I've Got You Covered

What My Book Is Wearing! And a Smidge of What I'm Wearing, Too! Cuz Why Not!

Y’all: It’s here! My cover! Of all moments for an author in the book publication process, this is perhaps the most anticipated, most thrilling.

My cover pinged into my in-box while I was on a trip to Ireland with my older son—a happy occasion that came about in an unusual manner, so here’s the story: Last year, Thomas sang in the Oxford High School choir, and they performed a piece of choral music by a young Irish composer, Elaine Hagenberg. This concert was a great success and in fact Hagenberg ended up viewing the concert on YouTube, which led to her issuing an invitation to the choir to perform in Galway for the International Choir Festival. So a bunch of the kids and their parents made the trip. I was happy to be a part of it but happier still that I went over early with Thomas, as before joining the group we had 4 days in Belfast (I’ve been to Ireland several times, but never to Northern Ireland). I loved having him to myself and loved Northern Ireland, especially the Giant’s Causeway, and after doing some independent exploring I was more content to settling into group travel (a lot of bus rides).

One of these bus rides was to the astonishingly beautiful Kylemore Abbey, where I was walking down a garden path with some of the other mamas when the much-anticipated cover appeared. I screamed a little, then showed the moms and explained why the moment meant so much to me—and one of them snapped this photo to mark the occasion—me holding my phone with the cover:

Back to What my Book is Wearing in a sec, but first, What I’m Wearing—

If you’ve spent a minute on the internet, you’ll know the newest trend is the capsule wardrobe, in which a person pares their wardrobe down to 7 or so classic pieces, to achieve 7 looks easily and simplify one’s life. It’s recommend that we:

Keep a primarily neutral color palette. Keeping most of your essential pieces neutral in color will make them much easier to mix and match. Neutral colors can include black, navy, gray, brown, camel, taupe, cream, white —or any shade in between. Look in your closet and notice which neutrals work best with your skin tone. If you love a pop of color, incorporate 1 or 2 accent colors.

I’m committed to traveling light—I never check a bag—both my trips to Switzerland and Ireland this summer were done with a single carry-on and a backpack. But I insist that traveling light doesn’t have to mean traveling in boring black. I’ve gone the other route, which I’ve affectionately termed “the rainbow school of fashion”—if you wear enough colors, nothing clashes! (cf handbag, rain coat). I bought these trousers from Boden because they made me look like a crazy clown. Of course, not everyone wants to look like a crazy clown. But I do, at times. That’s my capsule wardrobe—7 looks: Sixties Go-Go Girl. Victorian Poetess. Sporty. Sequinned. Sporty and Sequinned. 90’s Goth Girl. And Crazy Clown.

Back to My Book’s Jacket

Before I’d published a book, I’d always assumed the author chooses his or her cover. In fact, that’s rarely the case, unless the author is self-publishing. A press typically sends an author a questionnaire, and one section asks what ideas/preferences the author has for covers. But from there on out, it’s in the hands of the professionals at the publishing house to come up with a design. That might sounds like the author is robbed of control, but when the design team is good, it’s a pleasure to allow those creatives who’ve spent their lives studying art and cover designs to exercise their powers. For example, Alex Merto (whom I’ve never met) at Norton came up with the cover for my Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs, and I adore it. Here I am holding it at my book release, and sporting a (60s go-go-girl-capsule-wardrobe-alert!) polyester minidress that matched the cover, scored at a Boulder thrift store for $7.50)

Merto’s cover for Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs ended up being celebrated by book designers and websites—LitHub, for example, named it as one of the Best Book Covers of 2017, writing:

I like any cover that connects you to an experience, to something you have felt and can feel again. The melting pop, sticky on the wood, makes me remember the taste. And the need to bite the stick when it’s done.

So when I was filling out the author questionnaire for The Irish Goodbye: Micro-Memoirs (pub date, Feb. 24, 2026) I mentioned that I thought it would be cool if the cover for The Irish Goodbye somehow referenced the cover for Heating & Cooling, because both books are short-form nonfiction and because H & C ended up earning some loyal fans (if you’re one of them, I ❤️ you so bad.)

In the design brief for Norton, I wrote regarding the H & Ccover :

I adore its bright colors and clean simple lines and emphasis on the diminutive through the negative space and the way it teases our lizard brains to think of sugar and color and FUN. The design is FUN. The Irish Goodbye: Micro-Memoirs is a tad bit more serious than Heating & Cooling because it deals more with my sister’s death, but I’m still loving the idea of bright colors.

and SO—yay!!—you’re the first folks to see it, beyond a bunch of nice moms in Ireland:

This is how the designer (whom I’ve never met), Sarahmay Wilkinson, explained her inspiration:

“Per the design brief and author's thoughts we have created this cover to be "in conversation" with HEATING & COOLING...

• drawing on the purple of the popsicle, and the green of the background — we have inverted them.

• Single object

• Type on object

• Stark layout/placement / allowing for negative space

Although this book deals with a more serious subject, we have kept colors bright. And the daffodils themselves add a warmth or kind of optimism.

On a personal note, I adored this book! Fennelly writes in a way that feels like it's just you "listening". The feelings & experiences recounted resonated so directly & deeply, I actually gasped out loud a few times.”

I have to say I love that last part—that although this woman’s JOB is to read books in order to design their covers, she still takes pleasure from reading, still takes the time to connect as a reader. It’s so beautiful to feel the human touch when working with strangers; what could have felt commercial and corporate becomes an exchange between fellow inhabitants of planet earth. My book has already been though copy-edits so I’m supposed to leave it alone, but I just had to add Sarahmay to my acknowledgements page!

What do you think of the cover? Let me know in the comments below!

Update on the Plaid/No Plaid Dilemma

You might recall that in my last Substack, I shared with you the layout designs for the interior cover, soliciting opinions. There were two versions for the title page, one featuring a tartan plaid, playing off the idea of the “Irish” in The Irish Goodbye. Consensus was—and I eventually concurred—that the simpler layout, without the plaid, would be better. I ended up thinking that it would be a bit much to turn the cover, after the bright daffodils above, and see a strict plaid boxing the page. And also, after 16 years of wearing plaid skirts as my Catholic school uniform, I still feel a bit of resistance to plaid! (cf: Crazy Clown). Thanks for guiding me, dear Substackians!

Summer Reading

Is there a more beautiful phrase in the world? The feeling this conveys to me is summoned by this lovely 3-line sketch—so simple, just like summer should be:

(God, to be able to draw like that!)

I can’t draw, but I can read with the best of them. Vessel magazine (a new slick mag) asked me for summer reading recs, and I wanted to depart from the typical of-the-moment-book-club books (though there are plenty of them I love). But summer is a time to read indolently, capriciously, whimsically. So here are my recs—CNF, a novel, memoir, poetry, and stories:

What are you reading that is idiosyncratic, un-recommended, willful and strange? DO tell. Let’s all read something that no one else is reading. Let’s keep our brains (despite the homogenizing effects of the Amazon/Meta universe) quirky and individual.

Something Someone Smarter Than Me Said

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”

—Henry David Thoreau

I love this quote for the way it clarifies what’s at stake when we expend our resources. I want to be more thoughtful about the way I dole out precious amounts of life!

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY

Isn’t it a bummer that patriotism has been co-opted by a single political party?

I want my children to feel patriotic. In 2020, I took my family to DC and we toured the monuments (see youngest child, in photo below) and the White House. The politician in the White House in 2020 isn’t someone I voted for. But I refuse to allow patriotism to be weaponized. While I disagree with our current president on, well, everything, I believe in the promise of America, still, and I want my children to. I believe pointing out where our nation has failed to live up to its promise is a way to show patriotism. Happy Independence Day, y’all. Let’s work to let freedom ring.

That’s it, folks!

Thanks for reading! Enjoy your season of sweet corn and tomatoes and blueberries. I’m turning in copyedits and heading to the beach with my boys. Next time I write you, I’ll be able to share a pre-order link to my book, yay!

Remember:

The Bethannigan is free! The Bethannigan doesn’t want your money. The Bethannigan only wants your love. Praise me, pet me, share me, feed me. Take me home and tell your friends. Apparently if you like or comment or share below, it helps other people find The Bethannigan? Or if you have a Substack, recommend me, restack me? Do the thing! Point the way! Thanks, pals!