“It no have pictures in it.”

From Kristin Cashore’s blog:

The response of my two-year-old niece, codename: Isis, when she saw the ARC of Bitterblue: "It no have pictures in it."

Well, guess what, Isis? You're going to like the final version of the book better, because it does have pictures in it. The lovely Ian Schoenherr, who most recently did the art for The Apothecary, has created maps, castle diagrams, various Appendix illustrations, endpapers, the cover page, ornamental chapter openers, and, probably my favorite illustrations of all, double-spread part openers (the book is in five parts) for Bitterblue, and the final result makes me SO HAPPY.

If you "like" the Graceling Realm page on Facebook, you'll have access to some of the art, which is slowly being revealed there.

The process of working with my publisher and Ian on the art was fascinating. It was surprising -- and delightful -- to realize how involved I needed to be, and lots of fun, too -- I enjoyed every minute of it. Often, it wasn't until I saw a sketch that I realized there was some physical aspect of a space I hadn't bothered to explain to Ian, because I'd internalized it so much that I'd forgotten that other people wouldn't necessarily be imagining it the way I did. I had to re-learn that we all see different things when we read words. And it's really helpful to have a visual artist picking your book apart and trying to interpret it. Ian found some inconsistencies no one else had caught -- like a clock tower I'd slapped onto the wrong bridge -- just in time for me to change them in the text. And every time one of his sketches came in, I sat there speechless, overwhelmed by how lucky I was to have an artist who was making my world so beautiful. Feeling, deeply, that Ian was making my world more beautiful than I had ever managed to make it.

Thank you, thank you, Ian, for what you've done for Bitterblue. I'm certain Bitterblue herself would love the art too.