Cartographers and why I love them

After the torture I went through with The Glass Maker’s Daughter, when it came to making a draft the map that appeared in the front of the book, I learned my lesson. When I was writing both The Buccaneer’s Apprentice and A Traveler to Nascenza, I was completely aware of the geography I was traversing in a way that I never had been with the first book in the series. I kept things straight, so that I’d have a finished draft done when the publisher needed.

But I still can’t draw. That’s why I’m always delighted when I encounter the work of someone who can make sense of my scrawls. I submitted the map draft for The Buccaneer’s Apprentice a long while back.



I actually wrote more about it than I sketched anything. My email to the editor was full of cautions, like, The island of Gallina is supposed to be an active volcano, not a quesadilla, or I have drawn Cassaforte so that it looks massive when it should be weak and small compared to the country of Pays d’Azur, can you shrink it?

This week I got from the artist a rough and very preliminary sketch of how’s he interpreting my scribbles. Holy crap, is it ever nice.



I am always amazed when someone has skills that I don’t personally possess, and the fellow who has been doing my maps for this series has them in abundance. I would name children after him if I could.