OTHERED Book Cover Reveal 👀

+ why I like wheat 🌾

I took first place in the Nederland, TX Centennial art contest for kids in 1997 and was over the moon about it. At ten years old, I was gobsmacked when my elementary school (or city?) presented me with a check for something like $25. I remember what I drew. It was a huge windmill surrounded by “Nederland Centennial” in bubble letters, all on white construction paper.

There will always be that 10-year-old inside of me who just wants to know what I create matters and that it holds even a smidgen of value.

I’m nearly 36 years old now, and that same over-the-moon feeling came over me when the marketing director for my publisher reached out with the offer to illustrate my own cover.

I judge books by their covers. If you don’t, you are a rare bird (or a liar 😉). And while not everyone will like the cover I illustrated, it is a wonderful representation of what you’ll find should you do me the honor of reading my debut book. At it’s core, Othered is about a good God who radically welcomes those of us who often feel like misfits in the church. He pursues people on the margins, leaving the 99 to find the 1. But this is not a book about sunshine and gumdrops. I didn’t want an overly pretty cover because I didn’t think it would represent the hard things you’d find inside. But I also soaked each word with hope, so a despairing cover wouldn’t have worked either.

I wanted a cover than held tension well. I wanted simple, dark, and beautiful.

Here’s where my imagination took me.

I love this cover. And I love that, out of all the concepts, my publishing team loved this cover too.

What’s the deal with the wheat?

I use the wheat 🌾 emoji a lot on social media. I’ve explained before that much of this has to do with my silly love of movies, and the wheat stem 🌾 reminds me of Gladiator—how Maximus’s idea of paradise was his family home. After a life of war, chaos, and in-fighting with his own people, the wheat field marked Maximus’s way to peace and rest on all sides.¹

Likewise, wheat 🌾 reminds me of a return to home—of the goodness of the Garden, which, in the beginning was always a place to be tended and cultivated. For OG readers, you’ll remember that before I wrote on Substack, I was writing on my now-deactivated website To Till the Soil (totillthesoil.com). To Till the Soil was my way of giving a nod to Genesis. In Genesis 2, God formed the human (Hebrew, adam) from the earth (adamah); the writer of Genesis is clever, using wordplay to show that humanity and the earth would be forever linked together.² The Hebrew adam can literally be translated as earthling. It isn’t used as the name “Adam” until later in Genesis. The adamah-earth relies on the adam-earthling “to till it and keep it” (Gen. 2:15, NRSV). Earthlings need the earth, and the earth needs us earthlings.

Garden-tending and cultivation metaphors are riddled throughout Scripture. Writers have used gardening and agricultural metaphors a billion times over to describe God’s goodness. For Isaiah, a return to goodness included beating our swords into plowshares (Isaiah 2:4). I’m no gardener, but writing has become my way to till and tend to the portion of creation to which God has called me.

I wanted to include the wheat strands on my cover because they are a reminder of a home that includes all of us—a place of peace with rest on all sides. They are a nod to my writing roots. And they serve as a reminder that we each have tremendous good power to tend, build, and cultivate something good.

Othered is my encouragement to all of us—to not lose hope in finding home and in cultivating goodness in your life and the lives of those around you.

The Process

I wanted the cover to be simple, but at some stage in the cover-illustrating process, I got lost in the weeds (pun intended). I was drawing overly complicated illustrations, hyper-fixating on elements that I ended up scrapping. I reached a point where I said out loud to friends, “I’m done with designing the cover, and I wish someone else would do it.”

But I had one final idea.

Reader, I drew the selected, final book cover design ONE DAY before my concepts were due. Thankfully, it panned out;I love the final design

If you don’t like it, well, you could do me the courtesy of keeping that to yourself. 😉

Where Othered is at in the publishing process

I’m currently reading through the galley copy and making final edits before the manuscript goes into page proofing

Slowly but surely, y’all. This is for real.

Thanks for cheering me on and supporting this book. Both the 10 year old me and 36 year old me are dancing with delight. I’m really, truly grateful for the encouragement and support.

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I asked my publisher about sharing the cover with you all because some of you are finding it online at retailers, preordering, and sending me screenshots. 🙌 💃

Save that preorder information! I’ll post more about preorders and the thank-you bonuses I’d like to send you after the new year.

1. I know Gladiator is about the Roman empire, and I’m critical of empire-building. Cut me slack. It was a good story, and one of the last movies I watched with my dad.

2. I need to give a nod to my seminary professor, Dr. J. Richard Middleton, who revealed the adam/adamah connection to me. Go find his books and read them.