the body labyrinth    poems by Sharon Berg

By Sharon Berg

The Cover Story

Anything would have been better than the cover of my first book. I learned my lesson and, for my second book, I insisted on having  ‘cover art approval’. In fact, I wrote it into the contract myself… just in case.

I was glad that I did. This turned out to be unhappy story, too; this time for the cover artist rather than me. What I was presented with was what you see here, except there were three or four squiggles in red, larger at one end, as if that was the head of them.

“What’s this supposed to be? Bleep?”. (I can’t repeat the word or my site might pull up search engine prohibitions.) The cover artist nodded, saying he thought it was fun for a cover with ‘body’ in the title.

I was furious. “Did you read the book?” I asked, incredulous. He insisted he had, that he was sensitive to the artist’s work when he did a cover. “Why not be honest and tell me you (bleeped) off on it?” I responded.

We parted angry, but I had ‘cover approval’ so the Press could not proceed to cover the outside of my book with ‘squiggles’.

My editor at the Press called me later that day. The artist had been so upset by my reaction to his art, he cried. This man wanted me to apologize to him. I said that request went both ways. I seemed to earn a reputation for being difficult after that. I certainly never received an apology.

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