This month I had the opportunity to do a fun side project.

THE BOOK OF ENDLESS PAGES INTERVIEW: LEE MOYER

Shawn Speakman: How were you approached to do this incredibly unique yet hilarious project?

Lee Moyer: After a meet-up at Powell’s, my assistant mentioned that Tracy (one of Portland’s most knowledgeable and devoted bibliophiles) had a cover project in mind, and wondered whether I might be interested.

I loved everything about it. I love the opportunity to work in other people’s sandboxes – matching styles, working with typography, and being a little subversive if I can – in short, it was was right up my street!

Shawn Speakman: You have an incredible body of work that ranges from pin-ups to fantasy covers to gaming. Do you have a favorite area of the publishing world that you like to work within?

Lee Moyer: Thank you! I love working on any and all aspects of books:

• Covers, because I love the books within, and I want to do justice to the author’s hard work (paying especial attention to the spine of the book. There is no more important real estate on one’s shelf than those few precious inches!)

• Maps, because – whether the Dragon Kingdom of 13th Age or China Mieville’s New Crobuzon – nothing makes new worlds so real.

• And Design. I love creating symbols, working with type, and fitting all of the elements of a project into a single elegant design – much of the challenge of “Endless Pages” was matching Brandon’s genuine wraparound cover.

Happily, Brandon’s real book is filled with interior illustrations, and endpapers that would be the envy of many other covers. While many people in publishing are worried about the end times, it is so refreshing to see a book like Words of Radiance where the publishers seem to understand that books are objects of beauty and reverence above and beyond. I greatly enjoyed reading Brandon’s essay on what this book means to him, how he is pushing the limit of what “epic fantasy” can mean, and how fully he is creating this world in all it’s aspects (art, maps, symbols, short stories, poems and languages) for his readers.

Shawn Speakman: I’m sure you’ve seen Brandon Sanderson’s reaction to the new dust jacket. How does that make you feel to see the joy it brought him?

Lee Moyer: I was utterly delighted by Brandon’s reaction!

While I do not know him well, I feel he is one of the hardest working authors in the business and I respect that so much.

For more on the story and to see Brandon Sanderson‘s great reaction to the book cover, visit Suvudu.com!