Why I’m Still on Strike: Portraits from the HarperCollins Picket Line

58 Days and 308,500 Steps (and Counting) I really love my job. As a book cover designer, I read unseen manuscripts and create art to swaddle them in, a visual blanket to usher them into the light of day. Working for a major publisher like HarperCollins means my work will be seen worldwide, in airports and indie bookshops. I get to work on heartbreakingly beautiful novels, spine-chilling thrillers, and memoirs that make me weep. I love working with my team and being privy to the birth of so many new literary voices. And I genuinely understand that that’s how the rest of my colleagues feel. These people love making books. Here are our duties: We read a text. We work to figure out how that text should be visually represented. We, riding paint fumes and too many cups of coffee, scrappily work to construct those visuals, cobbling together symbols, figures, and words. We love stories. We create magic with our colleagues. Much too often, we are overworked and underpaid. We are in what people call a “passion industry,” which ultimately capitalizes on our love of stories to excuse low wages and a “you better be grateful for this opportunity” attitude. We wish it were different. We’re not quite sure how to make it different. As a HarperCollins union member, I am participating in the open-ended strike that started on Thursday, November 10th. A bit of character backstory: […]

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