My book cover!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Available for pre-order HERE!!!

Hello beautiful people!

After five years of yapping about writing this book, it finally has a name and a cover and a full set of insides!

If you find the cover-making process remotely interesting, here was my journey:

I fully illustrated the covers of my last two books so I expected to do that here, but it’s a different kind of book for a different part of the bookstore (so proud that it will be venturing off without its buddies!).

While my last two books were purely personal essays (i.e. they’re about ME!), this one is about what humans can learn from animals. And a little bit about me for good measure.

So I wanted it to invite in an audience who might be interested in things like nature, science, evolution, chicken communication, zebra communities…you know, that kind of thing. And also some human questions about disability, grief, homelessness, friendship, and what to do when the donkey you’re trying to bond with doesn’t want to bond back. That kind of thing. Oh plus some spirituality and philosophy sprinkled in.

(Everyone keeps telling me to write an “elevator pitch.” Clearly it’s not my forté!)

Research :)

Since I can’t write a science-y book without a LOT of whimsy, I wanted the book cover to reflect that too. How do you make a book look kind of fancy and sophisticated but still playful and whimsical?

I didn’t want the cover to be too literal, like a series of illustrations including every animal I mention in the book (I’m also not a good enough artist for that!), but rather more abstract to summon the imagination. I thought of the otomí embroidery from Mexico that I love so much and tried my own attempt at a pattern of creatures and plants.

Then the clever graphic designer over at Penguin suggested this two-panel situation with business on the left and a party on the right! I thought the otomí pattern looked perfect in panel-form, and as a bonus we happened to use Ukraine colors! :)

The first title I thought of was Becoming Natural, which was the episode title of a podcast interview with Rowan Williams that heavily inspired the book idea.

But it lacked pizzazz and Mari-ness, so my editor suggested Human-ing, which I loved! It encapsulated exactly what the book is about: being a human animal…with a dash of silliness and surprise.

However, alas, whenever we said the title out loud, it sounded clunky and needed an explanation.

As soon as my editor noted How to Be a Living Thing on her list of initial edits, I was totally sold:

I had already started titling a lot of the newsletters here on Substack with the format “How to…” so I liked how the book fit in with how I’m naturally writing these days.

I also got to do interior art for the chapter title openers, which are….

In keeping with the abstract theme from the cover, I did all the illustrations inspired by Scandinavian folk art—a fun new challenge!

In a juicy turn of events, I’m supposed to be birthing a living thing on the same day as How to BE a Living Thing was supposed to be published, so we moved up the pub date to July 15th!

Still a ways away, but that gives me plenty of time to work on my felted paintings to go with each chapter to display at my book event…

On a sentimental note, I cannot believe I’m lucky enough to get to write books. I take it very seriously and put more love into it than I do just about anything…because it goes to you!

My publishing team asked me what “success” would look like for this book, and I said what I always do: connection. Connection with people.

It’s the most important thing to me and the reason why I do everything I do, work-wise. I was born with a broken heart for people who are lonely, and everything I write is my wee little drop-in-the-ocean attempt to help soothe loneliness through connection.

I’m grateful I got to write this book and now very grateful that I get to share it!

And eternally grateful for the critters I met along the way!!