DruidsBook

Our editor, Dave Gross, is amazing!  He’s put DRUIDS on the final ballot for the Alberta Book Awards in the category: The Lois Hole Book Award for Excellence in Editing!  Way to go, Dave!

Wow! We;ve been swamped, but here’s some news.

 I am so chuffed about how well received DRUIDS has been.  And we’ve been busy.  The Bitten by Books live blog interview, a radio interview by CKUA (Thanks Chris Allen!) which will air probably May 16, and most recently a Thursday night interview on PODIORACKET.COM (Thanks Brian Rathbone et al).

What amazing fun!

Woo-Hoo!  We have the best news ever!  DRUIDS has made the final ballot for the Prix-Aurora Award in the Best Novel (in English) category.  We are thrilled and so grateful to everyone who took the time to nominate.  Check out www.prix-aurora.ca for more details. 

And I’m so pleased to say that the other four novels are all written by friends of ours, so it’s a total win-win situation, no matter what!  The other nominees are WAKE by Robert J Sawyer, THE AMULET OF AMON-RA by Leslie Carmichael, STEEL WHISPERS by Hayden Trenholm, and TERRA INSEGURA by Edward Willett.  What a collection of fine writings!

Just thought you’d like to see what Mount Eban could look like 2000 years after Mallec and his people.  The forest is gone, but the stones remain.  Now all we need to do is find the secret entrance to the Cavern of the Ancients. 

Once covered with forests, the rich expanse of Armorica is now peppered with farms.  I can almost see Mallec sitting atop the highest rock and looking to the horizon, perhaps even glimpsing the blue glitter of the sea.  Perhaps somewhere below lie the remains of a druid enclave.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roc’h_Trevezel

It’s all SO exciting!

December 1, 2009, 5:00 pm – 7:30 pm.  Stony Plain Public Library (4613 52 Ave.,  Stony Plain) Buy a Signed Book for Some for Christmas!  Twenty Alberta authors, illustrators, and storytellers will be selling and signing books.

December 9, 2009 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm  Strathcona County Library, in the Sherwood Park Mall, 300, 2020 Sherwood Drive in Sherwood Park.  The entrance is located on the east side of the mall! I’ll be talking about “How We Did It” : a collaboration over 4 books, 10 years, and 3000 km!

December 12, 2009 12:00 – 4:00 pm Coles Books at Londonderry Mall (main floor 148A) .  I’ll be book-signing all afternoon, so drop by for a chat! 

December 17, 2009 7 pm – 9:00 pm in Calgary at the Indigo Books at CrossIron Mills, 261055 Crossiron Blvd.  I’ll be there signing with other authors which will be a lot of fun!  Come by and say hello!  And just so you know, this is the brand new location north of the International Airport.  Access from the north: Hwy 566 turnoff (east) and then south on Barlow Trail NE (I hope).  From the south, pretty much the same thing, except I think you can keep going north on Barlow Trail NE and get there!  It’s in the mall on the east side of Hwy 2.

No, it wasn’t the Swine flu, but on the airplane from Edmonton to San Jose, I caught a cough.  A mighty cough as any of you who went to World Fantasy Convention may recall!  Today, exactly one month later, the cough is finally gone–last night’s coughless sleep was awesome!  THAT leads to the important stuff!

Scenes are being written for book 2.  Relax.. don’t panic!  Book 2- CAPTIVES- is done, although we decided in doing a final edit pass we needed a couple of bridge scenes to make it smoother.  One’s written and the other in my head..awaiting the early evening when my brain best churns the stuff out! Then Josh will do his magic and we’ll have something we both love.  Of course, we will pass it back and forth a few times, just to be on the safe side! 

Stay tuned for news of where I’m going to be over the next couple of weeks!

We’re off tomorrow to the World Fantasy Convention!  That is going to be so exciting. 

Wednesday night from 6:00 to 8:30 pm we will be at Borderlands Bookstore in San Francisco–866 Valencia St.  A visit will reward you with autograph opportunities with many of the authors who will be at WFC, including us!  We are very excited. 

Then Friday night is our official world launch at Books, Bytes and Chocolate Delights, Hades Publications’ Multi-Author Book Launch, 4:00-6:00 pm at the World Fantasy Convention hotel in San Jose. 

We’ll be in the Dealer’s Room often with Hades Publications, so stop by for a chat.  Listen to us demonstrate how neither of us has an accent!  See you there!

Tomorrow is the Small Press and Magazine Fair at  the Edmonton Public Library downtown!   Look for me downstairs by the theatre! 

I glanced at my calendar and it’s less than a week until World Fantasy Convention and the DRUIDS big launch in California!  WOW!  I’m thrilled and can hardly wait !

I’m naturally shy.  Okay, I know that’s almost impossible for most of you who know me to believe, but I am.  I find it especially difficult to talk about my own accomplishments as if they were an everyday thing (even if some of them are like this morning — I accomplished making coffee!).

So now, in 8 days I will hopping on an airplane for San Jose California and the World Fantasy Convention to do just that–talk about my accomplishments. Then, I will be swimming upstream against my natural inclination to stay with people I know to meet new people and make new friends. I will be talking to people about the book.  Fortunately it’s every bit Josh’s book, too.  Our “baby”!  The darling looks like both of us!

I’m both thrilled and terrified!  My dreams of launching a novel at WFC are about to come true. Who could ask for anything cooler than that?  But like a roller coaster–there’s the long journey up… then the big zoom as you pick  up speed and whirl around corners and loop-de-loops and finish with hair all disheveled, eyes wide, laughing wildly, and not sure if you loved it or hated it! 

But oh… how quick to want to do it again!  The roller coaster of the book launch last weekend is done.  What a ride!  Now I look forward to the roller coaster of WFC and hope for another fantastic, awesome ride! 

See you there!  The launch is Friday 4-6 pm.  There will be chocolate!  

Which reminds me  — I promptly forgot to drink the coffee while it was still hot.

Wow!  That’s about all I can say right now.  Getting to bed before I fall over is starting to be a high priority item!  The special cake is ordered–just wait until you see it.  Woo!   Almost all preps are done–a quick trip to Costco and then just getting everything in the car tomorrow–and then all we have to do on Sat is pick up the cakes.  This is certainly the biggest party I ever threw!  And even more to celebrate - the 2010 Alberta People’s Choice Book Award nomination! Only 20 books in Alberta make it this far!  Woot!  It really IS an honour to be nominated.