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readergirlz is a literacy and social media project for teens, awarded the National Book Foundation's Innovations in Reading Prize. The rgz blog serves as a depot for news and YA reviews from industry professionals and teens. As volunteers return full force to their own YA writing, the organization continues to hold one initiative a year to impact teen literacy. All are welcome to "like" us on Facebook!

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Cover Stories: A Little Wanting Song by Cath Crowley


Cath Crowley's A Little Wanting Song needed a cover that conveyed music, friendship and romance, a tall order for any designer. Here's Cath to tell us how her final cover came to be:

"I don’t usually write with a cover in mind. I know what my characters look like and I write with the image of their landscape in my head. While I was working on A Little Wanting Song I saw an image of Charlie, a girl with long dark hair, playing guitar on the back porch. I saw Rose, restless and angry, sitting on a hill overlooking a highway.

"Mostly when I write I hear the character’s voices. So it’s the soundtrack of the novel that I’ve got playing in my head – the dialogue and in the case of this book, Charlie’s songs.

"The cover for the book is so much more evocative than any of the images I had in my head. The designer has captured how I feel when I’m writing. To me the cover and the pages have sound escaping from them – and this is similar to my writing process.

"My editor showed me both covers after they were finished and we talked about what we loved about them. I didn’t give any input before the art department started working because I think more in terms of sound than visuals. Also, I’d heard that the designer had read my book and loved it – and I think writing the book is my input. I trusted her to see what I’d written..."

Read the Cath's full Cover Story at Unabashedly Bookish on bn.com.

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