Kat Ellis's Blog, page 17

Blackfin Sky has a cover!

I'm so, so excited to get to share with you the cover for my book (coming out on 15th May 2014 in the UK, dontchaknow)...


The artwork is by the AMAZING Shane Rebenschied, and I couldn't be more in love with it!!

What do you think??

(By the way, in case you didn't know, you can also pre-order it in these places:

Amazon UK
The Book Depository
Waterstones UK

If you're in a clickety mood, why not add it to your goodreads list?)

BLACKFIN SKY is available for pre-order!

Thanks to my twitter hivemind, today I found out my book, BLACKFIN SKY, is up on Amazon UK, Waterstones UK and The Book Depository for pre-order! (As it's out a little later in the US, I'll let you know when it's up on the US sites.)

Here are the links:


Amazon UK
The Book Depository
Waterstones UK

If you're in a clickety mood, why not add it to your goodreads list? 
Aaaaand I have an author page on Amazon. Check it: http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B00GUKZRYS

Blue's Winter Post

Winter Asylum
Chynna-Blue Scott (a.k.a. Blue - see what I did there with the title?) invited me (in the face, it seems) to write a winter-themed post answering winter-themed questions, so...I'm going to put my own swerve on it. I'm sure Blue will give the swerving 2 thumbs up, complete with blood-red thumbnails.

I'm a November brat, and grew up hating that all my school friends seemed to have summer birthdays where they could have parties outdoors and go rope-swinging through trees and paintballing and shiz like that, but I've grown to love my November birthday. (I don't understand people who hate their birthday because it means getting older. If you didn't have a birthday, you'd still get older, and you wouldn't get a shizload of presents to make up for it.)

Last year, for my 30th birthday, my husband and I went to Florida. Everyone assumed it was because I had issues about the big 3-0, but my only issue was wanting to ride rollercoasters and float around on the Lazy River in the raging heat. And it was GLORIOUS - not only did I get to spend my birthday at Disney World, but when I flew back to the UK at the end of November all the 'it's too soon for Christmas' haters had been silenced by December's imminent arrival. I essentially went from mid-summer to the depths of winter on an 8-hour flight, cutting out that darkening crawl that usually gives me the ughs about Christmas long before Santa has shuffled his buttocks along the gentle slope of my roof.

Despite the lack of Mickey & Co. or even the faintest promise of a log flume, this winter has a lot in store for me that I'm looking forward to. Dark, cold days are perfect for writing, and I'll be making full use of them this year as I have edits and edits and edits to do, then some more edits. And soon my short story Underground will be published in an anthology called PRIMED, which will be my first Real publishing credit and obviously WOOHOO. And, despite the fact that some would call me cynical, I do love the festive season when it's all twinkly and new, and now that I have my zippy camera, I'll be capturing all that twinkliness on my winter adventures in forests and castles and cemeteries and such.

Playing in the snow last winter[Aside: Because I wanted to have a place where I could post all my favourite adventure photos all together, I now have a tumblr just for that. If you like my pictures, let me know - I'm happy for them to be used on blog posts etc. if you let me know when & where.]

So they're the things I love and am looking forward to about winter. If you'd like to share your own wintry likes, please to share in ze comments.

Snow Kat x

World Fantasy Con 2013: the wrap-up!

A lot of amazing things happened last weekend. I headed down to Brighton for World Fantasy Con on Friday, missed the whole day (thank you, M25 traffic) and arrived windswept and bedraggled at the Hilton Hotel where the con was being held just in time for evening drinks with the wonderful Girl Friday - a.k.a. author Tatum Flynn:

...and the amazing Marieke Nijkamp, who I met for the first time after tweeting and exchanging manuscripts with her over the past couple of years. She's as lovely in person as she is online.

Saturday was my full day at the con, and it started with registration - and a whole heap of free books! THIS is how to do swag, in case you were wondering:



The first panel I went to was focused on YA, and featured Susan Cooper, Garth Nix, Neil Gaiman, Will Hill and Holly Black. I know - that's like writing royalty, right?? Here's a photo I sneakily took of the panel. Yes, I'm hating on the random stander-upper pretty hard.


Next up, I saw Neil Gaiman talking with Susan Cooper, who received a lifetime achievement award at the con. I also got a slightly better picture!


I went to 4 author readings in the afternoon - the first was Holly Black, reading from The Coldest Girl in Coldtown. Her reading was amazing, and I am definitely going to be getting a copy to read the rest!

Next up were Amy McCulloch and Laura Lam, in a surprise-ninja-joint reading session. Amy read from Oathbreaker's Shadow, and Laura read from Pantomime. Finally, I heard Heather Graham reading from her latest novel, Let the Dead Sleep, and was so thrilled when she actually gave me the copy she was reading from!


It was fantastic getting an insight into author readings as I've never been to one before.

After that, I went and took a look around the art displays with Girl Friday (and got a couple of free drinks - yay!), then I snagged a few more freebies on my way out - including an awesome mug to commemorate my WFC adventure (in case you didn't know, I'm a Mug Event Commemorator) and cruised the book stalls.

With the day's panels and events over, I went out for a fantastic meal with my awesome agent, Molly Ker Hawn, and my husband. We ate shark. Yes, we're hardcore.

When it was time to leave Brighton on Sunday, I couldn't help wishing I'd booked to stay longer so I could explore Brighton itself.

Then again, now I have another reason to go back!

Tumbling and Conning

So, I got back from World Fantasy Con in Brighton this afternoon. I had a wonderful time, met wonderful people, and got lots of wonderful stuff...but there will be a special post tomorrow (when I'm slightly more brain-functiony and less tired) all about that.

In my exhausted, post-con state, I decided to set up a Tumblr account where I can put all my photos - the ones I normally blast out on twitter after my adventures. Take a look at my Tumblr, leave a comment or question or whatever and help me figure out how the heck it works! I'm looking forward to sharing more photos with you guys there. There's a tab at the top of this page that'll also take you right to it.

I'm debating changing the header of this blog to the image I've used as my Tumblr header (a photo I took in the forest last week) - what do you think? Yay or nay?

Kat xoxo

Favourite Movie Monsters - Guest post by Jani Grey

Jani Grey is an awesome writer, a South African, and enthusiastic wearer of zebra blouses. She is also one of my CPs, and thinks so similarly to me that we call each other 'halfbrain'. Jani and I decided to swap blogs for Halloween - just to confuse y'all - but you should absolutely check out Jani's blog for more of her awesomeness, as well as her twitter. Without further faffing...

*****

Kat suggested I write a post about my favourite movie monsters. This is a difficult one for me because I like monsters in general. All of them. It’s worth mentioning that I don’t watch scary movies for the plot. Give me a good fright, something that’ll make my heart race, and I’m sold. So I decided to focus on the ones that stood the best chance of scaring me, from movies and television, and why.
1. There is honestly no monster scarier than man. What scares me the most when it comes to human monsters is that they can be anybody. It can be the colleague sitting behind me as I type this. It can be my neighbour. The guy running my closest grocery store. It can be my sister. Do we really know what these people do when we don’t see them? And when they do whatever evil, horrendous, unspeakable things they are driven to do, they know exactly what’s happening most of the time. A character like Dexter is fictional, but when you look at the show itself, he did a damn fine job at living an apparently normal life. When people got suspicious, he took care of it without implicating himself to a certain extent. That takes some thinking power, and that’s damn scary. I’m not deluding myself on this subject. There are people like that out there, we just don’t know who or where they are. I’m binge watching Criminal Minds at the moment and the stuff I’m seeing is fear-inducing and fascinating at the same time. I’ll never be able to wrap my head around people being able to do things like that to other human beings, and I don’t think I want to. But it makes for fascinating writing, reading, and TV. What people are capable of is scary and seeing what you can only imagine come to life on screen... It’s frightening.
When I think of human movie monster I immediately think about The Strangers. The movie freaks me out for the same reasons as mentioned above. After I finished watching that movie for the first time, my very first thought was that it could totally happen. My grandparents were farmers and we visited a lot. How’s that for messing with your head when you’re home alone and all the lights are off? It’s wonderful, that’s what. I haven’t watched The Purge yet but just from the trailer I know it’ll bring the scares. I recently had the pleasure of watching Cabin in the Woods and loved the display of how inhuman humans can be as a group of friends were steered toward their death.
A few other human monsters that can get somewhat creepy. KIDS. Good grief, kids are so damn creepy sometimes(If you’re reading this and have children, I’m sure they’re fine. Really). A good example is Orphan. Deformed killers covering their faces. I’m looking at you, Texas Chainsaw. Scientists and their clinical, unfeeling approach to what they’re doing, my example American Horror Story(season 2 was terrible, don’t watch it).
2. The second kind of monster I like is the kind you can’t do anything about or against. Stephen King’s The Mist is a good example. How killer was that ending!?! *minor spoiler alert* Yes, we see the military moving in at the end of the movie, but we don’t actually see what they do or what happens to them. I haven’t read the book so if the end isn’t as open as the movie’s, please drop me a comment. Like a good reader/watcher of stories, I like seeing characters struggle against all odds. If they can’t do anything about what’s happening, that’s even better. Add some angst and you’ll spend a heart-pounding hour or two clutching you pillow, unable to look away. Because now you get to watch an entire scary movie where people die but they’re still fighting for survival, something we know they won’t be getting.
3. Anything you find in a Silent Hill movie or game. Seriously. I’m not scared of it, but it’s fascinating to watch, and there are moments where I just can’t help being so engrossed that I jump when somebody’s sudden happens.
When it comes to scary, I like insurmountable odds because it shows us what people are capable of. It shows us character and reactions. The will to live. How can you not love that? This genre is so underrated and swept aside for lacking in certain areas. I say those who criticize scary haven’t looked hard enough at what it really is and what it can give you.

So put your not-creepy-at-all kids to bed and watch something that’ll keep you up for the rest of the night. You can always spend the extra hours plotting a novel or attempting something scary of your own.
*****
Got any questions for the incomparable Jani Grey? Comment at will! 
And Happy Halloween!

In Anticipation of World Fantasy Con 2013

World Fantasy Con is being held in Brighton (UK) this year, and I have wangled myself a membership to attend for a couple of days (I can't go for the whole thing, unfortunately, so will just assume the organisers are aware of this and are saving all the best stuff for when I'm there.) If you're curious, you can check out the WFC programme here.

Stuff I'm looking forward to...


Meeting writers and online friends for the first time - YAY!Catching up with my awesome agent, Molly Ker Hawn. All the panels. And the readings. And the signings. (True fact: I've never been to a signing before.)Sightseeing a little bit around Brighton. (I'm taking my camera, of course, so will be snapping away for posterity.)

Sidenote: Because I generally schlub around in sweatpants, I've had to go out and buy real, proper grown-up clothes which make me look like a human and not a slug. To anyone I meet this week at WFC: you're welcome.

I'll write a wrap-up post after WFC about my adventures - until then...

*Runs off to read all the fantasy novels*

The kind of creepy, weird-ass things I do

I like to mark occasions. Not in a gross "I still have the baby tooth I stole from my first boyfriend in play group" kind of way, or a romantic "see my shoebox full of dead leaves from the first walk I took with my husband" kind of way (which is also, incidentally, creepy).

Mostly I take pictures of the momentous things, like the rest of you normal folks. Birthdays. That time I signed my first ever book contract. The smashed-up state of the last car I crashed (there have been 2, and neither was my fault. Honestly.)

But this has started filtering into a slightly hoard-y thing whereby I immortalise the event in mug form. So far I have mugs to mark the reading of 2 of my friends' books (one published, one not published yet) who happened to have this excellent merch available to buy. And just recently I went and bought myself this:


Why?

Because chances are, a couple of years from now The Zombie Project will have ended and I'll be working on un-zombie-related things, and I'll go to make myself my 12th coffee of the day and will grab this mug and think, "Oh yeah! That was a really fun project..." and I'll go back and read through all the awesome stories in the series again. (You can do that here, by the way. I know, I'm very good to you with the links.)

So my coffee addiction will live on, and so will all the fun stuff I commemorate with a mug.

Cheers.

The Zombie Project: HICKORY DICKORY DEAD

My zombie short story is now live as #15 in The Zombie Project over on Chynna-Blue Scott's blog. Check out my twisted installment of the series!

>>> HICKORY DICKORY DEAD by Kat Ellis

Something Good from Sean McConnell

A few months ago, I placed a bid (or 2, or 3...) on an original piece of art by Sean McConnell in the Funds for Feaky auction, which was organised by the wonderful Jessa Russo to raise money to help resident twitter badass Tamara Mataya (a.k.a. Feaky Snucker) after her town was hit by terrible floods.

I absolutely loved Sean's sample drawings, and couldn't miss the opportunity to have Sean draw my book's main character, Skylar, while helping out a pal through the auction.

SO. I bid like a ninja mofo, and managed to secure the drawing. *Steeples fingers evilly* This pleased me greatly.

Sean very kindly agreed to send his drawing over to the UK, and I was so thrilled when it arrived in the mail today. Check out the beautiful drawing of Sky!