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I'm Maria
Nicotra, and you may wonder what it is that I do as Art Director and Operations Manager
for Gingerbread House. In the early years, I was also a home-schooler, which meant that
office work was done in between lessons in all subjects. The work then and now consists of
varied responsibilities. It ranges from completely designing, decorating, and outfitting
our booth at trade shows, to sorting the publishing house's mail. I create all the design,
layout, and digital work for our company's web site, its print materials, and its display
pieces. I enter order information into the inventory software, prepare books for
shipment--which usually means applying quite a few award stickers--and I help make all the
company's decisions-- from which places to send out review copies, to which gauge our
packing tape should be, to which colors to use for end papers. I am a partner with my
mother Josephine Nobisso in all meetings and
business dinners, and I attend the trade fairs in the USA and abroad. (There have been
times, in fact, when I was working exhibit booths at shows for which I was too young to
walk the floor!)
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of fun, but we also work very hard. When our printer sends us a shipment from Hong Kong,
for instance, and our books sail to California, ship by rail to New Jersey, and then are
trucked to us by tractor-trailer, the delivery ends in our warehouse where Mom, Dad, and I
are waiting in our scruffiest work clothes to help the driver unload several tons of
books--even in weather ranging from dreadful heat to icy snow--and to consolidate them
onto pallets. It's all engrossing and
wonderful, and we find it really worthwhile. I've been raised in the publishing world, and
I am familiar with many of the people and things that make it tick. I feel most at home
when I'm doing art direction, offering suggestions to illustrators so that text, art and
layout meld until it looks like one mind created a cohesive whole called a book. (You'll
get a pretty good feel for my sense of design (and of organization!) when I tell you that
I notice when the print on a couch's throw pillow is upside down!)
What is it like to work with one's own mother? In her, I
have a teacher who loves me, a business partner who trusts my ideas and opinions, and a
parent whose first priority is my happiness. It seems I've always wanted to work in the
world of books, maybe even from the time I was a baby and used to chew on board books (Mom
saved these specimens!) My mother used to take me to all her meetings--whether they were
manuscript critique meetings with our writer friends of the Long Island Children's Writers
and Illustrators group (which she co-founded many years ago), with her editors in their
offices, or with artists working even in back yard sheds when she was a senior editor of
another publishing house. We work together every day in every way, publishing the kinds of
books that we would like to have in hand, and hoping that readers will love them, too! |
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For art submissions, we accept tear
sheets, photocopied samples, and electronic submissions.
Please do not send originals. |
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Please send all art submissions to:
Maria Nicotra
Art Director |
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GINGERBREAD HOUSE
602 Montauk Highway
Westhampton Beach
New York 11978-1806 USA |
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Maria@GingerbreadBooks.com
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