Category: Announcements
The Song of the Cuckoo Grows Louder…
On the 8th May, Cuckoo Song will be published. To celebrate this, next week I will take part in my first ever blog tour.
Given the cuckoo in the title, embarking upon a series of guest blog posts seems pretty appropriate. Feel free to imagine me as a hatted cuckoo, flying between other birds’ orderly, well-designed blog-nests, and dropping in my posts like misbegotten little offspring.
Here is the schedule:
5th May 2014
Dark Readers: ‘Looks on Books’ Vlog
I don’t have to do any work for this. I just need to marvel as Casey Ann devises some face art based on the book’s cover. I can’t wait to see what she creates!
6th May 2014
The Book Smugglers: ‘Inspiration and Influences’
I will be talking about the direct and indirect inspirations for Cuckoo Song, including some of my childhood fears…
7th May 2014
Serendipity Revews: ‘Serendipity Secret Seven’
Seven facts about the writing of Cuckoo Song will be revealed. Sadly none of them involve time travel to the 1920s.
8th May 2014
Fiction Fascination: ‘Childhood Reads’
Nostalgic memories of the books I read when I was young: totalitarian rabbit states, child thieves, murders, malevolent boulders – everything a growing child needs.
9th May 2014
Fluttering Butterflies: ‘Awesome Women’
I will be answering interview questions about my writing, my rolemodels and women in my life that have influenced me.
I hope some of you will visit these blog-nests to watch my egg-posts hatch. In the meanwhile, here is a picture of a young cuckoo impersonating a baby sedge warbler.
Deadlier than the Male…
Another of my stories has escaped into the world! Today sees the official launch of twinned anthologies Noir and La Femme, edited by Ian Whates. Both contain fantasy, horror and SF tales that explore the dark, cynical, heady world of noir, but the latter focusses upon that most dangerous and ambiguous of creatures, the femme fatale.
My story, “Slink-Thinking” can be found in La Femme. It’s noir, but of a slightly peculiar breed. My femme fatale won’t be found peeling off long gloves, or wielding a cigarette holder. She’d need opposable thumbs for that. And a pulse…
Here’s the full Table of Contents for both anthologies:
La Femme:
1. Introduction — Ian Whates
3. Frances Hardinge – Slink-Thinking
4. Storm Constantine – A Winter Bewitchment
5. Andrew Hook – Softwood
6. Adele Kirby – Soleil
7. Stewart Hotston – Haecceity
8. John Llewellyn Probert – The Girl with No Face
9. Jonathan Oliver – High Church
10. Maura McHugh – Valerie
11. Holly Ice – Trysting Antlers
12. Ruth E.J. Booth – The Honey Trap
13. Benjanun Sriduangkaew – Elision
Noir:
2. E.J. Swift – The Crepuscular Hunter
3. Adam Roberts – Gross Thousand
4. Donna Scott – The Grimoire
5. Emma Coleman – The Treehouse
6. Paula Wakefield – Red in Tooth and Claw
7. Simon Kurt Unsworth – Private Ambulance
8. Jay Caselberg – Bite Marks
9. Marie O’Regan – Inspiration Point
10. Paul Graham Raven – A Boardinghouse Heart
11. Simon Morden – Entr’acte
12. James Worrad – Silent in Her Vastness
13. Paul Kane – Grief Stricken
14. Alex Dally MacFarlane – The (De)Composition of Evidence
About the Authors
The launch party for both books is at 6pm this evening at Eastercon in Glasgow. I won’t be there, but I hope others will drop in and enjoy the party! For those who aren’t at the con, La Femme can be ordered here.
Happy Halloween!
Usually on a Halloween evening I would be lurking in full costume, waiting to dole out sweets to trick-or-treaters. (I usually end up eating quite a lot of them myself. The sweets, not the trick-or-treaters.) This year, however, I am instead heading to Brighton for the World Fantasy Convention!
On the Friday, from 4pm until 5pm, I will be appearing on a panel with a stellar collection of YA authors – Garth Nix, Sarah Reese Brenna, Chris Priestley, Holly Black and Chris Wooding. The title is “Not in Front of the Children: How far should you go in YA Fiction?” and the panel will be discussing how far sex, drugs, violence, etc. have a place in Young Adult fiction.
On the Sunday between 11am and 12am I will be joining a group of seven other writers of children’s fantasy: Emma Barnes, C J Busby, Teresa Flavin, Amy Greenfield, Katherine Langrish, Katherine Roberts and Linda Strachan. We will each be giving a short five minute reading from one of our books.
Meanwhile, my good friend Rhiannon Lassiter is holding her own online Halloween party. It’s a blog party celebrating the release of Little Witches Bewitched, a collection of short stories about two young people who remain admirably good-natured and level-headed when somebody transforms them into witches in a fit of pique. (Just for Halloween, you can buy the book at a reduced price.)
Have a wonderful Halloween, everybody, and hope to see some of you at the World Fantasy Convention!
Twisted Winter
There is something eerie about the onset of winter that cannot be fully explained even by the longer nights, the stark trees or the chill. Winter is more than just an absence of light, life and heat. It has its own presence and mystery. Humanity withdraws to its little pools of warmth and illumination, and dark, ancient forces walk abroad…
Today sees the publication of Twisted Winter, a collection of creepy winter stories edited by Catherine Butler. One of the seven tales is mine, and I am lucky enough to share the anthology with six very talented authors – Katherine Langrish (the Trollfell trilogy), Catherine Butler (Teaching Children’s Fiction), Frances Thomas (I Found Your Diary and The Blindfold Track), my writing buddy Rhiannon Lassiter (Ghost of a Chance and Bad Blood), Liz Williams (the Inspector Chen series) and the legendary Susan Cooper (The Dark is Rising series).
Before you ask, no, this isn’t a tinselly gaggle of twee Christmas ghost stories. Every story handles wintry menace in a different way.
A teenage boy creeps out at night, for no ordinary delinquency. On the darkening marshes, a bully goes too far. A young girl makes an eerie journey of the spirit and imagination in her quest to understand her dead father. Complacent and greedy adults hold a Halloween party, and are visited by ancient forces. The discoloured light from street lamps bathes a graveyard encounter. A teenage girl reaches a fateful agreement with a snow-pure visitor. Persephone slips away from her summer abode, back to the lands of the dead.
On a personal note, Susan Cooper is a writer I have admired since I was nine years old. When my father captivated us by reading aloud the entirety of the Dark is Rising series, I never imagined that one day I would find myself writing for the same anthology as the author.
My current feelings are best summarised as follows:
UKLA shortlist and tBKMAG ‘Top 40’
The shortlists for the UK Literary Association Book Awards have now been announced… and A Face Like Glass is on the shortlist for the 7-11 age category!
The full shortlist for the category is:
The Unforgotten Coat by Frank Cottrell Boyce
Call me Drog by Sue Cowing
The Weight of Water by Sarah Crossan
To Be a Cat by Matt Haig
A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge
The Flask by Nicky Singer
You can find all the shortlists here.
In other news, tBKMAG have just brought out the 40th issue of their excellent magazine for keen readers aged 8-12.
To celebrate, for this issue tBKMAG have chosen their favourite featured book from each issue, and put them all together to make a ‘Top 40’ list of books.
Twilight Robbery, which appeared in issue 32, has made the Top 40!
A Face Like Glass out in Paperback!
Today A Face Like Glass is venturing out in its new papery apparel. (I love seeing my novels in new covers – it makes me feel as if I’ve written more books than I actually have.)
To celebrate this, for the next fortnight or so I will be inflicting myself on the public at large, visiting schools, libraries, and bookshops. I will even be invading the airwaves, courtesy of BBC Radio Oxford.
A full list of these events can be found here.
The Kitschies and Other Tentacles
A month ago, my boyfriend and I went on a shore dive in Madeira. The water was cold and foggy with silt, and the swell was fierce, doing its best to grate us against the rocks. We didn’t care – when we came up again we were grinning.
We’d just seen our first wild octopus.
Maybe this was a good omen, because a couple of days ago I found out that A Face Like Glass is on the shortlist for the Kitschies‘ Red Tentacle award!
Here you can read a Guardian article written in admiration of the Kitschies. (There’s also a fine picture of the Kitschies’ patron monster, the Kraken, in the process of devouring a galleon canapé.)
The (wonderfully varied) 2012 shortlist itself is here. The other books on the list look fascinating…
Welcome
Welcome to the Observatory.
Before I go any further, I have three announcements to make. The first is the publication of my fifth book A Face Like Glass (you can read more about it here). The second is the launch of my brand new website, complete with a “Twisted City” theme and a hidden story. And the third… is my first ever venture into the world of blogging.
To be honest, it’s the last of the three that’s making me a bit nervous.
Oh, I know that blogging is supposed to be easy for me. After all, I’m a writer. I regularly send big, fat parcels of my words out into the world, without knowing whether people will like them or use them as kindling.
That’s rather different, though. When you’re writing a book, you can always hide behind your characters. Mosca, Hathin and the rest may be quite short, but if I duck low enough I can still conceal myself behind them, so that not even the tip of my hat is visible. The problem with blogging is that you have to do it as yourself.
Oh well, here goes.
I’m going to imagine myself in an observatory tower, surrounded by my charts, scribbled notes and brass globes of imaginary worlds. I peer out through a rounded window at a dark and misty vista. Is there anybody out there? I have no idea. I raise a lantern and swing it in front of the window a few times, sending my Morse Code message out to the void.
Then I wait and watch, feeling a bit silly. Will anybody signal back? Have I just accidentally misdirected ships at sea, causing them to crash on distant rocks? Or will my tower now be battered by the wings of giant moths?
Needless to say, any giant moths who are passing are welcome to leave a comment…
