As I mentioned earlier, I've joined the Executive Board of the Interstitial Arts Foundation. As a part of that, I'm helping promote the IAF's upcoming book Interfictions II – and right now, although the anthology has an absolutely stunning lineup of stories scheduled to be included, it is currently, alas, without a face. The IAF has thrown open its doors (via a Flickr group) to artists who might like to have their work considered for the cover of this truly excellent volume. Won't you take a moment to throw your hat into the ring?

The official call for art, courtesy of Ellen Kushner, Gavin Grant and Connie Toebe, is as follows.

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The Interstitial Arts Foundation is searching for cover art for our second literary anthology, Interfictions II. All visual artists are invited to submit images for possible use as the cover art of the anthology.

From February 2 - 16, artists are invited to post images on our Flickr group at http://www.flickr.com/groups/interstitialarts for all to enjoy. At the end of that time, the editors of Interfictions II, Delia Sherman and Christopher Barzak, along with Small Beer Press publisher Gavin Grant and Interfictions I cover artist Connie Toebe, will choose an image for the cover of this exciting original anthology, to be published in November, 2009.

What are we looking for? Any visual image that might look good on the cover of a book. It could be a painting, a computer image, collage, sculpture or maybe even a piece of clothing. The first volume's cover was actually a photo of a 3-dimensional diorama box, so a photo of a sculpture or craft piece is not out of the question. Contributing artists should be sure to consider their art in the context of a book cover. A book cover isn't simply a pretty picture but part of a complete design. If you're photographing a 3-dimensional piece (especially something that isn't rectangular) please remember that the quality of the photo counts as well. A nicely composed photo is as important as the quality of the artwork in the image. The book cover will be 5.5" wide and 8.5" tall so a horizontal or square image might not work as well as a vertically oriented one. That being said, we'd love to be surprised. Show us something we've never seen before!

The details:

1. The final image will have to be available as a JPG, at least 5.75" x 8.75" at 300dpi. For the Flickr group, artists need only post low-resolution versions of their images. If your image is selected, we will contact you and request that you send us the high-resolution version for printing.

2. The deadline is February 16, 2009. The Interfictions II Flickr site is the same as the IAF Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/groups/interstitialarts.

3. Artists are limited to posting 3 images for consideration. If we like your art but not the images you chose, we may write and ask you for more.

4. Although interstitial art is by definition wonderfully wide-ranging and experimental, we retain the right to remove anything from the pool that we deem inappropriate.

5. The artist whose work is chosen will receive a $500 fee from the IAF for the use of their image on the Interfictions II cover along with the rights to use the image in any publicity for the book and for the IAF. Artist retains the original artwork and the copyright on the piece.

6. The editors reserve the right to use art from another source for the cover. However, we are holding this search not only to choose a cover for our anthology, but also to make more artists aware of the work of the IAF and to give everyone a chance to see more really good interstitial art. In that spirit, we will spotlight the cover art as well as five runners up on the IAF blog at http://www.interstitialarts.org . In addition, the most recent entries to the Flickr group will be syndicated into a section of the IAF homepage for the duration of the search, and quite possibly beyond.

Questions? Post as comments here, and we'll answer them as soon as possible.

Good luck! We look forward to seeing your artwork!