City of Saints and Madmen: The Untold Story by Jeff VanderMeer →
When the small press publishing City of Saints and Madmen, Jeff VanderMeer’s first collection of novellas, told him he could have carte blanch designing the interior, he went a little overboard. Here explaining the long series of trials, bouts of self-doubt, and bursts of hubris that were necessary to bring City of Saints to press.
This is a long and sometimes agonizing essay, but it’s definitely worth the read. City of Saints was the first book VanderMeer published in his excellent Ambergris cycle. In a few weeks Finch, the last book in the cycle, will be released. VanderMeer has posted a retrospective in which he brings the entire Ambergris cycle to bed; that’s where I found this essay.
