Rachel Hartman's Blog, page 14

A-touring we shall go

So just a little heads-up hint of goodness to come:

It looks like the lovely folks at Random House will be sending me out on tour again, not just once but twice! I was certainly hoping there would be a Shadow Scale tour, come springtime – and there will be – but it looks like I may also have an opportunity to tour in early February to promote the North American paperback release of Seraphina. I will be posting dates and cities once I know them for sure. There are some exciting place-names floa...

Super Flemish

Do you ever find yourself wishing you could see R2D2 and the Hulk dressed in Renaissance Flemish clothing? Well, now you can.

That is almost certainly more than enough damage to your retinas for one day.

The Gloaming

As we were leaving the Chan Centre last night, my husband said to me, “Well, I know what you’re going to be blogging about tomorrow.”

“Nuh-uh!” I said (mature as ever). “I am not that predictable!”

But it turns out I am, especially if you’ve been married to me for like, a billion years.

So! We are huge fans of Iarla O’Lionaird, so went to see his new band,The Gloaming,last night. It is probably not quite accurate to call it his band; the other musicians, especially the fiddler Martin Hayes, are...

So I’m working on a thing

A thing! I just reached 30K words, which suggests it may be bookish, this thing.

The work is going swimmingly so far, which is why I haven’t been talking about it much. I am still utterly convinced of my November jinx, despite 13 days of evidence to the contrary. (THIRTEEN DAYS! Now I’ve done it!)

However, I asked my lovely in-house editor whether I may announce this in some way, and she said yes, so here goes: I get to write two more books set in Seraphina’s world! The working title for the fi...

Seraphina in Spanish

Coming soon!

I am particularly intrigued by the tagline, which translates as: Everyone lies. You, too.

In North America, by contrast, Random House used: Can one girl unite two worlds?

The Italian edition says: The girl with the heart of a dragon.

Now I kind of want to go through and make a study of these! It’s always interesting to me how many different angles one can take on a single work.

Anyway, I’m eager for this one. I corresponded quite a bit with the translator, who impressed me as a smart...

Son of the Return of November

Here we are again, at the month I love to hate, when the days grow dark and the intractable rain sets in and there isn’t even Thanksgiving (here in Canada-land) to break up the gloom.

Last year I proclaimed it the True and Holy Month of Nothing, which went really well. I hope to loaf a little less aggressively this year, however, because I have something I want to work on and I’m not nearly as burned out.

And hey, the month is off to an auspicious start! Suspiciously auspicious, if you ask me....

We Need Diverse Books!

If you haven’t seen the We Need Diverse Booksfunding campaign yet, please go check it out, and I hope you will be inspired to contribute. They’re more than halfway to their goal, but there’s still plenty of time for you to get in on the action.

https://www.indiegogo.com/project/we-need-diverse-books/embedded

While we’re on the subject, here’s an article on “The Thorny Issue of Race,” intended specifically for NaNoWriMo participants, but useful for anyone interested in writing stories incorporat...

This season with the Madrigalians

We have so much new music this time around! I am really going to have to practice and work hard to keep up. Let me never complain about this kind of work, though: I enjoy it immensely.

Some highlights include “La Roza Enflorese” (a love song in Ladino) and “A Little Pretty Bonny Lass” (harder than it sounds). Here’s the one I’m most excited about, though, and I can’t even tell you why except that the recording gives me shivers every five seconds or so:

It’s by Orlando di Lasso, that sly devil....

To remember:

The sky was up to all kinds of dramatic shenanigans as I was walking the dog this morning. It was overcast, as it so often is in this corner of the continent, but the sun was just rising and for a fleeting moment it found a window and shone underneath the cloud cover. It turned West Van golden, made the ships out on the water glow, and lit up the top of a single yellow tree like it was on fire.

Wow, I thought, this can’t get any lovelier, and then all of a sudden there was a rainbow right in f...

Safe to Write

(Another bit of silly filking for your amusement)

You can write if you want to,

You can leave your words behind.

Jot ‘em, ripe or green,

By hand or by machine,

And everything will work out fine.

You can write where you want to,

Someplace where they will never find,

Or teach yourself to fly

And write it in the sky,

And leave your critics far behind.

You can write, you can write,

It’s ok if you look like a fright

(Just look at me, now)

You can write, you can write,

Dawn or dusk, noonday or night,

It’s safe to...