I’m so excited to share the cover for my forthcoming novella, TERRESTRIAL, out May 2026 with Malarkey Books!

Cover design by Angelo Maneage.

I’ve admired Angelo’s work on other Malarkey covers, especially for Thunder From a Clear Blue Sky by Justin Bryant and Still Alive by L.J. Pemberton, and on Angelo’s own books. Alan published a thoughtful write-up in the Malarkey newsletter describing Terrestrial and expanding a bit on the cover selection process, including this bit where I explained why I chose this specific design out of the five great options given by Angelo:

When Angelo started working on the cover design for Terrestrial, he asked if I could point him to any parts that I felt captured the whole text. I knew I wanted to focus on and bring a visual to the parts about the town where Daisy lives, the desert surrounding her, and the lights she sees. Angelo really got this, and designed a few covers that showed the mysterious-desert-versus-subdivision-block-houses vibe I wanted. He surprised me though: one of the designs showed something from the text I hadn’t thought to point him to, an object from Daisy’s childhood: a foil-covered paper tube used to view a solar eclipse. That someone read the book and came away with this image as one that stood out, made this connection between the object and the larger narrative, made me feel like I was able to communicate what I intended with the book. Like a message sent and received.

I loved what Alan wrote in the newsletter about making art vs AI, and I don’t want to just quote his newsletter word-for-word here, but he notes that AI could not have done the close read of the text that Angelo did in order to design the cover, that Angelo’s wonderful design came out of the very human reading he did and understanding he had of the text.

Here’s a description of the book courtesy of Alan: While skipping class one day, seventeen-year old Daisy finds a mysterious message in the girls’ bathroom. Though she’s not sure if it’s meant for her, she’s determined to find the sender. Every message has a sender. Soon she begins witnessing strange lights in the desert surrounding the small Arizona town from which she’s determined to escape. Before she can go far, however, she must face the parts of herself she wishes to rewrite. Inspired by the Phoenix Lights phenomena of the late 1990s, Terrestrial explores themes of isolation, communication, place, and the desert as both a home and a questionably inhabitable environment.

You can preorder a signed copy on the Malarkey site. Thank you for reading!

xoxo