Trudi Canavan's Blog, page 22

Imaginales, Part 2

The next item on my schedule was signing, so I settled in at my table at the Bulle de Livre. Soon I was signing lots of books, helped along by my lovely translator, Anneïg.

Anneïg and I quickly formed a good method of working together, thanks to what I learned from working with Piotr in Poland. I paused for her to translate a sentence at a time – which I realized later was rather like breaking what I wanted to say into short, efficient bites like I do in Twitter.

Anneig and I looking cool in our sunglasses

One of the artists introduced herself and brought her books for me to sign. She had drawn these delightful drawings inside the covers:

Character drawings

She also gave me a copy of her sketchbook, full of illustrations of characters from my books, as well as other such as Garth Nix's Sabriel and Harry Potter. She was working on the mural at the end of the Bulle de Livre, and I stopped by now and then to check the progress.

Laurence and me

The finished mural

At lunch we joined some authors and festival people to have lunch at the restaurant we had been so puzzled by the night before, Citizen, and were amused to find that it was just as confusing for the French speakers there. But the food was delicious. In fact, we wound up eating there three times during the festival, including at the official dinner.

I met Isobelle, who translated most of my books into French.

Isobelle

And many local writers, including Erik L'homme, who was both charming and interesting to listen to on panels.

Erik L'Homme

Occasionally, when signing, I'd look up and marvel that I was there, sitting next to a new favourite author, N. K. Jemesin, and an old favourite, Robin Hobb. I had to have a fan girl moment and get a photo of myself with Nora:

Nora and me

Other entertainment at the festival included period costumers:

Who must have been involved in reenactment or demonstrations, because from time to time there'd be a bang loud enough to make us jump out of our seats.

There were painted stilt people:

Blue and tall

All too soon the festival came to an end. The closing ceremony was held in the bar/lounge, with this castle cake:

Nomnomnom

Which may have been modeled on this local castle ruin, which we spotted while having lunch one day. But which I imagine wasn't as tasty.

Castle ruins

The festival was fun – both busy and relaxed. I was able to talk to most of the people who brought books to sign, and also sold out of The Magician's Guild (which may mean that lots of people decided to give my books a try or buy them for others – thanks!). I've made lots of new French friends, and really want to come back to Imaginales again some day.

A Very Cool Way to Keep Warm

Last year, at Aussiecon4, a young Melbourne fan stood in line for many, many hours to get as many author signatures as possible on little squares of cloth. I'm not sure how much of the convention she actually saw, other than author signing queues. Then she went home and sewed and sewed and sewed. What did this dedication result in?

The Con Quilt!

I love the starry design and the colours! Wouldn't you love this quilt hanging on your wall? Or wrap yourself in all those authory names while reading your favourite fantasy or science fiction novel?

The quilt will be auctioned on eBay beginning at 9pm on Friday 10th June and ending on 20th June. (Link will be provided on the website above.)

Imaginales, Part 2 to come soon!

Imaginales, Part 1

After a couple of days resting and sightseeing in London, we embarked upon the next stage of The Tour – the Imaginales fantasy literary festival in Epinal, France. We caught the Eurostar train to Paris, where we were met by Leslie from my French publisher, Bragelonne, and Lora, my French agent. Soon after we were joined by Peter Brett and his wife and cute daughter, and Helene, our guide and translator.

Two more train journeys later we, Helene, Peter and family arrived in Epinal. We checked into Hotel Le Manoir. For the first night we had a nice room with antique furniture, but on the second we moved into The Blue Room, which the manager described as being like a swimming pool. He was right: the walls and carpet were a perfectly matched shade of blue.

Blue Room

We headed into town to look for dinner, and were so perplexed by the menu of the first restaurant that we returned to the hotel to eat at their restaurant instead, figuring that they'd be more used to tourists. But it turned out that the restaurant was a separate entity to the hotel and not only was it very expensive but we had no luck asking for a table.

But we had spotted a pizza/burger shop not far away, and wound up having some very good pizza.

The next day we met Delia Sherman and Ellen Kushner in the breakfast room, and joined Peter and family to make our way to Imaginales, which was literally across the road, in a lovely park along the river. There was one permanent building, in which the opening ceremony was held:

The Opening Ceremony: Brandon Sanderson, Silvie, Ellen Kushner, Nora Jemesin, Helene, Me, Stephanie, Catherine Dufour, Peter Brett, Lionel.

A big tent with wooden floors called the Bulle de Livre, where authors sat in a huge rectangle of tables at the centre to sign books, and stalls around the outside housed publishing houses, gifts, accessories and artist's work. At the rear was a bar and lounge, and a mural that local artists worked on during the festival.

Bulle de Livre

Panels were held in one of two 'Magic Mirror' temporary wooden pavilions. One was highly decorated:

Magic Mirror 1

Magic Mirror 1 exterior panel

Magic Mirror 1 detail

Magic Mirror 1 doors

Magic Mirror 1 interior

Another big tent housed the gaming part of the festival and a few small tents were set up for administration and other purposes.

It was a lovely site for a literary festival, in a pretty town. More in the next post…

Imaginales!

We've posted a few boxes of gifts and souvenirs home, repacked our bags, rested and explored London for a few days, and now we're setting off to France for Imaginales.

Second Week of UK Events

When we got to Heathrow on Tuesday there was a car waiting to take us to Guildford. We spent the afternoon drinking tea and coffee, and recharging our batteries in preparation for the night's event at Waterstones Guildford. A big crowd turned up:

I signed for over 71 people. It was a wonderful night, overseen by the super-organised Jess (who may have missed her calling as paparazzi).

It was a very late night by the time we got back to London, but we had the morning free on Wednesday to catch up on sleep and laundry. At midday we jumped on a train to Romford, where we signed for 40 or so people and the very enthusiastic Waterstones staff.

From there we were driven to Basildon, where we had afternoon tea and I broke out the giant wafer cookie given to me in Poland:

Yum! Afterwards we headed for the library for another reading, q&a and signing.

On the way 'home', rather than grabbing a sandwich yet again,we had prepared for dinner by buying bread, meat, cheese and salad so we could have a picnic on the train. a good and very tasty idea:

The next day, Thursday, was the last of the official UK tour. We had another free morning, then headed to Nottingham where we stayed at the very nice Lace Market Hotel. I met the publishers of some of my Aussie friends' books, Marc and Lee of Angry Robot books. When I heard that Kaaron Warren's new book had just arrived, I ordered them to bring me a copy. They happily obliged, and I might have squeed a little:

That night we headed to Waterstones and were welcomed by James, who has this impressively big 'events room':

Another wonderful night followed, and I got to sign books for another 70 or so fans. We had a late dinner at the hotel then collapsed into bed. On Friday we caught the train back to London:

That night I got to meet the BSFA and talk about my books and writing. It was lovely to sit and chat with fellow fantasy enthusiasts, and made for a relaxing way to end the UK part of my European Tour.

Thanks to everyone who came to the events, for listening to me read (despite the awful cough I had) and ask great questions. Thanks to the people who brought little gifts, too. (I now have more chocolate than I can safely consume or cart to my next port of call. A nice problem to have!)

Thanks, too, to all the bookshops (and the library in Basildon) for organising and hosting the events. You're all awesome!

Finally, thanks, as always, to the team at Orbit, and especially to Rose who organised everything for us, pointed me in the right direction when I was too tired to think straight, and lugged a suitcase around for a weekend when the hotel wouldn't mind it for us.

Next? France!

Poland

Next on the big Tour was Poland, and we had an amazing, wonderful time there and now really want to go back.

We flew into Warsaw on Saturday and were greeted by my assistant for the weekend, Kasia, holding a big bag of Polish chocolate, a huge bunch of gorgeous red roses, and my schedule.

She took us to the Sheraton so we could drop off our bags, then suggested we head to the Old Town and find some dinner.

I fell instantly in love with Warsaw, with it's wide streets and low buildings making the streets bright and airy. There were people everywhere. It was an open day for some important buildings, and there were long queues to get in. We climbed a tower for a view of the city…

… ate traditional toasted cheese, had dinner in the market square in the middle of the Old City while watching historical films on a big temporary screen and admiring the famous mermaid statue:

On the way back to our hotel, just as we reached an intersection that allowed a great view, there were fireworks.

It made for a perfect evening and introduction to Poland. The next day began with an interview with Marcin of Nowa Fantastyka in the hotel lounge. Kasia had told me that my books were notable in Poland for breaking the assumption that fantasy was written by men for men, so there were questions about this. I think every interviewer was intrigued to discover there are more female than male fantasy writers in Australia.

Next was the Warsaw Book Fair, held in the huge Palace of Culture.

There was already a queue when I arrived and it grew to around 300 people. The Australian ambassador dropped by to say hello! There was also a quick interview with a tv show called TeleExpress. It's online here here, but it looks like it's restricted to Polish viewers.

With so many people waiting, I had to sign quickly. Piotr, my interpreter, worked hard translating and writing down names for me. I was given yet more chocolate, as well a drawing of Sonea, a box of souvenirs from Krakow, and a bracelet. I managed to sign everyone's books in three hours. My publishers, Joanna and Paweł of Galeria Ksiazki, were very happy!

After a late lunch, we headed to the very cool Paradox Café, which is a pub and a library and a club house all in one. I was interviewed, with the help of Piotr, which was frustrating in ways I didn't expect. It wasn't the wait for the translation, it was having to keep my replies short enough that Piotr could remember it all!

Lots of good questions from the audience here, then more signing and at the end a lovely chat to some readers. But we couldn't stay longer, as there was a dinner booked. We had a delicious meal at a castle – Qchnia Artystyczna Warsaw at Zamek Ujadowski.

On Monday we began with more interviews. First with a lovely pair from an internet portal, Fantastyka, then a pre-recorded chat with Radio Zet. On the way we spotted this:

Yes, that's a three storey tall poster of The Rogue!

After a yummy lunch at SushiZushi, where they had not a sushi train but a sushi canal…

… we headed to Empik bookstore. Though I had 'interview' on my schedule, I was surprised and amazed to find a stage awaiting me. A great chat and q&a session followed, then a few hundred more autographs on books. And more chocolate…

Afterwards we enjoyed dinner and many toasts of cherry vodka at AleGloria Restaurant, beautifully decorated with artfully cut and arranged paper flowers and curtains. I had one of those meals I will remember for the rest of my life: duck in rose sauce, strawberries in a peppery sauce and exquisite little dumplings. Sublime!

By Tuesday morning I was feeling sad that the Polish part of my tour was over, but also a little tired. We said our farewells to Joanna and Paweł, and Kasia saw us off at the airport. We headed back to the UK laden down with lots of chocolate, some delicious Polish plum liquer and many, many good memories.

Roaming Around the UK

Week two of The Tour had me hopping around the UK. On Monday we started off at Gardners, where I signed some stock at the distribution centre:

Then we were off to Eastbourne, where we had lunch while admiring this view:

Then went on to sign stock at Waterstones in Eastbourne and Horsham before heading to Woking for a reading and signing:

Where a lovely fan gave me cupcakes decorated in the colours of the magicians' robes. Yummm!

On Tuesday we headed to Staines, Bracknell and Reading to sign more stock. Here I am in Reading:

We headed back to Orbit headquarters in London to do a Twinterview via the Waterstones twitter address. It was a whole lotta fun! Thanks to everyone who submitted questions and sorry to those those questions I didn't get to. Twitter said I'd made 49 posts over the hour, though some were 'dud' posts where I'd forgotten to add the hash tag. You can see the transcript here.

On Wednesday we travelled to Cambridge and checked into the awesome Varsity Hotel and Spa. This was our room:

After a quick dash to Bury St. Edmonds Waterstone for another stock signing, we headed for Heffers Bookshop for a big SSF night: ten sf author signing books and taking it in turns reading. It was a fabulous night, with a delicious dinner afterwards and a chance to chat with other writers.

On the Thursday we popped into Heffers and signed some stock, since it was too busy the night before to do it. Then after a spot of shopping, we headed for Lincoln. Once settled in, we visited Waterstones to sign some stock, then headed for the Alt Fiction event at the Lincoln Festival. I did a reading in an old court room. the acoustics were great!

Afterwards I signed books, then we headed back to the hotel and had a lovely hour chatting over drinks with Alex from the festival.

Friday we headed to Manchester, staying at the very cool Malmaison Hotel. I love a good pun, and there were plenty in the labelling of toiletries and such.

I signed stock at Waterstones and WHSmith at the Trafford Centre and Waterstones at the Arndale Centre before heading to Waterstones Deansgate for another evening event. A big crowd this time, and the signing went late so thanks to everyone who stayed back. Some very inspiring stories from fans.

Saturday we headed for Poland, but that's another story for another post!

What's Next?

It seems every time I've had a moment free to blog we've been in a hotel with broken internet cables or unreliable wifi, so only now, thanks to free wifi on the train, have I been able to post. And then only this mostly pre-written post I prepared last week.

So…

I can now confirm that my next series of books will be called Millennium's Rule. It will be a trilogy* set in a multiple-world scenario^, where characters with the ability can hop from one world to another.

In one world, where there has been an industrial revolution powered by magic, a young archaeology student finds an ancient treasure – a sentient book. In another world, trapped in its own dark ages, the daughter of a cloth merchant must hide her powers from magic-hating, priests. And out in the worlds, a people called the Travellers live their lives constantly the move, trade goods from one world to another on a safe route passed down through countless generations.

Millennium's Rule will consist of:

Maker's Magic

Angel of Storms

Successor's Son

I will start writing Maker's Magic next year, after finishing The Traitor Queen, last book of the Traitor Spy Trilogy. I'm looking forward to playing in a shiny new universe with a very cool (if I say so my myself) magical system and characters that are already trying to jump out of my head.

-

*Yes, I know. Another trilogy. One of these days I'm going to break the trilogy habit and write a duology or a tetralogy, or even a pentalogy, but the story dictates the length and I feel it's foolhardy to squish or pad it out for the sake of simply avoiding a harmless cliché.

^Which means I have to avoid the term 'world' when describing the settings of my books. I'm going to have to switch to 'universe' otherwise it's going to be confusing when I discuss the plot. People might think that when I say a character travels to another world that I've sent them to Kyralia or Ithania. And as a writer, I must admit that 'universe-building' sounds rather grand compared to 'world-building'.

The Tour So Far…

It's been a giddy, whirlwind experience so far. Last Thursday, the official release day of The Rogue, it all started with a pre-recorded radio interview for BBC Radio Lincolnshire, then a meeting with my wonderful publisher, followed by a visit to Orbit central to meet all the lovely people who make my stories into gorgeous books. There was an overwhelming amount of good news on bestseller lists and sales figures. There was champagne. There were macaroons. Mmm. Macaroooons.

After that we headed for Forbidden Planet, where the first thing I signed was Martin's Kindle.

I hadn't signed a Kindle before and I was honoured, though by the end of the night I'd signed another so maybe these will be the first of many. I signed many books for lots of lovely people and plenty of stock for those who couldn't make it.

For more photos of the event, check out the blog post on Orbit's blog.

I came away with some beer to fortify me, and this adorable Akkarin doll:

The next day we set off early to the airport and flew to Dublin, where we were met by Siobhan from Hachette, who made us feel very welcome during our stay.

We stayed at the amazing Merrion Hotel. Oh, my. Very nice hotel. Here's the garden:

And I couldn't resist photographing the afternoon tea we had the next day, with cute little tea cakes:

The main event was a reading, q&a and signing event at Eason's. This lovely window display greeted me:

It was a great night, with lots of good questions and plenty of books to sign for such lovely enthusiastic and friendly readers.

The next morning we headed to Dubray Books, Hodges Figgis, Chapters Bookstore and back to Eason's to sign stock. I got to chat to some very nice bookstore people, with book recommendations that resulted in the inevitable book acquisitions.

We had the rest of the Saturday afternoon to ourselves, and spent it doing touristy things. Then on Sunday afternoon we headed back to London, ready to resume the UK part of the Tour.

Next: Waterstones Woking here we come!

Waterstones Twinterview

Next Tuesday I'm going to be answering questions on Twitter!

Follow the links to join in the fun!