Curses and Dragons

Entries categorized as ‘Books!’

Great Company

May 15, 2013 · 2 Comments

If one were to casually check out the Mythopoeic award finalists today, one might note this section:

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature

  • Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado, Giants Beware! (First Second)
  • Sarah Beth Durst, Vessel (Margaret K. McElderry)
  • Merrie Haskell, The Princess Curse (HarperCollins)
  • Christopher Healy, The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom (Walden Pond Press)
  • Sherwood Smith, The Spy Princess (Viking Juvenile)

What a list!  Sherwood Smith, whose book Crown Duel was literally the third thing I ordered off Amazon, on May 5th, 1999!  And Sarah Beth Durst’s Vessel was a book I was super pleased to see hit the Norton ballot this year.  Those are the works on this slate I’m familiar with–

Except the one in the middle.  I know that book really well.

So, the great news for me is that Mythcon 44 is in my backyard this year–just an hour up the road in East Lansing.

What great company to be in!

Categories: Books!
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Roundup of Stuffs

March 30, 2013 · 2 Comments

I do not generally post links to reviews of my work to my blog (note, I don’t even have a review category), because I feel that if you wanted to know, you’d Google that.  Likewise, I do link to a few reviews on my website (in the reviews section)…  for luck?  Or something.  Because it’s what one does.

But sometimes, people have seriously smart things to say about my books and stories.  And sometimes they have amazing viewpoints that I never really thought about. And sometimes they get readers excited for my books in ways I never could.  So here’s a round up of reviews that have caught my eye recently.  Yes, these reviews are mostly favorable.   I’m not a masochist (today).

First up, as part of the third annual Fairy Tale Fortnight, The Book Rat (who is practically a neighbor–she lives in the same town where my guinea pig Pepe was born) has an interview with me  (and a giveaway.   There is a copy of The Princess Curse and another parchment bookmark up for grabs there).

Pepe's Eating Habits Amuse Me
A picture of Pepe because I mentioned him.

Second, The Book Rat reviewed The Princess Curse and also Handbook for Dragon Slayers.  Her enthusiasm is wonderful and warms the cockles of my heart!

Third, Ana Mardoll reviewed The Princess Curse and then wrote this amazing analysis of basically one paragraph of my book.  This reader made me feel about six hundred times smarter than I actually am.

Fourth, The Book Smugglers did a “What She Said” review of The Princess Curse–it’s a two-person review site, and in a “What She Said,”
one of them reviews a book that the other person has already read.

And finally, a link to a review from late last year for neither The Princess Curse nor Handbook for Dragon Slayers, but the first short story I sold for a professional rate, “Huntswoman.”  I will note that it is now over 8 years since that story first appeared in Strange Horizons (which, wonderfully, is still going strong)…  

I think that’s it!

Categories: Books! · Interviews · Short Stories
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The Next Big Thing Bloghop

February 13, 2013 · Comments Off

The completely awesome Nova Ren Suma–one of the wonderful friends I made last summer at Launch Pad (aka, Astronomy Camp)–has tagged me in this bloghop-interview-round robin thing called The Next Big Thing. Nova is the author of Imaginary Girls, and the shortly forthcoming 17 & Gone (which is what her NBT entry is about). Thanks, Nova!

I think you can guess what book I’ll be talking about… Because that’s my next big thing, right?

What is your working title of your book (or story)?
Handbook for Dragon Slayers.  That has been the title since I first set fingers to keyboard, so it is both my working title and my final one! Okay, that’s a lie. Harper decided to take off the article. Periodically, the book tried to be THE Handbook for Dragon Slayers and A Handbook for Dragon Slayers. Now it is article-free, neither definite nor indefinite.

Where did the idea come from for the book?
So many places, but the four core ideas that came together were these:

1) Hildegard of Bingen. My editor and I both thought, after Hildegard’s presence in The Princess Curse, that a Hildegard book might be a swell idea. That sort of dictated the setting: the middle Rhine in the 12th century.  Though in the end, this is not a Hildegard book–Hildegard only makes a cameo appearance–but the setting stuck.

2) “The Princess of the Glass Hill.” A fairy tale that has always bugged me, with this fantastical bit with 3 metal horses.

3) Handbook for William: A Carolingian Woman’s Counsel for Her Son. A book I read in college; absolutely fascinating advice from a 9th century woman to her son about how to make his way at court. I’ve always wanted to write something about medieval handbooks, entirely due to Dhuoda.

4) Feet. As I wrote last week on this blog, I have chronic foot pain, and mobility has been an issue for several of my family members at different points. Tilda, my main character, may not have always been called Tilda (more on that later), but she has always had a club foot.

What genre does your book fall under?
It’s a Middle Grade book, which is technically its genre, but I also call it historical fantasy.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
This question always stumps me! The only celebrities I had actually chosen at any point were Stand by Me-era River Phoenix for Wim and Adam Lambert to play my bard.  Well, guess what folks: Wim and my bard got cut. Hardcore cut.

Part of the problem is that I write about children, and the number of Serious Kid Actors I’m exposed to is vanishingly small. So I tend not to cast anyone.  Though after I saw The Avengers and The Hunger Games, I decided that Parz is a Hemsworth. I have NO idea which one, and obviously, he grows into his Hemsworthian looks (Parz is fourteen or so).  Judith, in my mind, is perhaps a young Alison Janney. As for my viewpoint characters, I have a hard time–I’m in their head, and we never go mirror-gazing. Okay, I officially give up on answering this question with a good answer.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A runaway princess befriends two would-be dragon slayers and gets a magical horse.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I’m with Nova in expressing confusion over this question–her point being that a person who self-publishes can also be repped. These things are apples and oranges. If you publish, you either have a publisher or you self-publish. You may not have an agent for either. In any case, since this is a book I wrote under contract with HarperCollins–I think that’s actually the answer.  Also, self-publishing in middle grade sounds like a frustrating endeavor. Until more 10-year-olds have e-readers, anyway.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Gusty sigh. I put first words down in September 2010. I think the first draft was done in May 2011. That’s a long time to a first draft for me.  Let’s also be clear: the first draft and what’s going to be published in a few months have very little in common, except the 4 core ideas I laid out above.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Oh, golly. Well, the historical parts of it remind me of Karen Cushman.  I hear comparisons to Shannon Hale and Gale Carson Levine now and then.  All things considered, when anyone compares my work to any of those writers, I just get tongue-tide and mind-boggled and don’t know what to say.  So it’s really hard for me to draw that kind of comparison.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
There are always so many factors. I’ve already mentioned some of the points of inspiration–it’s hard to separate idea and inspiration, sometimes.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
I haven’t talked much about the dragon slaying angle much. I will say that I was talking about the book when it was a work in progress to Sarah Prineas (who as we all know, loves dragons a lot). I hadn’t thought too much about what would happen when my characters met a dragon. I assumed, I guess, that they would slay it. Sarah was like, “Subvert the trope! Subvert the trope!” I don’t want to spoil it any more than that…

I am supposed to blog five more writers, but I think I may have reached the end of the internet.  In case that’s untrue, though, please join in, let me know, and I’ll link ya up.

Categories: Books! · Interviews
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Con or Bust Fundraiser

February 10, 2013 · Comments Off

Seriously, do you know how long I’ve waited to have something–stuff–that someone might want just enough to bid on it in a fundraiser? It’s like crossing a threshold into true writer adulthood, in some weird way. I might actually be able to help with a good cause.

Of course, I am only actually able to help if someone really does want this fantaboolos (that’s totally how you spell it) package of goodies from me, so I must now tell you about it. The package contains:

1) An ARC of Handbook for Dragon Slayers

2) A hardcover of The Princess Curse

3) A parchment* bookmark** with a quote from Handbook for Dragon Slayers, inscribed*** in Carolingian Miniscule****

4) And whatever else delightful thing I will probably throw in because why send a box that’s anything less than full?

The cause in this case? Is the totally awesome Con or Bust fundraiser is an offshoot of the Carl Brandon Society. The fundraiser is to assist fans of color to attend science fiction and fantasy conventions.

Click here for the bid page

or, scroll through and find something else tempting

2012-11-27 18.02.50

An example of Carolingian Minsicule, but let me tell you something, that was done by a professional, not me. But also a copy of the ARC. And sneakily underneath, a copy of TPC.

* Yes. Real parchment. I bought a goatskin.

** But a vegan option is available: high quality calligraphy paper

*** “Inscribed” –well, I’ll tell you something.  I’m not the world’s greatest Carolingian Minisculer. But though it be shaky, it be authentic. Ish.

**** Yes, Carolingian Miniscule, as invented by Charlemagne, or at least, someone at his court, since as we all know, Charlemagne remained illiterate to the day he died, in spite of sleeping with a book under his pillow in hopes that reading would osmose into his brain in the night.

 

Categories: Books! · Fundraising
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Returning to a Review; Not a Spoiler Warning

February 6, 2013 · 8 Comments

I’ve returned from my time in the Pacific NW–Seattle and Portland and a little bit of the Olympic Peninsula, to be precise–but no, not Forks.  Yes, I wanted to go to Forks.  No, I don’t love the Twilight books.  But yes, I did read them, and I enjoyed them. But I have reservations about them.  But not enough reservations to pass on Forks, if the opportunity came.  However: it was 7 hours out of my way to get up to Forks, versus the 2 hours of toodling around the Olympic Peninsula that I did ultimately.

2013-02-01 14.31.00 HDR

 

A smidgen of Olympic Peninsula for you.

I love a peninsula.  I have lived in the lower peninsula of Michigan for the greater part of my life, had one mad, snowy year in the upper peninsula, and my husband’s family has property on a tiny peninsula where you can see the water on three sides.  Peninsulas: next best thing to islands!

Anyway, I came back just in time for my story, “Zebulon Vance Sings the Alphabet Songs of Love” to appear in Apex #45.  That’s it, that’s the last short fiction for a long while, or at least until I write some more.  It was the last untrunked piece in my inventory.  Fair warning, if you know me through my middle grade novels, you should know that ZVStASoL is a very adult story.  Or at least an older/mature teen story.  But it has Robot!Ophelia in it, in case that’s up your alley.

I also came back just in time for Jim C. Hines, he of the Goblins/Princesses/Libriomancer fame, to post a review of Handbook for Dragon Slayers.  This may be the first official review!

In light of Jim’s review, or rather, a commenter’s concern, I’m going to say it here. Tilda, my main character, was born with a clubfoot in the Middle Ages.  Treatments for her condition varied, and were not always helpful. Walking hurts her.  Often, so does not-walking.  A commenter raised the question and Jim answered–and this is NOT a spoiler to me, because frankly, this shouldn’t even be an expectation, as far as I’m concerned–that Tilda does not get magically cured at the end.

I wrote a character in this situation for two reasons. First, my father was born with a clubfoot, and this has always been a bit of a mystery to me (he has long since passed away, so I can’t talk to him about it); I work things like that out through writing.  Second, I have my own foot pains and mobility issues due to some wicked bad bone spurs, one of which pushes against my Achilles tendon, and one that pushes against a nerve AND a tendon in the top of my foot and makes my toes go numb.  In the early days of spur-pain, before I realized orthotics and regular massage and stretching and physical therapy and icing and anti-inflammatories are the way we keep the pain down around 2/3 instead of up in the 6/7/8 range now, I remember thinking, “Well, I really get that part in ‘The Little Mermaid’ where she feels like she’s walking on knives.”

pain-scale

 Third, my grandmother, who was in a horrible car accident when my mother was a child, spent the latter half of her life walking around with her femur shoved up through her pelvis (she wasn’t supposed to walk at all, actually; the doctors were coming to tell her that she was in a wheelchair for life when they found her walking–agonizingly, but walking–around her hospital room).  There’s a lot of chronic pain around walking in my family, to greater or lesser degrees.  I have gotten off lightly, compared to my grandmother.  I’m very aware of that, and always have been.  And I’ve always wanted to write about her, however obliquely.  Tilda is only the prelude in my ode to my super-tough grandmother.  There is a vignette in the book that is more or less taken directly from her life.  I won’t tell you which one.

So, for many, many, many reasons, I did not write a magical cure for Tilda, not the least of which is my own experience.  And while I don’t expect this to be the last time someone reads the book and has to brace themselves, at least I can assure those few of you who read this blog, whatever faults this book has, magical cures is not one of them.

Categories: Books! · Short Stories
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Galleys, Cover, and the Transitive Property of Writing Excitement

October 22, 2012 · Comments Off

The galleys for HANDBOOK FOR DRAGON SLAYERS, out the door.

So, this isn’t quite the dramatic cover reveal I was planning, but you should know that the book is up at the usual places–Amazon, B&N (not spotted at Powell’s yet)–and though of course I love you however you buy or read the book, naturally, I have to state that nabbing it from your local independent bookseller is the best thing you can do for you local economy. I think it might be in my job description as a writer to say such things. (But another time will be soon enough to wax nostalgic about Bookshops I Have Known.)

In any case! It has a cover! And completed galleys! For those people of the world who think that publishing is some sort of, I don’t know, turn-key operation, let me assure you that between the last draft of the book and whatever the typesetting process is or might be called nowadays, there were many, many little errors introduced into the equation. People express routine astonishment that this is so, but yes, it’s true! And that’s how your Advanced Review Copies can be all mistake-ridden and the pretty shiny hardback can be much less so*. Because the ARCs are produced from raw galleys, and the real books are produced after a couple more checks by numerous eyes.

*If not actually perfect. I have yet to hear of typos or mistakes in The Princess Curse. Do share them if you find them. Someone thought they might have found one once, but when they showed me, I got to say, “Ha! No! That was a deliberate word-choice on my part, wrong-headed perhaps, pig-headed definitely, but you cannot blame my proofreaders for it!” Sadly, I don’t remember what that word was.

Anyway, galley stage one is often a systematic flipping through the pages of the book going, “Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.” And that’s not about typesetting errors, my friends, that is self-doubt. OMG, how many times can I write an unclear antecedent that no one caught? OMG how many times can I pad out the action with “going to be needing to” and other such… nonsense!? OMG–did you use enough exclamation points, Haskell?

But by the second pass, I’ve been softened to my own incompetence (airquotes around incompetence) and start enjoying the story again. By the end of today, for example, I was a little choked up, just because, hey, this book–if nothing else–is a really good friendship book, and it makes me that darn happy in the end.

(I really really really hope it works that way for other people, too, though of course I can’t guess what people will get out of my books–though I am pleased as punch about how many people are super invested in Reveka’s and Dragos’s relationship, and about a hundred times more pleased by the people who are excited about herbs because of Reveka. And since those were the things that excited me most in writing TPC, I kind of hope this is proof of the transitive property of writing excitement.)

HANDBOOK will be out on May 28, 2013, FYI. Yeppers, the Tuesday after Memorial Day. Can’t wait for you all to meet Tilda, Judith, and Parz, the Elysian horses, and Curschin the dragon!

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Norton Jury

July 6, 2012 · Comments Off

So, I’m on the Norton Jury this year, along with Victoria McManus, Christopher Barzak, Eugene Myers, and Carrie Vaughn. From the SFWA site:

The committee will consider all submitted young adult books until January 31st, 2013. The award will be presented at the 48th Annual Nebula Awards Weekend in San Jose, California, on May 18.

For submission information, please contact Victoria McManus at: victoriamcmanus@yahoo.com

The Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, named to honor prolific science fiction and fantasy author Andre Norton (1912–2005), is a yearly award presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) to the author of an outstanding young adult science fiction or fantasy book published in the previous year. The award was established in 2005 by then SFWA president Catherine Asaro and the first SFWA Young Adult Fiction committee and announced on February 20, 2005. The first Norton Award (for the year 2006) was bestowed during the Nebula Awards ceremonies on May 11–13, 2007.

Facts you may not know about the Norton award:

  • Middle Grade books are eligible as well as Young Adult. It’s one of those situations where (in my “not a spokeswoman for SFWA, just my observation” way) marketing categories got away from the intended definition of “young adult” in the award’s name, with the recent explosions in YA and MG.
  • Graphic novels are also eligible.
  • Anthologies are also eligible.
  • Collections are also eligible.

I can’t even tell you how liberating it is to have to read.  I know writers need to read, but I often privilege, oh, everything else over reading, and rarely get through more than a book a week.  (Truth be told, I average 1 book every 8 days, left to my own devices.)  I am certainly capable of reading much more than that, and now I simply must.  DARN.

Categories: Books!
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Unicorn Bookplates & the Shelving of Books

July 5, 2012 · Comments Off

Sandra Taylor wrote an entry about arranging her library, and how it took her back to her childhood. “I’ve been an amateur librarian all my life,” she writes.

The whole entry was a big nostalgia maker for me, as well. I never feel quite so satisfied with life as when I have all my books stowed in an orderly fashion, and it’s been that way since I was younger than you would believe. My next-door neighbors gifted me with a bookcase one Christmas when I was 7 or 8. (I tend to think 7, but memory is fickle.) I do not know if I truly had the instantaneous delight that I imagine I had–I remember unwrapping it and thanking them, but my memory skips to me happily putting things on the shelves in the sanctity of my room.

My first bookcase.

I don’t know how long it took me to start shelving the fiction in alphabetical order by author, but I know it was that way by the time I began 4th grade.  One has standards, one does.  It shocks absolutely no one that I came to work in a library as an adult, though sometimes… sometimes it amazes me.

So, anyway, Sandra’s post definitely drew forth the nostalgia, but it was more than just her words.  She also posted a picture of a unicorn bookplate from her childhood.  One almost exactly like this:

You’ll note that I believed myself to be M.L. Haskell at the time–it was the writing name I imagined I would have, though I knew it didn’t sound great. M.L. has a…  lostness to it. You need a hard sound for that second initial, I’m convinced, or a joyous fricative at the very least.

Anyway, I made it a habit then, and still do, to date when I acquired the book. For a while I even documented where I got the book–if it was a gift, who gave it to me, and if I purchased it, the name of the store.  (In hunting up a unicorn bookplate, I ran into the books I purchased on my college visit to UM in 1992 at Borders, in fact. Did I remember that I bought Doris Egan’s Gate of Ivory then and there? No, I did not; but my external harddrive did.)

For the record, the bookplate-enhanced book is Gillian Bradshaw’s Hawk of May.

Thanks for the nostalgia, Sandra. Much obliged.

Categories: Books!

Bitterblue

May 14, 2012 · Comments Off

I’m in the middle of Bitterblue, a companion to Graceling and Fire.  It does not disappoint, and in the most marvellous way, it feels like a Megan Whalen Turner novel.  I am so darn impressed with Kristin Cashore’s range–she’s like my perfect Frankenstein monster of an author, with Graceling reminding me of Tamora Pierce, Fire reminding me of Robin McKinley, and now Bitterblue with shades of not just Turner but also Lloyd Alexander.  And yet still with her own unique voice and sensibility that is undeniably Cashore.

I have enjoyed a lot of new-to-me writers, but the ones who tie a little string to my heart and fly it like a kite are rare.  I’ve (fortunately) come out of the dark time of early writerdom when you can’t stop reading things with a negative, critical eye and with a flat little voice in the back of your head nagging you about how you would do it differently. I read like a reader again, and can turn the writerly/editorial eye on and off at will. But even as a reader, I have grown jaded over the years.  It’s lovely to have a sense of freshness and exhileration with every page turn.  –Or tablet swipe, as is the case with this one.

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Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader: Flush Fiction Giveaway!

May 5, 2012 · 3 Comments

The swell folks at Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader have done three things you might want to be aware of:

1) They published a book called Flush Fiction, which is a book of 80-odd short-short or flash fiction stories in a variety of genres. (If you are a Princess Curse fan concerned about the appropriate age level of the book, I’d say it’s PG to PG-13 for language.)

2) They included a story by yours truly, called “One Million Years BFE: Diary of an Anthropologist in Exile.” Which I have been told is funny even to non-anthropologists. (My story is definitely above PG due to language. Nothing you can’t hear on regular prime-time TV, but yeah.)

3) Uncle John is giving away a copy on my blog! Just comment on this entry with “I WANT TO FLUSH”, leave your email address in the appropriate non-published-for-bots field, or some other way to contact you, and you are entered. I will select the winner on May 12th using random.org and forward on your contact info to the Bathroom Reading Institute to send you a copy! Easy as pie.

Categories: Books! · Giveaways · Short Stories