That's the one phrase I uttered most often on last month's book tour.
It's the answer to an endless number of questions beginning with "Will
you ever...?" Will I ever write a Kushiel prequel? Will I ever
write another book in The Sundering? Will I ever tell Melisande's
story from her perspective?
So far, the short answer is "No." As I've written here before, I'm currently
working on the first book of a new trilogy set in the Terre d'Ange milieu.
It takes place several generations after the end of Kushiel's Mercy
and features a whole new cast of characters, including a half-D'Angeline
heroine who's actually born to the Maghuin Dhonn. At this point, I'm completely
occupied with this project and not working on any other plans. But there's
no telling what future inspiration may hold, hence... never say never.
Apropos
of which, I'm happy to report that something I thought was unlikely to
transpire, just did! There's been an offer for audio rights to the Kushiel
series, with plans to get all six books in production by March 2009. (I
don't have any more specific details, so don't deluge me with inquiries.)
Very cool, and I'm happy that they'll be available at last in audio book
format.
At any rate, many thanks to all the fans who turned out for booksignings
and made for another successful tour! Mercy's getting a great response,
and I'm very glad. It was a LOT of fun to write. Thanks, too, to Shawn
at The Signed
Page for his hard work in making signed copies available to readers.
It's truly a labor of love on his part.
I'll be going into deep writing mode over the months to come, but
I do have one more public appearance scheduled. Weather deities
permitting, I'll be attending Comic-Con
in San Diego later this month. I'm taking part in a panel titled
"Looking at our World: Eye on the Past" on Thursday, July 24th at
5:00 pm, followed by a signing session in the Autograph Area at
6:00 pm. I'm also scheduled to do signings in the Hachette Book
Group booth on Thursday, July 24th from 3:00-4:00 pm and Friday,
July 25th from 11:00 am - 12:00 pm. And that's all I know about
that!
Good news for impatient fans! It looks like Kushiel's Mercy
is shipping early, at least from the online stores. The official
release date is June 12th, but it may be showing up in your mailbox
or local bookstore early.
I've posted tour dates in the Events column to the left, and that's
it for this one! As I've said before, tours are arranged and sponsored
by the publisher. They send me to stores that request me, which
is often stores where I have a track record of good events. So please,
no begging and wheedling! There's nothing I can do about it at this
point.
One
thing I can do is accept invitations to regional conventions, and
I usually do at least one or two a year, especially if they're sponsoring
me as a Guest of Honor. Over the years, I've attended conventions
in Atlanta, Texas, Winnipeg, Baltimore, New York, Massachusetts
- and others I'm forgetting. Those are always posted in the Events
column and sent to my mailing list when confirmed, and you can also
keep up with me on MySpace
and Facebook
now.
To round up a few miscellaneous items, there's another giveaway
contest for a complete set of the Imriel trilogy at the Fantasy
Book Critic. Readers in Australia having a hard time finding
copies of my latest can check out Rendezvous
the Romance Books, who promise to keep them all in stock. Anyone
who's ever wondered what a Kushiel movie score might sound like
should visit The
Eglantine Adept for some lovely samples, and there's a new Kushiel's
MySpace group, too. After a drought during my absence, there
are a bunch of cool new additions to the Tattoo
Gallery, and a couple new pieces in the Fan
Art Gallery.
And on a somber note, I've posted two more photos from my trip
to China here on the Homepage. These were taken at Dujiangyan, where
a Taoist temple sits above a 2,000 year old irrigation project.
I almost skipped that site, and it turned out to be one of my favorite
places. On the day we visited, it was a holiday. Hundreds and hundreds
of Chinese tourists and a handful of westerners had come to marvel
at the view, at the enduring legacy of the ancient engineering,
at the beauty of the temple. We held our breath crossing the swaying
suspension bridge over the river. On the way back to the bus, I
bought a trinket from a vendor in the parking lot. Nothing significant,
just a little charm to remind me of that day and place.
A month later, the earthquake struck. Dujiangyan was at the epicenter.
Amid the sorrow at the destruction and terrible loss of life, I
am grateful for my memories.
I'm back from an amazing trip to China! It was truly awesome, and
a fascinating time to visit. Despite the political situation, we
didn't encounter any difficulties. The landscape was even more varied
and spectacular than I'd imagined, and I found the people to be
warm, friendly and outgoing. It's such a vast and ancient country,
I feel as though I barely scratched the surface of all it has to
offer in three weeks... but it's still a lot to process. And it's
definitely great, great research material!
So, books. Kushiel's Justice is out in paperback this month
and Kushiel's Mercy comes out in hardcover in June. Yay!
I'll be posting tour dates soon. It looks like I'll have a couple
of events in the Midwest (Chicago, I got you added to the schedule
this year; don't let me down), then back to the West Coast to hit
the usual suspects: San Francisco, Seattle, Portland. Appearances
will be listed in the Events column on my homepage as soon as they're
confirmed.
Once
again, if I'm not coming to a town near you, you can order a signed
copy from The
Signed Page. Due to time and author constraints, we had to limit
the number of personalized copies to 50, which have sold out. Sorry!
If you want to be sure you don't miss anything, subscribe to my
Mailing List
at the bottom left. I use it to send periodic announcements regarding
events or special offers. List members were the first to hear about
The Signed Page offer and snapped up the 50 personalized copies
in less than half an hour.
In other news, I've finally succumbed to urging and have fledgling
pages up at MySpace
and Facebook.
Feel free to Friend me! I'll try to keep up with both sites, though
no guarantees.
Not many additions to the galleries this month; I took my email
contact down while I was traveling. But check out the Fan
Art gallery for a couple of pieces generated in Second
Life by a reader who hopes more Kushiel fans will come play.
In other community news, you can visit Terre
d'Ange, a new fansite.
And because I couldn't resist, I've posted a couple of iconic China
photos on the homepage. The Great Wall! Pandas! Yeah, they really
are that cute.
Lots of interesting responses to last month's meandering posting!
Thanks to all the readers who wrote to let me know that one of my
books was their That Book. And thanks, too, to the surprising number
who were concerned by the pancake batter lacuna in my culinary skills
and offered to send fool-proof recipes.
You may note that this update spans two months. Due to travel plans,
I'll be away for a good chunk of March and April. First up is LunaCon
in New York, where I'll be the writer Guest of Honor. I hope to
see some East Coast fans there! After that, I'm off on a long trip
to China.
Research, you wonder? Definitely! For the record, I haven't been
to all of the places I've written about. Given the amount of territory
my books span, it's just not feasible within the constraints of
my publishing schedule (not to mention my budget), and sometimes
I'm forced to rely on plain old academic research. I'm fortunate
to have traveled enough in my lifetime that I have a lot of vivid
memories to feed my imagination. But it's been too long since I
undertook a major trip and it's time to replenish the well.
To avoid being overwhelmed upon my return, I'm temporarily removing
my email contact and the Bookplate Offer. As it happens, I'm just
about out of the original Kushiel's Legacy bookplates that Tor had
printed back in 2001. When they gave me 5,000 extras, I never thought
I'd go through them all... but I have!
As far as the burning questions that plague you, please check the
FAQ, because I may have already answered them. I've even added a
couple of new ones. And here's one I didn't add: A lot of readers
have asked if I'll be offering signed copies of Kushiel's Mercy
through The
Signed Page again this year. At this point, I don't know. It
depends on whether or not they're up for another round and it fits
into my tour schedule. I promise, if we're doing it again, it will
be posted atop the site by May.
Speaking of promises, as promised, there's a link to the first
chapter of Kushiel's Mercy under Extras over to the left.
Enjoy! And I've got a real treat in terms fan art for you this month.
There may never be a Kushiel movie in my lifetime... but reader
Alex has given us a glimpse of what film posters for the original
trilogy might look like. The first one is featured on the homepage.
Check out the Fan Art gallery for
the other two, plus more new offerings.
Hope that's enough to hold you. I'll be back in May!
February 2008
Writing,
writing, writing. Once more, little to report! New York area fans
take note, I'll be the writer Guest of Honor at LunaCon
next month, March 14th - 16th. If you can get together a group of
20 or more, the convention is offering a discount registration rate
of $35 per person. Talk amongst yourselves and contact LunaconCentral@aol.com
by February 15th.
So I was thinking today that it's good to be a grown-up. Yesterday,
I splurged on something silly at the grocery store - Batter
Blaster. It's organic, pressurized pancake batter. This is just
the sort of thing I would have thought was awesomely cool as a kid
and begged my mother to buy. Being a sensible woman, she would have
looked at the price tag and refused. I looked at it and thought,
what the heck. What's the point of being a grown-up if you can't
indulge the kid inside you every now and then? Also, although I'm
a fairly good cook, for some reason I have a mysterious inability
to make decent pancake batter.
After this morning's breakfast, I'm sorry to say that I won't be
signing on as a Batter Blaster spokesperson any time soon. But the
kid inside me was tickled to pieces nonetheless. And thinking about
how there are parts of us that never age got me to thinking about
a book that was That Book for me as an adolescent girl. I may have
written about this before, but That Book is the first book you read
with explicit sex scenes that makes an indelible impression on you.
The one you discuss with your friends in whispers and giggles (at
least if you're a girl).
For me, The Thorn Birds was That Book. And then, years later,
it was made into a miniseries. By this time, I was mature enough
to enjoy discussing its guilty pleasures with my mother. One of
the best things about that miniseries wasn't the racy bits at all
- it was Barbara Stanwyck's fabulous performance as the dowager
Mary Carson. As we watched her confront Richard Chamberlain's Father
Ralph de Bricassart and declare with an old school Hollywood star's
venomous passion that she had always loved him and that inside this
stupid body she was young, my mother leaned over and said,
"It's true. That's exactly how you feel."
I believed her; but I'm old enough to understand it better, now.
Not as well as I will, but enough to gloat every time I'm carded
buying alcohol, which happens less and less. Enough to celebrate
my inner kid's joy at Batter Blaster. Enough to marvel at the fact
that I've grown up to write a number of books that might be someone's
That Book. Enough to be touched when I hear from mothers and daughters
who share a love for them.
Things to think about on a dreary winter day! All the glorious
snow in the photo on the homepage is gone, but for a bit of February
cheer, check out the Tattoo and Fan
Art galleries for more new offerings, including a couple of
charming Phèdre and Melisande toons.
Next month, a sample chapter!
January 2008
Happy
New Year!
This
is going to be a quick update because it's late and... well, I don't
have much to report. Amidst the usual chaos attendant on the holidays,
I've been immersed in writing the first book of the yet-untitled
new D'Angeline trilogy and contending with two big proof-reading
projects: the mass market copy of Kushiel's Justice and the
hardcover of Kushiel's Mercy. Many thanks to those readers
who sent lists of errors they found in Justice! It made my
job much easier, and readers of future editions will benefit from
your efforts.
Apologies to anyone who may have emailed me and received no reply
in the past six weeks or so. Due to a technological glitch, there
was a period of time where none of the mail I sent to various address,
especially AOL, was being delivered. I think the problem is resolved,
so feel free to try again.
In the spirit of the holidays, I do have one special request. I
received an email from a soldier stationed in Iraq wondering if
I knew of anyone willing to part with a copy of Earth Begotten,
the limited edition letter-press booklet, as a special gift for
his wife who will be spending this past Christmas and next without
him. Maybe you're a collector with a soft heart? If you have a copy
you'd be willing to sell, drop
me a line.
Once again, check out the Tattoo
and Fan Art galleries for some lovely
and creative new additions. And on the homepage, a little taste
of winter in Michigan! Freezing rain is nasty stuff when you have
to be out and about in it, but it does leave the world sparkling
and magical.
Here's wishing all my readers a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New
Year!