Behind the scenes with The Game Changer: Cover design

Many years ago, my game-changing partner (whom I call Amber in The Game Changer) talked to a therapist about why she felt lonely and isolated. Her therapist told her there was nothing wrong with her: she felt alienated from others because she was a giraffe surrounded by alligators.

No matter how well-intentioned alligators are, they can not understand or relate to giraffes. Giraffes and alligators have very different needs and live very different lives. An alligator might sincerely reach out to a giraffe—by offering it a bit of meat torn from the carcass of some unlucky water buffalo, say—but that isn’t likely to help the giraffe much.

Amber was my giraffe. She was the first person I knew who really got me in a way my other partners never had. It turns out, I have a bit of giraffe in me, too.

A tale of two logos

These are two logos we’ve considered for the book cover for More Than Two.

When I first started thinking about writing a book about polyamory, I wanted a book cover that expressed the way I feel about relationships: the importance of deliberate, conscious choice; the value of careful planning. The design I came up with, the one on the left, used the metaphor of a construction blueprint.

Welcome to the More Than Two book blog!

I started exploring polyamory back before the word “polyamory” started circulating. I’ve never been monogamous, and I’ve never had a monogamous relationship. When I started exploring romantic relationships myself, it was hard to find other people who felt the same way I did about love and romance. It was hard even to find the language to describe the things I wanted. “Open relationship” was about the closest I could come, but it didn’t really do much to talk about how I wanted my life to look.