This week’s issue of The New Yorker has an unexpected cover star: Sadie Dupuis, the poet and songwriter behind Sad13 and Speedy Ortiz. The piece, “Sun-Dappled” by Nicole Rifkin, is on the cover of the August 22 issue and it features Dupuis reading outside. How exactly did Dupuis come to appear on the cover of a magazine that doesn’t traditionally feature portraits of indie rock mainstays?
“I was asked to develop this cover originally to be for The New Yorker’s fiction issue,” Rifkin told Pitchfork over email. “I thought that Sadie, who is a friend who also always has about 10 books on deck to read a week, would be the best person to ask to be in the drawing.”
Dupuis and Rifkin have been friends for a few years, and, before that, the two admired each other’s work. “She’s very involved in an extended Exploding in Sound community and has illustrated some of my favorite show posters and album covers, especially for my friends like Mister Goblin, Bethlehem Steel and Pile,” Dupuis wrote via email. “She illustrated an issue of Wax Nine’s journal and did the cover of the Adam Schlesinger tribute compilation we helped co-release, too—very lucky us!”
“Speedy Ortiz was and still is a really big deal to me,” Rifkin said. “I remember seeing them open for the Breeders at Webster Hall and now I get to text her stuff randomly like ‘hey how’s Lavender’ or ‘hey can I draw you into a New Yorker cover?’”
Dupuis confirmed that it was a text conversation in May of this year where Rifkin asked her to model for a potential New Yorker cover. “The idea made me exceedingly anxious but then I remembered it’s Nicole, who is a masterful artist, whose past drawings of me have made me feel cooler than maybe any other visual representation,” she said. Dupuis continued:
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