See the cover for Earthly Playing Field by Radhika Singh December 9, 2025 by Adam In her debut novel, Earthly Playing Field , author Radhika Singh invites readers into a world where war rages, futuristic technology is used to hack AI warfare, and local Punjabi farmers create a frontline resistance. Set to publish on May 5, 2026 from Common Notions Press , the book is available for pre-order now . Singh is a writer and editor from New York City, whose work speculates on the presence of magic in this world, the connection to spirit and consciousness, and the power of the people to organize for collective liberation. Debutiful is honored to reveal Earthly Playing Field ‘s cover, designed by Samita Chatterjee , along with a Q&A with Singh about its creation. While writing the book, did you have any ideas for what you wanted the cover to look like? My dream was to co-create something with my friend, illustrator Samita Chatterjee, and I was lucky to have a Publisher—Common Notions Press—willing to consider such a partnership. Sam and I met over a decade ago—she was a graffiti writer and mural painter and I was helping to grow a hip hop community center in New Delhi. Our artistic and political journeys evolved in concert, through long soulful nights in smoke-filled city rooms or under the stars in the Himalayan foothills (where we both developed bodies of work inspired by the surrounding nature). We finally collaborated in 2024, on a comic about Palestinian freedom fighter Leila Khaled. It was a seamless working relationship as we share a reverence for liberation struggles as well as an obsessive creative process. Earthly Playing Field uplifts themes that I knew Samita would ‘get’ on an instinctive level; all I had to do was point her in a direction. I chose a central chapter, Night of Power, in which the two lovers meet in a moonlit garden (one of them ‘projecting’ in from her basement via a futuristic plant-based technology!) and discuss the martyrdom of a revolutionary leader. Samita created a sketch of a woman sitting like a warrior on a throne-like chair, surrounded by the rubble of a destroyed city. I loved it, and asked if she could integrate some floral motifs to represent organic defiance. I sent her a folder of Mughal garden paintings for inspiration. Can you explain what the design process was like once you started working with your publishing team? Samita and I met with the Common Notions team to present her concept. Malav Kanuga, my Editor, was very receptive and encouraging… and gently suggested the possibility of not being quite so literal in our rendition…! Words like ‘vibey, evanescent and otherworldly’ were thrown around. I acknowledged that it was probably time for me to step away from the process—I have a background in marketing and am well aware of the writerly limitations when it comes to imagining the visual realm! Sarah Lopez, who does design and social media at Common Notions, mentioned the idea of a flame. This really resonated with Samita: “I was thinking romance and revolution can both be very tumultuous, throwing us off balance. Both are often associated with flames, and both are rooted in some form of love or another that we seek. I wanted the character to look proactive and active, reaching for this illuminated garden element, while her other hand is clenched in a fist, suggesting resolve and strength.” The overall tone of the illustration was soft and pink, with mystical patterning woven through to evoke sacred geometry. What was it like seeing your finalized cover for the first time? Josh MacPhee, who does cover design at Common Notions, is an artist, activist and founder of two collectives: Justseeds and the Interference Archive. For his Justseeds blog, Judging Books by Their Covers, he created an archive of Penguin sci-fi covers from the ‘60s and ‘70s. So I knew we both treasured that vintage aesthetic—the weird, trippy illustrations; the bubbly, surreal typography. In the initial design brief for Earthly Playing Field, I’d suggested ‘organic, dreamy, feminine’ imagery treated with ‘retro sci-fi futurism’. I really feel like we pulled this off! Josh scaled up the illustration so it’s more striking and in-your-face, and offset it with bold yellow block lettering that creates a great throwback effect while also putting the novel in conversation with contemporary speculative fiction. Instead of the original soft pink, he set the illustration against a deep, dark backdrop to bring in this outer space dimension. I love how the flame pops against the inky purple while also somehow melting into it. Our original was very ‘mystic surrender and romance’; Josh’s rendition brings out the underlying power with a pulpy, cosmic mood. How does the cover work to convey what the book is all about? The tagline for the book is ‘love and revolution in a crumbling world order,’ which comes alive through the flame, the fist, the reaching hand. Meanwhile, the typographical treatment elegantly conveys the sci-fi/ spec fic aspect. But the true spirit of the novel is a bursting, utopic romance that is ultimately not of this world. To me, all the cover elements surge together to unveil this beating heart in a way that is so fantastic and transcendent! I also love how collaborative our process ended up being, since this novel is all about celebrating legacies of people power and the co-production of emancipatory visions. Common Notions itself works off a cooperative model, recognizing “the power of the printed word to inspire cultural shifts through the bold ideas of a new society emerging within the existing world.” So, in many ways, this cover deeply conveys the ethos of the book! Share this: Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Like Loading… Source: https://debutiful.net/2025/12/09/see-the-cover-for-earthly-playing-field-by-radhika-singh/