2nd Edition: Gracie Lee reimagined!

Back when I introduced you to One Mississippi Press, I let you in on the news that I have my rights back for The Accidental Salvation of Gracie Lee. And I compared it to rediscovering a misplaced treasure.

Oh my heart. This process has been like creating something I loved, loaning it to someone else, and finally holding it in my hands again. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been polishing Gracie Lee, making her shine even brighter than before.

I hope you’ll agree.

Gracie Lee. Reimagined.

I know many of you have already read The Accidental Salvation of Gracie Lee. Thank you!!! Sales have been incredible. And while I don’t expect readers to re-buy and re-read, if you consider yourself a Gracie Lee superfan, you may be interested in the 2nd edition changes.

As Gracie would say, they are so neat!

Plus, don’t forget, books make great gifts.

More on the specific 2nd edition changes later in this post. It’s time to show you the cover…

Tadaa!

Yay!

And here’s the whole shebang.

I tried my best to capture the spirit of Gracie Lee with her banana seat bike and cotton on the front cover, notebook paper and green chalkboard effect on the back. There’s even a postage mark from Savage Crossing.

Yes, I love my first cover too. But with a new publisher, a new cover is sort of a requirement…

One of my goals in creating an updated cover was to maintain the overall feel and character of the original. I gotta say, the process has been lots of fun for me.

Besides the cover, WHAT ELSE IS NEW?

So much.

• A few more Gracie letters.
  In the original story, I summarized a few of the letters Gracie Lee wrote to the man in the gray house. I re-wrote these as direct letters because I think they make for more compelling reading.
• Updated formatting inside.
  Overall, I think you’ll find the format (margins and spacing) to be easier on the eyes. I’m a bit of a control freak about these sorts of things…
• Tighter edits.
  Confession—I never read my book in its entirety after it was published in January 2016 because I was afraid I would find typos. BUT, during the process of re-publishing via One Mississippi Press, I’ve read it many, many times. Yes, I found a few errors in the original manuscript. Those have now been corrected. Yes, I found a few superfluous sentences/paragraphs. If you think about it—five years has passed since I wrote the book. I’d like to think I’ve become a better editor. Maybe.
• Excerpts from Eudora Welty’s Death of a Traveling Salesman.
  Remember how Gracie reluctantly reads to her Daddy from Death of a Traveling Salesman? In my original manuscript, I had included a few excerpts as part of the story (expecting to credit Eudora Welty). Because of copyright issues, my publisher advised me to remove and summarize those passages instead. With the 2nd edition, those excerpts are back! I contacted the Eudora Welty Foundation and obtained permission from the New York agency that handles copyright for the Welty works. Although this isn’t a huge change, having direct excerpts makes the story stronger, especially during a particularly intense scene in the book. This may not matter to anyone else, but it’s a huge deal to me. (Let this serve as a reminder, if you want something, don’t take no for an answer. Not until you research it, anyway…)
• Original illustrations with each chapter.
  THIS is greatest of the changes. Each chapter now begins with an original graphite illustration created by none other than my husband! Each illustration captures the essence of that particular scene from Gracie’s POV. Y’all, there are fifty-five chapters / illustrations. I can’t wait for you to see all of them.

ARTIST AT WORK

And here’s a sneak peek.

Can you match chapters to these illustrations?

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I hope you are excited about this new edition of The Accidental Salvation of Gracie Lee. It will be available for purchase in a few weeks.

Hey Reese Witherspoon…!

Thank goodness Reese Witherspoon hasn’t discovered The Accidental Salvation of Gracie Lee yet. She’s gonna love this 2nd edition even more than the original.

Talya
Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.