March 8, 2014—As many of you know, for the past year I’ve been travelling up and down the East Coast and across the ocean for my new book, Poe-Land: The Hallowed Haunts of Edgar Allan Poe. Well, as of last week, the manuscript is off to the publisher, so I’m suddenly a lighter man. Metaphorically. I always put on 20 pounds when writing a book because Cheez-Its are my muse. Poe-Land doesn’t come out until Fall, so it’s too early really to talk about the book itself…but we can talk about the cover. It might get tweaked before the final design, but check it out:
Once again, like my past two books, the cover is all Brian Weaver. We joked that we’ve done three macabre books together so far, and none of them have sported a black cover. Maybe the next one.
Obviously, this is the best cover of the three. Really jazzed about it. Brian was tasked with the impossible, to create a Poe cover that stood out in a cluttered field and gave me the same feeling I get when I see images of Poe without giving me that same feeling I always get when I see images of Poe. Also, to make sure people don’t mistake it for an anthology of his stories. In my opinion, Brian walked on water with this one, and I’m way grateful.
The cover was inspired by the poster art for the 1983 Ray Bradbury film Something Wicked this Way Comes, and the idea is to show Poe-Land as a carnival, an amusement park, a slightly sinister Poe-themed place of wonder to run around in and have a good time…because that’s what I’ve felt like I’ve been doing for the past year (once I suppress all the actual work from my memory). I’ve seen so much cool Poe stuff and met so many cool Poe people because of this book project.
If you want to do me a solid, please head over to the OTIS Facebook Page and share the cover image with any of your friends who are Poe fans. That would be awesome, and I’d owe you. But, honestly, right now this is mostly for you guys who have put up with the lack of content on this site for so long. I wanted to show you what I’ve been working on. It’s kind of like a doctor’s note. I promise to get back to posting now.
Certainly, at some point closer to the book’s debut, I’m going to really need your help. I want every Poe fan out there to know about this book. I really believe it’s a unique Poe book in a world where we probably don’t need another Poe book (whether it’s a good one, I have less evidence for…you’re going to have to tell me).
And with that, I’ll shut up about it until we get closer to its Fall 2014 release.