One of the quiet gifts of working on Confluence has been how genuinely collaborative the publishing process has been—first with title selection and, most recently, with the cover.

From the outset, Arsenal Pulp Press and designer Jazmin Welch invited my input. That kind of openness is rare in publishing, and I’m deeply grateful for it. The final cover feels not just commissioned, but shared—very much in the collective spirit of this co-authored book.

The cover image is a closeup of a photograph of Alex when he was in his early twenties, taken with his best friend Vern Barber, the model for the book’s bad boy, Wade. Choosing to feature Alex on the cover mattered to me immensely. The publication of Confluence is, in many ways, an act of stewardship—part of my wish to keep my late husband’s presence, voice, and work alive in the world. Seeing his face there still stops me short.

Rendered in cool blues and grainy texture, the image feels suspended, veiled in luminous strands refracted by water. That’s fitting. Much of the novel unfolds along the waterways of Vancouver and the Upper Fraser Valley—English Bay, Spanish Banks, Harrison Lake, and the meeting of the Harrison and Fraser Rivers. A near-drowning early in the book becomes a central metaphor, and the cover quietly echoes that moment: a face emerging, hovering at the confluence between immersion and air, between the teenager he once was and the man he is meant to become.