{"id":256627,"date":"2023-11-20T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-20T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/?p=256627"},"modified":"2023-11-30T21:43:54","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T02:43:54","slug":"exclusive-cover-reveal-of-loose-earth-by-kathleen-dorothy-blackburn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/exclusive-cover-reveal-of-loose-earth-by-kathleen-dorothy-blackburn\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive Cover Reveal of &#8220;Loose of Earth&#8221; by\u00a0Kathleen Dorothy Blackburn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover for <\/em>the memoir Loose of Earth <em>by&nbsp;Kathleen Dorothy<\/em> <em>Blackburn<\/em>,<em>&nbsp;which will be published by University of Texas Press on April 16, 2024.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/269\/9781477329627\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Preorder&nbsp;the book here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Kathleen Dorothy Blackburn was the oldest of five children, a twelve-year-old from Lubbock, Texas, whose evangelical family eschewed public education for homeschooling, and science for literal interpretations of the bible. Then her father, a former air force pilot, was diagnosed with cancer at the age of thirty-eight, and, \u201cit was like throwing gasoline on the Holy Spirit.\u201d Stirred by her mother, the family committed to an extreme diet and sought deliverance from equally extreme sources: a traveling tent preacher, a Malaysian holy man, a local faith-healer who led services called \u201cMiracles on 34<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0Street.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What they didn\u2019t know at the time was that their lives were entangled with a larger, less visible environmental catastrophe. Fire-fighting foams containing carcinogenic compounds had contaminated the drinking water of every military site where her father worked. Commonly referred to as \u201cforever chemicals,\u201d the presence of PFAs in West Texas besieged a landscape already burdened with vanishing water, taking up residence in wells and in the bloodstreams of people who lived there. An arresting portrait of the pernicious creep of decline, and a powerful cry for environmental justice,\u00a0<em>Loose of Earth<\/em>\u00a0captures the desperate futility and unbending religious faith that devastated a family, leaving them waiting for a miracle that would never come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is the cover, designed by Sarah Schulte, art by Jack Spencer.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Cover_Loose-of-Earth-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"388\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Cover_Loose-of-Earth-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-256634\" srcset=\"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Cover_Loose-of-Earth-1.jpg 388w, https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Cover_Loose-of-Earth-1-194x300.jpg 194w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 388px) 100vw, 388px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>Sarah Schulte: &#8220;<em>Loose of Earth<\/em>&nbsp;conjures strong images and conflicting themes\u2014desolation, vastness, but beauty, too. Kathleen\u2019s landscapes are equally gorgeous and gritty, and there\u2019s an interesting tension at the core of the story between love, loss, faith, grief, and revisitation that matches the complexities of the place in which that story unfolds.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Capturing this powerful sense of place became a goal for the&nbsp;cover&nbsp;early on, and the challenge was to figure out the best way to evoke this landscape. Initially, I explored a range of illustration directions, but something was missing. While the results hinted at the innocence and wonder within the memoir, they did not fully convey the more painful emotions of loss and grief felt throughout the book. We turned to the portfolio of fine art photographer Jack Spencer, who has travelled Texas and photographed much of its majesty. We came across the image of the road that is now on the&nbsp;cover, and it was perfect. The photo had it all: the emptiness, the grit, the beauty, and a unique kind of depth that simultaneously seems to suspend time, while also bridging the past to the present.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kathleen Dorothy Blackburn: \u201cMost artists tend to focus on the vast West Texas sky, but Jack Spencer\u2019s photograph gives equal attention to the land, and I love how Sarah Schulte engaged with the surrealism. When I saw her design for the first time, it felt like an encounter with a memory or an image from a dream. This road, are we returning to it or about to begin? The plains in West Texas are among the flattest in the U.S., but where is the steady ground? The place is destabilized, vibrating, unsettled. Words emerge in the longhand quality of Sarah\u2019s script, taking their cues from the lines of the telephone poles and the horizon. The&nbsp;cover&nbsp;hit me between the ribs. It echoed back the story in new registers.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover for the memoir Loose of Earth by&nbsp;Kathleen Dorothy Blackburn,&nbsp;which will be published by University of Texas Press on April 16, 2024.&nbsp;Preorder&nbsp;the book here. Kathleen Dorothy Blackburn was the oldest of five children, a twelve-year-old from Lubbock, Texas, whose evangelical family eschewed public education for homeschooling, and science [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":256635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[243,6177],"tags":[5572,6039,5702],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Exclusive Cover Reveal of &quot;Loose of Earth&quot; by\u00a0Kathleen Dorothy Blackburn - Electric Literature<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We spoke to the designer and the author about the design process for the book\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/exclusive-cover-reveal-of-loose-earth-by-kathleen-dorothy-blackburn\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Exclusive Cover Reveal of &quot;Loose of Earth&quot; 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