Robin Locke Monda - Designer
Fabulous book cover designs just for you! I work closely with each of my authors to create just the right design. Let's work together!
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Overview
I love doing book covers, and my designs show it! I'm a senior-level designer who has worked with most of the top book publishing houses over the years. I also enjoy collaborating with independent authors, poets and artists who wish to publish their own books, catalogs, and monographs. Many of the covers I show here were done for major publishers like St. Martin’s Press, Houghton Mifflin, McGraw-Hill, Simon & Schuster, Warner Books, Penguin, Random House and W.W. Norton. I've also included several book covers by independently-published authors.
I'm especially interested in:
• Inspirational and spiritual book titles
• Literary short story collections and novels
• Memoirs and Autobiographies
• LGBTQ topics and authors
• Native American topics and authors
• African-American topics and authors
• Non-fiction book titles that focus on important issues of the day, from feminist works, to social justice topics, to animal rights work
• Non-fiction book titles that focus on women's rights, minority rights, history, psychological and physical well-being
For those of you who are authoring self-help, cook books and craft books—I am here for you, too! I'm a sewer and a crafts person myself. I love to cook and I believe in the power of books to bring us strategies for self-improvement and self-realization.
I've had the pleasure of designing covers for Fay Weldon, Joyce Carol Oates, Pauline Kael, Garry Wills, Leslie Marmon Silko, David B. Feinberg, Lillian Faderman, and Ishmael Reed. I give my time and energy to all my projects—it doesn't matter if you are an author just starting out or if you are an experience pro. I would love to work with you!
My background as a fine artist and writer informs my design work. I especially love photography, art history, children's book illustrations, calligraphy and poetry.
NOTE: I am not an illustrator, so if you need a customized illustration or painting for your cover, look for a cover designer who specializes in that. I work with stock photos and stock illustrations to create a feeling, an atmosphere, an evocative design that is complementary with the book's topic. Also, I do not do book interiors. I do covers only, for paperbacks and ebooks, and jackets or case wraps for hard cover books. I also do the marketing materials you may need for social media or your website.
I'm especially interested in:
• Inspirational and spiritual book titles
• Literary short story collections and novels
• Memoirs and Autobiographies
• LGBTQ topics and authors
• Native American topics and authors
• African-American topics and authors
• Non-fiction book titles that focus on important issues of the day, from feminist works, to social justice topics, to animal rights work
• Non-fiction book titles that focus on women's rights, minority rights, history, psychological and physical well-being
For those of you who are authoring self-help, cook books and craft books—I am here for you, too! I'm a sewer and a crafts person myself. I love to cook and I believe in the power of books to bring us strategies for self-improvement and self-realization.
I've had the pleasure of designing covers for Fay Weldon, Joyce Carol Oates, Pauline Kael, Garry Wills, Leslie Marmon Silko, David B. Feinberg, Lillian Faderman, and Ishmael Reed. I give my time and energy to all my projects—it doesn't matter if you are an author just starting out or if you are an experience pro. I would love to work with you!
My background as a fine artist and writer informs my design work. I especially love photography, art history, children's book illustrations, calligraphy and poetry.
NOTE: I am not an illustrator, so if you need a customized illustration or painting for your cover, look for a cover designer who specializes in that. I work with stock photos and stock illustrations to create a feeling, an atmosphere, an evocative design that is complementary with the book's topic. Also, I do not do book interiors. I do covers only, for paperbacks and ebooks, and jackets or case wraps for hard cover books. I also do the marketing materials you may need for social media or your website.
Services
Languages
English
Non-Fiction
Biographies & Memoirs
Health & Wellbeing
Religion & Spirituality
Fiction
Cultural & Ethnic
LGBTQ Fiction
Literary Fiction
Romance
Women's Fiction
Certifications
- Brooklyn College, BA in Fine Art
- Hunter College, MFA in Integrated Media Arts
Work experience
Graphic Designer
Self-employed
January, 1996
–
Present
(almost 27 years)
I create cover designs for the serious author—you! Each project is as unique as the person who wrote the book. I know the level of competition you face as you cultivate and grow your audience. My designs bring positive attention to your project, whether it's displayed online or in a brick-and-mortar book store. I look forward to working on a project for you!
Senior Designer
PenguinUSA
April, 1990
–
December, 1995
(over 5 years)
I designed both hard cover jackets and paperback book covers in the Adult Trade art department at PenguinUSA. I designed covers for the Viking, Dutton, Penguin and Plume lists. My experience there included supervising independent contractors on book cover projects, including the hiring of other designers, as well as photographers, illustrators, and photo researchers. I often negotiated image fees and publication rights with either stock image houses, or directly with illustrators, artists, and photographers.
Portfolio (20 selected works)
Children of God
Mary Doria Russell
Mary Doria Russell's debut novel, The Sparrow, took us on a journey to a distant planet and into the center of the human soul. A critically acclaimed bestseller, The Sparrow was chosen as one of Entertainment Weekly's Ten Best Books of the Year, a finalist for the Book-of-the-Month Club's First Fiction Prize and the winner of the James M. Tiptree Memorial Award. Now, in Children of God, Russel... read more
Why I Am a Catholic
Garry Wills
In this provocative work, which could not be timelier, Garry Wills, one of our country's most noted writers and historians, offers a powerful statement of his Catholic faith. Beginning with a reflection on his early experience of that faith as a child and later as a Jesuit seminarian, Wills reveals the importance of Catholicism in his own life. He goes on to challenge, in clear and forceful te... read more
Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit
Leslie Marmon Silko
Bold and impassioned, sharp and defiant, Leslie Marmon Silko's essays evoke the spirit and voice of Native Americans. Whether she is exploring the vital importance literature and language play in Native American heritage, illuminating the inseparability of the land and the Native American people, enlivening the ways and wisdom of the old-time people, or exploding in outrage over the government... read more
The Holocaust on Trial
D. D. Guttenplan
The account of a trial in which the very meaning of the Holocaust was put on the stand. D. D. Guttenplan's The Holocaust on Trial is a bristling courtroom drama where the meaning of history is questioned. The plaintiff is British author David Irving, one of the world's preeminent military historians whose works are considered essential World War II scholarship and whose biographies of leading ... read more
What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us
Danielle Crittenden
Talk to women under forty today, and you will hear that in spite of the fact that they have achieved goals previous generations of women could only dream of, they nonetheless feel more confused and insecure than ever. What has gone wrong? What can be done to set it right?These are the questions Danielle Crittenden answers in What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us. She examines the foremost issues in ... read more
Vignettes: Chapters From a Life
Vivian Cherry
VIGNETTES is a collection of chapters from the life of Vivian Cherry who integrates two art forms - memoir and photography. Ms. Cherry is a quintessential New Yorker born of immigrant parents. At the age of 5 she started dancing school. Then in the late 1930’s as a young classically trained dancer, wanting independence, wandered off to Coney Island, a Brooklyn neighborhood that was truly the p... read more
Malcolm X: Make It Plain
William Strickland, Malcolm X Documentary Prod.
draws on hundreds of sources to explore Malcolm X's multi-faceted character through rare photographs, personal memories, and an historical text. TV tie-in. 35,000 first printing. $40,000 ad/promo.
Will be shipped from US. Used books may not include companion materials, may have some shelf wear, may contain highlighting/notes, may not include CDs or access codes. 100% money back guarantee.
Winterkill: A Novel
Craig Lesley
Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Award From the two-time winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award: a deeply moving and evocative novel of fathers and sons. Danny Kachiah is a Native American fighting not to become a casualty. His father, Red Shirt, is dead; his wife, Loxie, has left him, and his career as a rodeo cowboy is flagging. But when Lox... read more
Stonewall
Martin Bauml Duberman
"As scholars we should read Stonewall, and as teachers we should assign it. All of us will be challenged to build on it."—Michael Sherry, Northwestern Univ. "Both a fascinating account of the birth of gay liberation and a replay of the turbulent, society-changing 60s."—San Francisco Chronicle.
Dreamers of the Day
Mary Doria Russell
“I suppose I ought to warn you at the outset that my present circumstances are puzzling, even to me. Nevertheless, I am sure of this much: My little story has become your history. You won’t really understand your times until you understand mine.”So begins the account of Agnes Shanklin, the charmingly diffident narrator of Mary Doria Russell’s compelling new novel, Dreamers of the Day. And what... read more
A Thread of Grace
Mary Doria Russell
Set in Italy during the dramatic finale of World War II, this new novel is the first in seven years by the bestselling author of The Sparrow and Children of God.It is September 8, 1943, and fourteen-year-old Claudette Blum is learning Italian with a suitcase in her hand. She and her father are among the thousands of Jewish refugees scrambling over the Alps toward Italy, where they hope to be s... read more
Rising Tide
John M. Barry
An American epic of science, politics, race, honor, high society, and the Mississippi River, Rising Tide tells the riveting and nearly forgotten story of the greatest natural disaster this country has ever known -- the Mississippi flood of 1927. The river inundated the homes of nearly one million people, helped elect Huey Long governor and made Herbert Hoover president, drove hundreds of thous... read more
Ghost Dancing
Anna Linzer
A linked collection of Native American-themed stories, set in the Pacific Northwest and Oklahoma, by a gifted new authorStory by graceful story, Ghost Dancing reveals the evolving worlds of Jimmy One Rock, his wife Mary, and their family as they struggle together on a decaying reservation in the Pacific Northwest. Alternating between Washington state and Jimmy's childhood on an Oklahoma reserv... read more
Naked in the Promised Land
Lillian Faderman
Born in 1940, Lillian Faderman was the only child of an uneducated and unmarried immigrant Jewish woman. Her mother, whose family perished in the Holocaust, was racked by guilt at having come to America and left them behind; she suffered recurrent psychotic episodes. Her only escape from the brutal labor of her sweatshop job was her fiercely loved daughter, Lilly, whose poignant dream througho... read more
Many histories of the American Civil War tell of the triumph of the dynamic, free-labour North over the traditional, slave-based South, vindicating the freedom principles built on the nation's foundations. Edward L. Ayers tells a different story of the war on an intimate scale. He charts the descent into war in the Great Valleyt spanning Pennsylvania and Virginia. Connected by strong ties of e... read more
This is a literary anthology with each piece set in an historical and literary context that seeks to redefine four centuries of lesbian writing. From the verse of Sappho in 600BC to Radclyffe Hall's "The Well of Loneliness" published in 1928, there is little women's writing that is recognised as "lesbian". A review of the shifting concept of "lesbian literature" is offered, followed by example... read more
In this wide-ranging anthology, 32 women from Britain, continental Europe and the Americas express the depth and complexity of lesbian literature. Including stories about coming-out and cross-dressing, as well as vampire tales, science fiction, parody, and romance, this collection "casts the world in a different light."--The New Republic.
Anything Your Little Heart Desires: An American Family Story
Patricia Bosworth
"A memorable and moving book about a man -- indeed, a family -- of Fritzgeraldian proportions -- a distinguished and gripping American saga". -- Todd Gitlin, Chicago TribuneThrough the prism of her father's life as a lawyer and well-known political activist, Patricia Bosworth sheds light on an important era in modern American history -- from the heady, hope-filled days of Roosevelt's New Deal ... read more
An anthology of short stories and essays explores themes of love between men, homosexual identity, and family and friend relationships by such writers as Thomas Mann, Tony Duvert, Plato, Boccaccio, Leonardo da Vinci, and Kafka. 20,000 first printing.
Robin has 74 reviews
Professionalism
Professionalism
Quality
Quality
Value
Value
Communication & Punctuality
Communication & Punctuality
As a first-time author who was utterly clueless about book cover design, I could not have picked a better designer than Robin. She patiently explained the process, gave me six beautiful covers to choose from, and then customized my choice until it was perfect.
Robin is a top collaborator and my #1 choice for future projects.
Stefanie Van Steelandt, November 2022
I LOVED working with Robin Locke Monda! From the first moment, she dived right into the project and was tremendously helpful when developing the book cover. She was patient, always available, and understanding, bringing to life the cover I imagined in my head. She is an absolute treasure, and I will DEFINITELY work with her on my future projects!
Carrie Wiegman, October 2022
Reply from Robin Locke Monda
Robin was amazing! She was professional, responsive, and worked very hard for me. She created not one, not three, but six cover concepts, several of which I loved. Once I chose a concept, I asked for a plethora of changes and tweaks. She came through beautifully on every one of them. I love the finished cover she delivered.
Mary Ann Horton, October 2022
Reply from Robin Locke Monda
Robin was easy to work with. Prompt, reliable and always willing to answer questions.
Stephanie Panayi, August 2022
Reply from Robin Locke Monda
Thank you
Carlos A, July 2022
Reply from Robin Locke Monda
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