As I look at my first book Happy Girl (first black and white cover) I remember how important it was to communicate this life-altering experience. I knew nothing about producing a "product". I designed my cover and included a series of illustrations. I have to smile seeing the tiny type with which I timidly inserted my name. I myself produced the cover and the interior design of the books. Eight years have gone by and the cover of Kolka is my first professionally produced "product". I was amazed to see my name enormous underneath the stormy sea of Kolka. But as a design it seemed to work.

When I was an art student in Paris (!) I remember laughing at the career Bernard Buffet, a mediocre French painter, in my opinion, whose name, with the years, became larger and larger until it came to fill the entire canvas. All that there really was at the end was an inflated ego. I see this as a cautionary tale.

Today I made a deal with a US publishing firm AUTHORHOUSE to have my novel RIGA MORTIS published and distributed by them. As we discussed the details, the very nice AUTHORHOUSE employee asked me: "So what do you do?" I was taken back for quite a long-distance moment. I have written, designed, produced and marketed seven full-length novels in the past eight years and the guy still asks me. Is this not doing something? True, I have given less time to my painting, although I created all my book covers except KOLKA. But even when I was a practicing artist, exhibiting my work every two years, people would ask, "Yeah, but what to you do?" After all these many years I don’t know how to reply. I just roll my eyes and shake my head.