Fruits of Our Labor

A new world is emerging, one parthenogenetic birth at a time.

It’s 2049 and American women have legally recognized human asexual reproduction. Samara yearns for freedom from her dying relationship, and a child of her own—fully her own. Yet as parthenogenetic birth takes hold and the role of men in the survival of the species wanes, protest and outcry sweep across the nation.

It’s 2062 and Sierra, one of the first “partho princesses”, is bullied relentlessly as she grows up and seeks her own place in this new pressure cooker of evolving gender roles and norms.

It’s 2085—the aftermath of the “Days of Horror”, a period of violent backlash from displaced men—and a professor of history looks back on the rise of PG birth in an attempt to understand, and communicate, the full impact of this era of genetic and political upheaval.

Together, these three converging perspectives tell the story of a profound societal transformation that asks what it means to have autonomy, who reaps the rewards, and who the future is for.

Cover design

For this cover, I wanted to capture feelings of social upheaval, organized resistance, and historical weight:

Protest imagery and a newspaper-style background got us there. I ended up doing this cover entirely myself; it’s our first cover for Shiraki Press that I didn’t hire an illustrator for.

Fun fact: The newspaper background actually samples titles and text directly from the academic interludes within the book itself!

Interior design

Because the book moves through three different POVs, each at a different point in time, I designed a timeline graphic for chapter headers that visually indicates where in the narrative this chapter takes place. The timeline’s range is bounded by the earliest and latest scenes in the book, so it’s very clear where each scene lands. I also adjusted the justification of the chapter title accordingly: chapters that fall early on the timeline are left justified; chapters near the middle of the timeline are centered; and chapters that fall late on the timeline are right justified.

There are also several brief interludes presented as academic papers, newspaper articles, and the like. To set these apart from the three-POV narrative, I set them in a typewriter-esque monospace and omitted running heads and page numbers, creating an insert-like feel.

Marketing

Here are some examples of marketing images I created to support the book:

Buy the book!

You can pick up your copy from Shiraki Press or request it at your favorite book retailer. Buying direct from our website is the best way to support our press, but I’ll also recommend Bookshop.org as an amazing way to support your local indie bookstore. You can even request it at your local library!

Fruits of Our Labor (Shiraki Press)