It was a pleasure to illustrate the cover of Erin Crosby-Eckstine’s debut novel. A story inspired by the author’s maternal great-great-great-great grandmother, Jane Cotton, who fled enslavement in Lowndes County shortly before the Civil War.

The cover portrays Junie, an enslaved girl lost in daydreams of poetry and far-off worlds. At night, she secretly wanders the forest, her heart a mix of grief and flickering hope.