Secrets Under the Midnight Sun

I love special projects, especially secret special projects...or at least, I like being able to talk about secret special projects. So I'm super excited to finally be able to talk about this latest secret special project...

A few months ago I had the privilege to work with an amazing gal named Maria Crites. I knew who Maria was but I don't think I had ever even had a conversation with her until she contacted me to ask if I would be willing to create the cover for her new book, Secrets Under the Midnight Sun. Instead of picking out a photo from some stock photo company, Maria really wanted to find a local Alaskan artist to design the cover, perhaps even using some of the places she talks about in her book. I was so flattered she thought to ask me and I jumped at the opportunity because I've always wanted to design a book cover.

Maria shared with me the basic story line of the book - a 12 year old girl named Freddie, a real tom-boy, living in Fairbanks in 1967, who holds a dark secret about abuse. When she was describing the story to me, I kept seeing a young gal lying in the tall grass under the sun, with some fun sun glare bouncing off my lens.

To design the book cover, I found a fabulous gal about Freddie's age to photograph (thanks Paris!) and we spent an evening at Creamer's Field, one of Freddie's favorites places to hang out and ride her bike. Several hours, one destroyed book (on purpose) and tons of photos later, I rushed home, played around with some of my favorite images and uploaded them for Maria to see. I didn't tell her which one was my favorite because since I haven't read the book yet, I wanted the author to pick which one really seemed like Freddie -- without hearing my personal bias. But to my wonderful surprise, Maria picked THE photograph that most resembled the image I kept seeing in my mind. Yay! So I sent Maria the image, we took some professional portraits of Maria for her author bio and then...I didn't hear from her for a few months.

I had been meaning to email her and see how things were coming along when I ran into her last night at a cooking class. Maria smiled and waved across the kitchen island and after the class (which was on pressure cookers by the way), she showed me the Youtube trailer for her book and told me it will be out next month.

So for all you who are interested, check out her trailer and I'll keep you posted when her book comes out in print. I can't wait to read this story about Freddie...