Reflections from Andrew H. Stephens

Andrew H. Stephens, son of Eugene E. Stephens, recently completed the posthumous publication of his father’s collection of essays and poems entitled Blue Collar Rage with Modern Memoirs in 2024. This project took seven months from the day we started it until books arrived on Stephens’ doorstep. In honor of Father’s Day this month, we asked Stephens to reflect on what the publication process was like for him, and what it has meant to share his father’s writings with others.

In the opening pages of Blue Collar Rage, Andrew Stephens describes his father, Eugene Stephens, as a one-of-a-kind “Renaissance man” locked in an endless exploration of knowledge and the arts. Andrew writes, “I believe my father’s uniqueness came from the fact that not only was he an intellectual who loved to read, sculpt, paint, write poetry and pursue his philosophy, but at the same time he carried his lunch pail to work every day as a blue collar factory worker for thirty-five years.”

Over his lifetime, Eugene wrote his essays and reflections in 32 notebooks. Shortly before his death in 1993 at the age of 68, Eugene selected from those writings and drafted an introduction intended to be collected into a book and shared with his children and grandchildren. The book was never completed.

Andrew inherited the notebooks upon his father’s death and spent the next eight years transcribing and typing all of them into a single manuscript. From this, he produced a paperback book at a copy shop. He later commissioned Modern Memoirs to design and publish a hardcover version.

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1. What was it like to transcribe your father’s notebooks?

Andrew Stephens: My father never discussed with me what he was writing, nor did he ever state why he was writing in his journals. When I began typing from his four decades of journal entries, I was focused solely on making progress and being as efficient with my time as possible. However, it quickly became apparent that I had a unique opportunity to learn more about my father’s intimate thoughts about his life and his journey to understand his spirituality. I started to slow down and attempted to observe how his thoughts evolved over this multi-decade period. What a gift it was for me, as I later realized.

2. What do you think your father understood his role as father to be?

Andrew Stephens: Great question and a challenging one for me to answer. My father grew up in a family struggling to make financial ends meet. Born before the Great Depression, he talked about the struggles he endured in early life. He aspired to work at a good company that would allow his two sons to “go to college,” which was the American Dream for his generation. Traditional father interactions in our neighborhood, like fishing, hunting, or pitching a baseball in the front yard, never happened. Interactions with my father centered on conversations at the dinner table, often revolving around history, science, and religion. These conversations, more often than not, turned into constructive but sometimes heated debates.

“I think he began to prepare his book when he came to the conclusion that his writings would be his legacy that he could pass down to his two sons and his grandchildren. A gift that keeps on giving.”

3. What do you think his intentions were in attempting to share his writings with you?

Andrew Stephens: I believe my father’s initial intention and motivation when he journaled into his notebooks was strictly for himself. It was his way to formulate his thinking, debate with himself, and to revise his ongoing worldview. He starved for intellectual conversation. It was a common occurrence for my brother and myself, when we visited as adults, that our father would initiate dinner conversations that would last until bedtime, with our father, at times, standing in the doorway still making his last point. I think he began to prepare his book when he came to the conclusion that his writings would be his legacy that he could pass down to his two sons and his grandchildren. A gift that keeps on giving.

4. What inspired you to publish the second, hardcover volume with Modern Memoirs? What are the most significant differences between the two books?

Andrew Stephens: I knew his writings were something special that had great value to me. I realized I needed to invest in creating a professional and well-made edition that would stand the test of time. Ultimately, out of respect for my father, I wanted the quality of the outside hardcover binding to match the quality of the inside content.

5. Your father self-developed skills in leather tooling and book binding. How did the cover design and binding selections you made at Modern Memoirs pay homage to that?

Andrew Stephens: The font for the cover and layout design was put together by my father himself. It was very unusual, and I could not replicate it. Therefore, on the first softcover edition, I did something very different. I was quite impressed that Modern Memoirs proactively suggested we attempt to match what he designed nearly thirty years ago. They were successful, and I know my father is looking down from above with a smile on his face at what ultimately became of his memoir in this beautifully crafted book.

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Liz Sonnenberg is staff genealogist for Modern Memoirs, Inc.

Reflections from Ambassador Nabeela Al Mulla

Nabeela Al Mulla published eBook, softcover, and hardcover editions of her memoir entitled Breaking New Ground on the Global Stage: Memoirs of Kuwait’s First Woman Ambassador with Modern Memoirs in 2025. This Assisted Memoir took eleven months from the day we started the project to the day her first books arrived on her doorstep. We asked Al Mulla to reflect on what the publication process was like for her, and what it has meant to share her book with others.

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Nabeela Al Mulla started her four-decade diplomatic career in the 1970s, when she began serving in the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry. This work included time at the United Nations in the turbulent Gulf War era. Al Mulla went on to make history with a series of ground-breaking appointments:

• In 1993, she became Kuwait’s first woman ambassador with her posting in Zimbabwe. This was followed by other postings in Southern Africa during Nelson Mandela’s transformative presidency in post-apartheid South Africa.

• From 2002–2003, she served as the first woman from the Middle East and South Asia region to chair the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. This was during the launch of the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

• In 2004, as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative of the State of Kuwait, she became the first Arab woman ambassador to the UN.

Al Mulla’s impassioned dedication to global cooperation continued as she went on to lend her expertise to NATO, the IAEA, and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, among other organizations.

1. If you could travel back in time to give advice to your younger self, what concept or practice would you tell her is essential to becoming effective and successful in diplomatic service?

Nabeela Al Mulla: I would tell my younger self: never stop learning, and never stop challenging yourself. The world of diplomacy is constantly evolving—what you think you know today may be reshaped by tomorrow’s events. I would also remind myself that the path you imagine at the start of your career is not always the one you will follow. And that’s okay. Sometimes the unexpected opportunities, the unplanned detours, end up being the most rewarding. True success, in diplomacy and indeed in life, comes from adaptability, openness to change, and the courage to keep growing—no matter where life takes you.

2. You have been dedicated to arms control and disarmament since your student days. Of what achievement in your career are you most proud for its contribution to peace and security in the Middle East?

Nabeela Al Mulla: I am most proud of the work we did at the International Atomic Energy Agency, particularly during my time chairing the Board of Governors. That period—amid growing global tensions over nuclear proliferation—demanded delicate balance: advocating for Middle Eastern security concerns, supporting international frameworks, and ensuring Kuwait’s voice was part of the global disarmament dialogue. Knowing that I could contribute to strengthening the non-proliferation regime, even modestly, is a point of gratification.

“I hope readers, especially young people, take away the understanding that history is shaped by those who persevere despite doubts and setbacks.”

3. You became an ambassador in 1993, yet women in Kuwait did not win the right to vote until 2005. How did you reconcile this disparity in empowerment?

Nabeela Al Mulla: I was proud to break barriers and represent my country at the highest diplomatic levels, but I always understood that Kuwait, like any young nation, was still finding its footing. More importantly, what matters is that women participate meaningfully in national decision-making—bringing their voices, expertise, and perspectives to the table. It was never just about formal milestones; it was about ensuring that women contribute to shaping the country’s future. Progress takes time, but I believed deeply that my own work could help demonstrate that Kuwaiti women were already making valuable contributions to our nation’s success on the world stage.

4. Why was it important to you to record your life journey? What insights do you hope readers will gain by reading your memoir?

Nabeela Al Mulla: Writing this memoir was, above all, an act of reflection—and a token to the next generation. I wanted to offer an honest account of the triumphs, but also the challenges and lessons learned along the way. I hope readers, especially young people, take away the understanding that history is shaped by those who persevere despite doubts and setbacks. I also wanted to document Kuwait’s diplomatic story, as seen through my personal lens, so it is not lost to time.

5. What surprised you most about the process of writing your memoir? What did you learn about yourself along the way?

Nabeela Al Mulla: What surprised me most was how reflective the process became. I had initially approached it as a way to document key events and milestones, but I soon realized it was also an opportunity to take stock of the broader journey—to look back thoughtfully on the choices, challenges, and shifts over time. Writing the memoir reminded me that even a long career is made up of many small moments, and that leadership often means navigating change with consistency and a sense of purpose. It reaffirmed for me the importance of perspective and measured judgment, both in public life and in private reflection.

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TO PURCHASE Breaking New Ground on the Global Stage: Memoirs of Kuwait’s First Woman Ambassador by Nabeela Al Mulla:

For BOOK, please click HERE or search your preferred online book retailer.

For eBOOK, please click HERE or search your preferred online book retailer.

"Being With You Is Everything: Discovering Your Baby’s Voice"

A Personal Reflection

Megan St. Marie holding her daughter in the NICU, 2006

Four of my seven children, a son and three daughters, came home to our family through the foster system here in Massachusetts. They were at different ages when placed with us, and the youngest of my daughters was a tiny newborn when I first laid welled-up eyes on her. I emphasize the word “tiny” because she was a preemie, born about ten weeks early, and social workers matched her with our family while she was still in the NICU. At her smallest, she weighed just 2 lbs. 14 oz., and though she was over 3.5 lbs. by the time of our first meeting at the hospital, she still seemed impossibly small. She made my then-toddler elder daughter—a petite 5.5 lbs. when she was born four weeks early—seem downright cherubic in her newborn photos, and she was less than half the weight of the full-term son I’d had nine years earlier.

Under the excellent guidance of the doctors and nurses in the NICU, I gingerly held this tiny baby girl, fed her, and even changed her playing-card-sized diapers, marveling at how fragile and strong she was all at once. “This baby is the best eater here,” a nurse told me one day. “We have to feed her first, and she drains her bottles in a flash!”

In addition to visits from our family and the social workers assigned to her case, my daughter’s birthparents also visited her in the NICU. I will always be grateful that this was possible for them. She received so much from her biological parents—her impossibly long eyelashes, her curly hair, and her warm brown skin; her artistic talent; her broad shoulders; her height; her extroverted personality—and I know she also benefited from their loving visits in the NICU, and from knowing these took place, even if she can’t remember them today.

My certainty of the importance of those visits was reinforced by a recent book project I was honored to work on at Modern Memoirs, Being With You Is Everything: Discovering Your Baby’s Voice by Deborah Buehler and illustrated by Annie Zeybekoglu. They describe it as “a little book with a big message,” and although it seems like a children’s book with its small trim size (6” x 6”), brief text in verse, and illustrations on each spread, it is actually a book for parents and other caregivers of premature and at-risk newborns.  It even includes blank journal pages to prompt caregivers’ written reflections on the tender, sometimes scary, sometimes hopeful NICU days.

Buehler’s gentle, spare, affirming text is written in the “voice” of a NICU infant, inspired by her experience working with the Newborn Individualized Developmental Care and Assessment Program (NIDCAP). This evidence-based caregiving approach was founded by Buehler’s mentor, Heidelise Als, PhD, in the early 1980s. In the blurb about the book on our online shop, Buehler explains that through training, resources, and support of NICU professionals, parents, and other caregivers, “NIDCAP helps premature and at-risk infants be understood and to have a voice in shaping their experiences within the hospital and beyond.”

I don’t know if the hospital where I first met my daughter directly worked with NIDCAP or deliberately employed its methods when she was there. But the fact that they did all they could to support my daughter’s birthparents’ presence with her, as well as our family’s efforts to bond with her while she was still in the NICU, affirms that they embraced NIDCAP’s primary aim of enabling intimate, nurturing connections between parents and premature and at-risk newborns. Without saying the exacts words of the title, their guidance and encouragement of our presence told us, “Being with you—all of you—is everything to this little one.”

The hospital also adhered to NIDCAP’s core principle of avoiding overstimulation, to enable sleep and avoid stress. I learned this lesson when I was told not to read black-and-white, high-contrast board books to this little one as I’d done with my older children as infants. “Too much stimulation will keep her from sleeping, and she needs to sleep to grow,” a nurse gently told me. “Just hold her and let her close her eyes.”

“I think not of how quickly time moves, but of how precious time with our children is, at every fleeting stage.”

Humbled, I put away the board books for later, thinking for the first time in my life that maybe there was such a thing as too much reading! But this interaction with the nurse showed me that even though I had already parented two infants, I had a lot to learn about caring for a vulnerable preemie.

Being With You Is Everything could be read aloud with babies once risk of overstimulation is at bay, and I imagine that parents will also read it alone, or perhaps silently while they rock their tiny, sleeping babies. They can write notes in the little journal section about their experiences, observations, and feelings. As they read or write, they will be affirmed of the vital role they play in their babies’ development, counteracting the common feeling that they are getting in the way of doctors, nurses, and life-supporting equipment, and easing the sense of helplessness and inadequacy that can emerge when faced with the needs and vulnerability of a premature or at-risk newborn.

When she finally tipped the scales at 4.5 lbs., we were allowed to bring my daughter home—in something called a “car bed” rather than a car seat so that she could lie down perfectly flat, which we were told was safer for her little body. A year and a half later, her adoption into our family was finalized, a day I mark with her each year to honor her birth family and the losses that premise adoption, and to share gratitude that we are family. And now, I am preparing to bring this youngest daughter of mine to her college orientation in late August. “How is this even possible?” I find myself thinking in anticipation of that day. “Wasn’t it just yesterday that I held her in the NICU?”

These questions are their own answer when I think not of how quickly time moves, but of how precious time with our children is, at every fleeting stage. I know this day is possible, in part, because of how my daughter was held in the NICU—by our family, by her birthparents, and by caring hospital staff and social workers. She received excellent care when she was at her smallest and most vulnerable, and she received an abundance of love, too. “Being with you is everything,” she told us when she gripped our fingers, eagerly took her bottles, and nestled into our chests to sleep and begin to grow into the remarkable person she is today.

I wish I’d had Buehler and Zeybekoglu’s book when my daughter was in the NICU, for the validation it could’ve provided and for its journal pages to act as a memento of those early days. What an honor it is to help bring this “little book with a big message” into the world. What a joy it is to know how it will be a part of many families’ lives for years to come.

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To purchase Being With You Is Everything: Discovering Your Baby’s Voice by Deborah Buehler and illustrated by Annie Zeybekoglu, please visit our online shop, Memory Lane Books & Gifts.

Please contact Modern Memoirs, Inc. directly to discuss bulk at-cost purchases for hospitals and other institutions, or to find out how your bookstore or library can purchase wholesale copies.

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Megan St. Marie is president of Modern Memoirs, Inc.

Slow Sabbatical

This is the first of several memoir-ish pieces that emerged from my one-month sabbatical.
—A. de G.

“The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.” —C.S. Lewis

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Time flies. Life is short. YOLO. Time stops for no one. So many cliché expressions about fleeting time! I don’t love any of them.

More accurate to me: “Time moves slowly but passes quickly” (Alice Walker). Moving slowly, seemingly a luxury in the 21st century, is appealing to me, and it’s not just that I’m getting older. I think I was like this when I was a young adult, too.

When I left on a one-month sabbatical last March, I had some plans, some places to go, some people to see, etc. but I remember saying to myself, “Keep it simple. Don’t do anything that requires a lot of effort. Don’t make any complicated plans.” After all, the word "sabbatical" is etymologically linked to the word "Sabbath," referring to to the Biblical day of rest.

If I look back at what I wrote in anticipation of my sabbatical, the lofty, cerebral goals make me smile. It was my thought that I could delve into writing a memoir during all that perceived time, which sounds preposterous to me now. My intentions were fairly clear:

I plan to write every day. Read every day. Walk every day. Swim twice a week. I hope to mix in some personal interviews with a few family members and friends about that period of my life [young adulthood], reconnect with these people, perhaps go deeper with them. I hope to include some photography on location.

And in fact I did write and read every day. I did walk every day (after a knee injury, this was a feat). I swam 4-5 times a week at a pool. I spoke to many, many family and friends. I did reconnect with people. I think I went deeper. I did take a lot of photos. Now two months away, already distant, the quality of the time remains with me. It was S-L-O-W in a most delectable way.

How to slow down time? Simple. Just slow yourself down.

“You just don’t know the places you can travel to when you are sitting quietly, looking at things, slowing down time.”

A few ways:

• Remove any clocks and watches from your immediate environs. Shocking! It will be hard to get used to. But you have a smartphone, so you can always know the time.

• Don’t plan more than one thing per day. The one thing could be walking to the store for milk. Or taking the bus to the public pool to swim. Or having coffee at a café. Sitting in a yard with a cup of tea. Maybe seeing someone, but just one someone. If more than one, just know that time will advance more quickly.

• Take yourself to a museum or gallery or other place you might enjoy, and just sit in front of one painting or photograph or piece for a long time. (Little did I know, there is already an entire art movement entitled “Slow Art,” where guides take you into a museum and you get to sit for half hour, minimum, in front of one piece. Is this a revolutionary concept? I’ve been doing this for years.)

• Try one new thing, but then sit back and really think about what you did. For example, take a new class—let’s say, improv theatre, not really your thing—and then go out to lunch with other people in the class, or the director, to talk about what happened. Notice how the class was awkward, fascinating, scary and fun all at the same time, and how much you learn about yourself when you have time to think about it afterwards.

• Call a friend and talk for a long time, longer than usual, no reason to cut off the conversation that moves like honey spooned into your cup of tea. You can learn so much more about yourself, your friend, and your relationship, whether old or new.

• Visit a place you’ve been before and see how it feels different this time. Think about what it was like the first time you saw it, and what you see differently this time.

• Visit a place you’ve never been before and notice your inspiration, or discomfort, or both. Think about what it feels like to balance inspiration, excitement, discomfort, and disappointment.

• Sit and wonder what to do, without doing anything. Struggle with the loud modern voice nagging, “You need to get up and DO something!” Let some minutes or hours pass by. See what happens in that time—a phone call from a friend, a memory from eighth grade, a worry about the bill you might have missed, a man walking with a shopping cart down the sidewalk, a hummingbird alighting on a bird bath outside the window, rain, thunder, lightning, the lights go out, time literally stops.

One morning during this time, I found myself contemplating oranges. But not just any oranges, a trove of oranges given to me by a dear friend, plucked off her tree that same day and placed in a fancy gold bag along with handpicked freesias and a handwritten note of the varieties: Valencia and Cara Cara blood oranges. Impossible to describe the taste of a fresh orange, nothing akin to fruit bought in a store—sweeter than sweet, tarter than tart, oranger than orange. Worlds away… I bit into one…

I was carried back to the first time I ever ate a fresh orange, which I pulled off a tree when I was 19 years old, after having left all that was known to me and driven west across the country, leaving the darkness of an icy winter and arriving in a dream of palms and Pacific waves, birds of paradise and cacti, pelicans and lizards, and so very little of the world I’d grown up in. Apple orchards and maples now replaced by orange groves.

My first jobs in that new world included working in a greenhouse, an ice cream shop, a holistic health center, a Greek restaurant, and a blind man’s home. I made enough money to go to a Mexican restaurant every couple of weeks, eat the chips and salsa that were always on the table, and order one coffee, with refills. I was truly on my own, blissful, often misguided, but free, and only broke a few hearts that year, long regretted to this day. But I’ll hold off on that tangent…

Back to the oranges… see what happens? You just don’t know the places you can travel to when you are sitting quietly, looking at things, slowing down time.

I thank my friend who gave me the oranges; the gift was bright, tactile, fragrant. But what’s more present is what cannot be wrapped or eaten: the thoughtfulness, the connection, the memories, and the mirror.

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Ali de Groot is director of publishing for Modern Memoirs, Inc.

Your Company History, the Way You Want It

A blog post by Publishing Intern Lily Fitzgerald

In 2024 Modern Memoirs, Inc. celebrated our 30th anniversary—a milestone that prompted us to reflect on the many years we have helped celebrate and preserve people’s stories. Inspired, we decided to tell our own story by publishing Cheers to 30 Years: A Modern Memoirs Company History, which we plan to release later this year.

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“By sharing founders’ legacies, these volumes articulate organizational missions and values while inviting readers to reflect on history and envision the future. ”

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This is not the first such book we’ve created, as the following partial list of similar titles reveals:

• Founding Mothers: Greenwood Methodist Church, Greenwood, South Carolina, 1858 by Joyce M. Bowden (published in 2022)

• Conitex Sonoco 35th Anniversary: In Celebration of José Luis Artiga (2017)

• The Division of Nephrology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham: 1958–2008, Fifty Years of Excellence by Stephen G. Rostand, M.D. (2013, reprinted in 2019)

• A Rare Woman’s Club: The First Hundred Years of the Westport Woman’s Club 1907-2007 (2007)

• The Larkin Story by David Larkin (2007)

As several of the above titles demonstrate, many such books are published to commemorate a significant milestone for an organization by documenting its history, growth, and achievements, and by highlighting individuals who played key roles along the way. By sharing founders’ legacies, these volumes articulate organizational missions and values while inviting readers to reflect on history and envision the future.

While we go through the process of publishing Modern Memoirs’ company history, we want to encourage businesses, municipalities, clubs, boards, religious congregations, and other organizations to consider publishing a written history of their own. We are currently working on one such project, a biography of a businessman and his wife whose great-grandchildren commissioned Modern Memoirs to honor their ancestors and gather together scattered pieces of history about their thriving family business, which celebrates its 130th anniversary in 2026.

Whether you are marking a milestone in your organization, honoring a founder’s life and vision, or celebrating a retirement, we are here to help you create a special book about the place and people you hold dear.

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Lily Fitzgerald is publishing intern for Modern Memoirs, Inc.

Don't Try This at Home

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This is for any (anxious) Modern Memoirs client I ever worked with… I feel for you! This retrospective describes my own experience of single-handedly creating an art book (alas, without any team behind me)—the myriad details that bombarded me, the endless worries I tried to combat. Don’t try this alone! Of course, the outcome was well worth it for me.
—Ali de G.

Untitled 12 © Michele Théberge 2025

It starts out light, a whim, a phone call between you and a friend. She’s a painter; you’re an occasional writer. She asks, “What are you working on lately?”

“Not much, you?”

She texts you an image of her artwork. After you hang up, you sit down and stare at the painting on the screen and feel compelled to write down the words that fly from your pen. (Or your keyboard.) You text this reflection back to your friend, adding, “Send me another painting!”

About every month, she sends an image, and you find some time to write down a reflection. You might be sitting at home in your kitchen, or outside in the grass, in a doctor’s office, or in a camper on a long drive south to New Orleans. It’s inspiring, sharing art in the ether, especially with a dear friend, especially since you live on opposite sides of the country. Two different worlds and minds come together, like zaps of lightning, spanning distance, connecting souls.

The fun goes on for some time, and when you see that you have a collection of a dozen paintings and a dozen little scribblings, you say, “Hey, we could make a book out of this!”

“Fun! Let’s do it,” she says.

And at that very point, Fun seems to run for the hills.

Now it is Work. And it isn’t easy! But you know how to do this.

Book Design begs a thousand and one questions. What size for the book to best fit the content? How to balance the pages? Do the words and the art complement each other? Which fonts reflect the tone? What size font, how much leading between lines? Where to place the words in relation to the images? Centered or flush left, flush right? What colors to use, or will they compete with the paintings? Margin width? Running heads, or no? Page numbers absolutely necessary?

The decision whether to include titles for the poems or not can take a full month. Then there are font nuances: uppercase, lowercase, italics, semibold, display, condensed, semibold-condensed? Then the titles of the paintings. Where to place? Same font, different font? Table of contents—required? List of paintings at front or back? Can the list fit on one page? On and on the questions come; just as you finish one layout idea, another option arises.

Finally, you’re more than a little sick of thinking about all this, realizing that you just need to get the book done. It’s been months… (perhaps years, with the COVID time warp).

Now to Proofread… you’ve looked at the words a hundred times and don’t want to look again. You know you should have another set of eyes proof it, but you don’t want to share it with anyone else at this point because it might undo everything you’ve done. It’s like a secret that you must hold tightly in order to finish the thing, before letting it go. And, like Oscar Wilde, you spend a morning putting in a comma and an afternoon taking it out.

Every time you re-read it, one or another poem sounds boring. Sometimes they sound shallow, sometimes they sound dark, too dark. On one page, you decide to change the word “carrion” to “prey.” WHY? Why not just leave it? That’s what came out when you wrote it, and now you’re just taking it upon yourself, godlike, to reinvent the moment? (But how will the reader see it? Is it too heavy? Too this? Too that?) It’s agonizing. Stop!

Don’t read anymore! If you read it again, you know a letter or a word will jump out, yelling, “Change ME! Change ME!” Don’t listen, even though you have to open the file over and over to check a painting title, check the page specs, check the copyright page—don’t read! And don’t think about the ghostly reader.

Why didn’t you just make a simple calendar with the art? There are 12 paintings after all. That would be so much easier. Who cares about the words? Why? Why not? What if? So what? But you know you have to keep going.

Time for Cover Design. Fortunately your artist friend has already thought up a title for the book. The Deep Dark Light. Agreed! That was easy. But then there’s the subtitle. “Poems and Paintings” sounds nice, alliterative, but how about “Paintings and Poems”? Well, if we alphabetize the author’s and artist’s last names, “D” comes before “T” so the poems would come first, then paintings. Good. Decided. But as time plods on, it’s the word “Poems” that seems absolutely wrong. Pretentious! These aren’t poems! What are they? More like meditations? Nah. Musings? No. Prose? No. Reflections? Argh! There are no words to describe your own words. You break your own rule, dare to ask someone else, an outsider, what they think. All hell might break loose now. “Poems” they say. OK, done! (You should know that you will continue to struggle with the word “poems” long after the book is printed.)

OK, well, almost done. Preparing for print, you need to have CMYK images for the printed book, and RGB images for the digital book. Now that you’re feeling almost ready to roll, the artist must re-evaluate all the images to feel reassured that they will be reproduced on paper as the originals appear. Dozens and dozens of jpegs (and weeks, months?) go back and forth before the images settle in their places. And go figure—one never actually knows how they’ll look until the proofs are printed.

On to Production! What kind of paper? Gloss, satin, matte, natural, opaque? What is the weight and the opacity of the paper? The ppi? (Pages Per Inch.) What kind of printing process? Digital? Offset? What kind of binding? Sewn, saddlestitched, or glued? Cover paper? Gloss or matte lamination? Satin lamination?

You get the files to the printer after meticulously fitting them to exacting specifications (re-fitting numerous times). Now you can sit back, relax for a while, maybe? It’s out of your hands. More years pass, though it might be just weeks. Then the proof pages are printed. It’s so exciting to hold the soft, smooth pages, printed in color on professional paper. It’s almost a book. (Don’t read it!)

Proofs approved, you must sit back again and wait, wait, wait.

The original reasoning for having a book eludes you. Who really cares? Why did you do this? And it’s so much more expensive than you thought… but you know you have to keep going.

Don’t ask the printer the status, don’t rush them; mistakes happen when you rush. You told the printer it’s just a personal project with no deadline. Now you regret saying that but resolve not to call them. Just when you’ve blocked it from your mind, you receive a call. Has it been weeks? Months? It’s ready for pickup at the printer.

You don’t go right away. You go the next day, or even the next. You don’t want to go alone but you do. Amazingly, Fun shows up. You receive the box, open the box, see the shiny book cover gleaming at you. It’s smiling! Now THIS is why you did the project!

Soon enough you can start to wonder (worry) about your readers’ impressions when you hand out the books. But that will wait for another time….

Try to enjoy one moment, now, just for now. It is worth it.

The box of books, fresh from the printer

If you’re interested, visit our Online Author Page, where you can learn about the two authors and also view the Digital Book version of The Deep Dark Light: Poems by Ali de Groot; Paintings by Michele Théberge.

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