Just the Girls-Cover Inspiration

The women portrayed in Just the Girls share one thing: experience.

Whether that experience is positive or negative - painful or uplifting - sad or joyful…it is a mixed bag.

So when The Poetry Box Press notified me that they accepted this book of poems, I knew that the cover art needed to reflect these ideas.

I turned to two young female artists—both gradates of Kent State University in Kent, Ohio—and asked if they would tackle the challenge. The result is a collaboration with Meredith Balogh drawing the face of a woman and R.E. Anderson inking, adding color, and incorporating details such as the honeybee and flowers.

I love this woman who sprang from their collective inspiration! She knows stuff. She has experienced joy and pain. She is complex. She’s been around the block and returned stronger, better, wiser, and more capable of directing her life…in her own way.

As my friend and social media strategist Diane Laney Fitzpatrick said: “Come for the cover. Stay for the poems.”