties for this yearly duty, and since this was her turn to take on the task, it seemed only natural that she would keep "working the theme". I think it turned out brilliantly! A boyish G, a girlish me, and Nicholas; what else could we need? Happy holidays - of whatever persuasion - to you all! xo

CITY OF WEIRD - launch day!

I'm so excited - only slightly less so than G - that today is the official publication date - the "book birthday" - for her anthology, "City of Weird". As many of you know, in addition to all the other things she does, G is the graphic designer for a great local publisher, Forest Avenue Press. She's been with them from the very beginning and has done all of their - very lauded - covers. A year and a half ago she took on the huge task of not only designing but editing this new collection; this is her baby. She did the fantastic cover - brilliantly evoking those of the classic "Weird Tales" magazines - and the title page, endpapers, and section-heading illustrations. But even more time-consuming - though decidedly a labor of love - was working with the thirty authors on their stories. Usually first in people's minds is that G's a writer - and a really good one - and this was a chance to work with those skills. But, really, editing someone else's work uses a different set of literary "muscles". And from everything I've heard, and through my own experience - G has edited my art-related writing and my one published short story - she is a truly great editor. Smart and sensitive - and tough - she is able to focus equally well on the big picture as she is on the smallest detail. And she will work and work and work on a piece - whatever the project is - until it's finished to her satisfaction; she's the hardest working person I know. Huge congratulations on this day to the amazingly talented artist and editrix Gigi Little. (My amazingly sweet wife.)

For more on her editing process and the background of the collection, here is an interview with G from last Wednesday's Oregonian.

I love the half-tone effect she used!

If you've got a new book out and want a place to launch it, the place you hope will agree to schedule you - especially if you're a resident of Portland - is Powell's City of Books. And if you're really lucky, you get your event posted on the landmark billboard at the front to the store. Very cool. (And very cool to share the space with our friend Shawn Levy, whose latest, "Dolce Vita Confidential", just debuted.) Should be a really fun, really packed event tomorrow night - be assured that octopuses will be employed!

La belle éditrice Eugénie. xo