Cecil Castellucci's Blog, page 9

Tin Star has a Pub Date! February 25th!

Tin Star has a pub date!  February 25th, 2014!  And it is now up on the internets for you to pre-order and add to your to read pile!  It always feel like it’s really real when it’s up on goodreads! 
B&N  and  Amazon !!!  

*this has been updated since the pub date was changed.

Tin Star has a Pub Date! August 27th!

Tin Star has a pub date!  August 27th!  And it is now up on the internets for you to pre-order and add to your to read pile!  It always feel like it’s really real when it’s up on goodreads! 
B&N  and  Amazon !!!  

For your consideration: my eligible short stories for hugo and nebula

Hello.  it’s been pointed out by Christopher Rowe and others that in the sci fi community we kind of have to remind people that we have stuff out there eligible to be nominated since so much of the awards are membership voted.  So, taking a deep breath, here it goes. 

For the Norton I have a YA hybrid novel The Year of the Beasts that is eligible. It’s alternating chapters of prose / graphic novel.  the prose is the story of two girls and the boys they like and the summer and the graphic novel is about a girl who is a Medusa who just wants to be a girl again (with a centaur, minotaur and mermaid friends)

I also have three short stories eligible for the Nebula and Hugo

A retelling of the Prince Lindwurm fairy tale “Brother. Prince. Snake” over at Tor.com  

A zombie story “Always the Same. Till it’s Not.” over at Apex Magazine  

And of course “The Marker” in Ellen Datlow and Terry Windling’s fantastic AFTER anthology.

the next big thing

My friend Jenn Fujikawa tagged me in this meme where you talk about a project you’ve been working on. She got it from our friend, the fabulous Sarah Kuhn and Amber Benson. I decided to answer questions about my newest book Odd Duck!

A little something about Jenn. She’s a cook, a nerdy girl, a sassy mom, a designer. You should totally check out her recipie blog. If you’ve ever wanted to make things like wookie cookies or princess leia cupcakes, her blog is the place to go. Right now she’s got a mochi book out. YUM.

Here are the medusa cupcakes she made for my book launch.

The Next Big Thing: Odd Duck!

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I think everyone I know is a little bit odd.

What genre does your book fall under?

It’s a hybrid graphic novel picture book for kids of all ages. (6 – 106) It’s written by me and illustrated by the fabulous Sara Varon.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie 
rendition?

It’d be voice actors! Because I would want an animated movie. I think I’d choose my old pal to voice Chad and , from my fave video game Mass Effect, to voice Theodora. To round it out, let’s say , and for Gabe, Max and Velma.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Theodora is a normal duck, following her daily habits. Chad is a bit of a strange egg, chaotic and creative. But which of them is really the odd duck? (that’s from the Junior Library Guild page where it is a spring pick!)

When will this book be published?

It’s out on First Second in May 2013. You can pre-order it now.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I originally wrote it as an easy reader. So it was all text. Then Sara Varon came on board and we decided to throw out the words and make it pictures. Sara broke down the text and then we worked together on the pacing and fleshing out what needed to be fleshed out. All in all it took about three years.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Any book where there are two mismatched best buds.

Ernie and Bert. Wallace and Gromit. Bink and Gollie. Elephant and Piggie.

Oscar and Felix.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

Many years ago I was sitting at a dinner with author/artist Peter Reynolds. We started talking about the odd ducks we knew. I got an image of a duck swimming with a tea cup on her head. That’s when I came up with Theodora. I made everyone laugh at dinner with stories of Theodora. And what better way to ruffle her feathers then to have a new duck move in next door. . I loved the idea of Chad being loud and colorful and messy. I wanted to write a book about being okay with yourself being weird.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

What I like a lot about this book is that it really is for all ages. It works on three levels. Kids who can’t read can follow the pictures, which are adorable. Kids who can read can get more details about the story, not only in the regular text but in the asides that are in the pictures. And then I think that adults can enjoy it because because we as adults know exactly what it’s like to be a Theodora or a Chad.

Here are the other super talented people that Jenn tagged: Genevieve Tsai, Kristin Weber , Leslie Levings, Bonnie Burton

As for who I’m tagging to go next, I wanted to highlight some fantastic female writers/creators/artists that I adore and also call friends.

Jillian Lauren, Liza Palmer and Sherri L. Smith

Jillian Lauren is a sassy lady who writes non-fiction and fiction. She wrote the memoir, My Life as a Harem and the novel Pretty. She also performs. She just did a one woman show at the Edinburgh Fest! She keeps a great blog about motherhood, which I adore.

Liza Palmer has written five books. She’s emmy nominated. She’s best selling. She’s sassy, funny, plays board games and is always a good time. She wrote More Like Her, A Field Guide to Burying your Parents, Seeing me Naked, Conversations with the Fat Girl and her most recent, Nowhere but You. Chuck her books into your bag and read them everywhere.

Sherri L Smith is an award winning YA author. She wrote one of my fave historical fiction YA books, Flygirl, which won the California Gold Medal. She’s worked in comic books, has helped organize special effects, makes cool jewelery and is an all around great gal to go to a comic book convention with. Her new book Orleans is an amazing dystopian YA set in a post hurrican New Orleans. So. Good. She blogs over at the Middle Hundred.

And I’m going to back tag Sarah Kuhn and Amber Benson

My 2012

My 2012 lit count

Novel. The Year of the Beasts illustrated by Nate Powell.

5 short stories.

“Always the Same. Till it’s Not.” Zombie Story Apex Magazine

“Wallflower” Vertigo Comics Ghosts #1 illustrated by Amy Reeder

“The Marker” in the anthology AFTER ed. by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling

“Brother. Prince. Snake.” A Prince Lindworm retelling on Tor.com

“To Grandmother’s House” A Red Riding Hood retelling YA Review Net

Proud editor of the YA/C Section at the LA Review of Books . We had a great 2012. Including first ePub ht.ly/gsiPC . The one piece I wrote over LA Review of Books blog was about making art when going through trauma.

Also I loved being the Correspondence Coordinator for Letters for Kids at The Rumpus. So delighted by all the Letters for Kids for @The_Rumpus ht.ly/gsfGg more letters coming at you in 2013. Hope you will subscribe.

Creative plan for 2013. Write More books. More comics. More everything. And restart The Literary Diaspora @litdiaspora

Happy 2013, all!

Frost and The Mailman

It’s holiday time again! And just for you to download is a tiny little holiday story I wrote (originally for Vromans bookstore in 2010) Frost and The Mailman.

A mailman, Daniel Wasserman, and one of Santa’s elves, Frost try to save Christmas after it’s discovered that Santa’s mail has been forwarded to the South Pole.

It’s probably best read aloud to your little ones.

You can download it at Amazon Nook and Kobo *

cover by Jen Wang!

*p.s. if you email me proof that you downloaded it before 12/20 and a snail mail I will mail you a holiday card! IN THE MAIL!

Letters for Kids

As I start to get more letters from authors to send out to you, I have started to liken the Letters For Kids as a sort of cool special literary magazine for kids where you can write back. I know we’ve got all sorts of subscribers that range in age from 6-66, which I think is amazing. One thing that is exciting for me is seeing kids or hearing about them becoming curious about the authors that are writing. I volunteer in an elementary school doing literacy and read aloud with first and second graders and I subscribed those classes to the letters and Ms. Lew and Ms. McCarty have started peppering their class libraries with books from the authors of the letters. I think that is so cool. Especially because so many of the authors that we’ve got writing are personal faves of mine. (I’m a big Standiford and Yolen fan.) (By the way, if you are a teacher, the letters seem to work great in a classroom environment.) (I’ve also heard from home schoolers that it is a nice thing.) Today the kids got the newest letter, from Susan Patron.

In September I was at the West Hollywood Book Fair where I met Stacy Bierlien and her daughter, a subscriber to the Rumpus Letters for Kids. Stacy’s delightful daughter had already read some of the authors that had sent letters! So she already knew the authors that were writing. I love it that so many kids are so well read.

To date we’ve had letters from Natalie Standiford, Derek Taylor Kent, Jane Yolen and Kerry Madden, and those letters have been amazing. We’ve had an original short mini comic by Adam Rex that just blew me away. And if you subscribe, you’ve probably just gotten Susan Patron’s letter about the talking to objects. But as I have been preparing the next round of letters I’m so excited about the pretty extraordinary things upcoming. We’ve got a really beautiful letter by Rebecca Stead about a wrenching moment dealing with an incident over a school lunch. If you’re a comic book fan, Matthew Holm’s upcoming letter with is a kind of breaking down of how a comic book is made. And Lisa Yee scribbles all over the page in her letter. I had to turn it around in my hand a bunch of times just so I could read it!

I hope you and yours are enjoying the Letters for Kids! And I hope you are writing the authors back! And if you haven’t signed up yet. What are you waiting for? Sign up your kid, a kid you love, your kids classroom, or yourself.

And FYI, if you write me a letter. I will (almost) always write you back.

Love, Cecil

PO Box 29095, LA CA 90029

New York Comic Con Schedule

I’ll be at the NY Comic Con this weekend. Here are my panels. Please come and say hello!

Saturday, October 13 1:30-2:30pm

HOCUS POCUS: MAGIC & MONSTERS IN SCI FI AND FANTASY. , followed by a signing by all participating authors. With: Andrea Cremer, Cecil Castellucci, Jacqueline Carey, Jocelynn Drake, Kim Harrison, Max Gladstone, Richard Kadrey, Victoria Schwab.

Sunday, Oct. 14, 4:00 – 5:00PM

Getting Graphic with Girls: Empowering Girls and Addressing Issues through Paneled Pictures, with Cecil Castellucci, Colleen Venable, and Lucy Knisley (Room 1A01)

Come and say HI!!!

Zombie. Zombie. Zombie.

Today, I caught it. I think it started as an itch. Like a song stuck in your head. But it was just moaning, moaning outside my window. Then I noticed that others were getting it around me. My mom. My dad. My brother. They were shuffling. It’s the shuffle that gives it away. You think, “That person is not sick. That person wants to eat my brains.”

It’s Thanksgiving here in Canada. And I’m thankful that I’ve still got my capacities, at least for today. I don’t want to be turned into one of them. Please, I’m small and stringy and more of a snack than a meal.

Let it stop. Let the leaves in the park be the only things that change anymore. I can’t take it.

In my old life, before yesterday, I wrote a story about a different kind of zombie apocalypse. A hopeful one. As if that could be possible. Here it is. It’s called Always the Same. Till it is Not – Apex Magazine October 2012 I hope you’ll read it. If you’re still out there and that you’ll find some hope in it.

Meanwhile. Since the invasion has begun and the horde is coming for you, why not start yours sweetly, with a song. I can’t get the Cranberries out of my head.

YA Workshop

Hello All!

I’ll be teaching a mini YA workshop with Writing Workshops Los Angeles 2 Sundays Oct 21 & Nov 4. Why not Kickstart your YA novel with me!  You know you want to!  It’s a perfect way to get a head start for Nanowrimo if you’re thinking of doing that!