It’s hugely daunting being asked to design a cover for one of your favourite writers, particularly when that writer is as universally acclaimed as Lauren Groff . Lauren’s short story collection Florida took my breath away, and her new novel Matrix is equally as exquisite.

Matrix tells the fictionalised story of Marie De France, banished by the royal court to become the prioress of a remote and ailing abbey. The novel follows her decades of rein over the abbey, exploring themes of female creativity, desire and power. I read the manuscript over Christmas last year, jotting down phrases that caught my attention and doodling some initial visual ideas in the margins. I could sense at this early stage it was going to be a balancing act between the medieval setting, and the thoroughly modern tone of Lauren’s writing.