Juliet Marillier's Blog, page 7

Short Fiction Collection to be published

Exciting news! Ticonderoga Publications is bringing out a collection of my short fiction next year. They are a specialist small press for speculative fiction, and I'm thrilled to be working with them on this new venture. The book will be distributed internationally. More info here:

http://ticonderogapublications.com/index.php/authorseditors/authors/153-juliet-marillier/201-ticonderoga-to-publish-juliet-marillier

Progress Report Dec 2012

Hi all and best wishes for whatever festival or holiday you are celebrating around this time of year! Here's the long overdue progress report.

Work in Progress:

I'm still writing Caller, the third book in the Shadowfell series, due to my publisher in March/April 2013. At the same time I am proof-reading Raven Flight, book 2 of the same series, which will be published by Macmillan Australia and Knopf USA next July. Portuguese and Dutch editions will follow. The sweeping epic of Neryn and Flint, the rebels and the beleaguered kingdom of Alban has been a wonderful story to write and I will be sad to say goodbye to it when Caller is completed - there is, of course, always the possibility of more in future. Meanwhile Shadowfell, published in mid-2012, has picked up some great reviews as well as an excellent reception from readers.

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I am planning a new fantasy series for adults, something rather different from my previous work. At this point I am not revealing details, as the proposal still hasn't gone to my agent or publishers. I hope they like it, and if so I will be writing the first one next year for publication some time in 2014.

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My short fiction collection, Prickle Moon, comes out from Ticonderoga Publications in April 2013. It will be available in both print and ebook form, and there's also a collector's edition hardback, only 100 copies to be printed, signed by all contributors (myself as author, my fantastic colleague Sophie Masson who wrote the introduction,and brilliant cover artist Pia Ravenari.) That edition is available for pre-order now from Ticonderoga - the price reflects its collector's item status. When the trade paperback becomes available for pre-order I will put the link up on my website and here on Facebook. Prickle Moon includes five new stories as well as the best of my previous published short fiction.

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Flame of Sevenwaters was recently published in Australia and the USA, and we can look forward to Portuguese and Dutch editions in 2013.

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Appearances:

I have quite a busy schedule in 2013 and will post more on events later. Currently my schedule includes appearances at the following:

Genghiscon, Perth, January 12 - 13 

Swancon, Perth, March 29 - April 1

Conflux, Canberra, 25-28 April (possible)

Supanova Sydney June 21-22

Supanova Perth June 29-30

Riding the Waves (RWA national conference, Fremantle) Aug 16-18

World Fantasy Convention (in Brighton, UK) Oct 31- Nov 3

I hope that answers some of your questions! Meanwhile keep safe, enjoy your holidays if you have them, and all the best for a peaceful and creative 2013.

Juliet

Progress Report December 2011

Hi all. It's been an exceptionally busy few months, with some big extra jobs to do. I judged the short fiction awards for the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre, which involved a lot of reading - 57 entries in the Open category, and more in the Young Writers section. I presented my judge's report and the awards were handed out at Katharines' Birthday celebrations on Dec 4. The Writers Centre is in Katharine's historic house in Greenmount, Western Australia. For those of you from overseas who perhaps don't know who Katharine Susannah Prichard was, you can read more at the KSP Foundation's website: http://kspf.iinet.net.au/   I've been associated with the Writers Centre for about ten years including a stint as established writer in residence and several years' membership of the grandly named Board of Literary Advisers.

 

In November I presented two workshops on Writing Long Fiction for the City of Rockingham, oranised by the creative Lee Battersby, a fellow writer who works there as the city's cultural officer. These took a lot of preparation but were really well received by the participants - people were asked to submit a  synopsis and the first chapter of their work, and everyone who did so got a feedback report from me. We also workshopped some of the pieces during the session. The workshops went well, though as usual as soon as each was over I thought of a hundred more things I should have said. I am hoping the discussion of story arcs and of tight third person point of view, in particular, will help some of these writers to improve their work.

 

Now to the books. Shadowfell is past the editorial stage now and I've checked the proofs for the Australian edition. I still have to do proof reading for the US edition. But that's pretty much all the work done for me on that book. As mentioned elsewhere, Pan Macmillan's Australian edition comes out in July 2012, and Knopf's US edition a few months later (they've said 'Fall' which I think means some time between September and November.) I'm very pleased with Shadowfell - it was wonderful to tackle a completely new setting and create a brand new cast of characters. Or perhaps not brand new, since readers will see obvious similarities between the Good Folk of Alban (a fictitious version of Scotland) and the Old Ones from the Sevenwaters books. That's OK - they're everywhere. Oh, and Knopf has a talented artist w orking on the US cover as I write. Pan Macmillan has an interesting idea for the Australian cover. The two covers will be very different.

 

Non-English editions of Shadowfell: thus far the only two countries the series has been sold to outside Australia and the US are The Netherlands and Portugal. Dates for those two editions are obviously dependent on the translation work. But it is possible either or both might be out in very late 2012. Publishers are Luitingh-Sijthoff and Planeta respectively.

 

Last night I put the finishing touches to my manuscript for Flame of Sevenwaters and felt the sadness that always comes when saying goodbye to a set of beloved characters. A writer lives with those characters for a long time, inhabits their skin, walks in their footsteps and faces their challenges, so it can be quite hard to reach the end. I am pleased with the completed novel, which I think forms a good third part to the sequence Heir, Seer, Flame. I have time for one more complete read-through, then it goes to my editors before Christmas. They will read it in January and I expect to get their combined report back in early February 2012, at which point I will have more revision to do - not too much, I hope! Flame of Sevenwaters is due for publication by Pan Macmillan Australia and Roc US in late 2012 - probably November.

 

Current project: In November I wrote just over 30,000 words of the second Shadowfell book, as part of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, a sort of speed-writing challenge.) I'm about to revisit those words, which I suspect are less than my best, since I don't work so well as a speed writer. If I kept them all that would be one third of a young adult novel completed, which would be good! Shadowfell 2 must be completed by the end of April 2012, so I do need to get on with it.

 

I have contracts for a third Shadowfell book and for a new adult novel, so there's plenty of work on hand and not much time for anything else. The big question as to whether the Sevenwaters series will continue after Flame of Sevenwaters is at this point undecided. I'm not even going to think about it until the Shadowfell series is completed. All I can say is that the next adult novel will be something different.

My blog for the month

This month I blogged on tackling NaNoWriMo (for those of you unfamiliar with the term, it stands for National Novel Writing Month.) Read my piece here.

A new interview

Here's a new interview on The Writer's Voice, with a giveaway.

Publication dates for 2012

Good news for my readers in Australia and New Zealand. I can confirm that Pan Macmillan will, after all, be publishing Shadowfell in July 2012.  I announced this a few weeks ago on Facebook then had to retract it - after some negotiation between the Australian and US publishers, it's now definite. The US edition from Knopf is still scheduled for (northern hemisphere) Fall 2012.

 

For readers in Europe - this means the Dutch and Portuguese editions might possibly be out before the end of 2012, depending on how long the translation takes.

 

The new Sevenwaters book is still scheduled for November 2012 publication in the US and Australia. Still trying to find the perfect title.

Progress Report August 2011

Hi all. Here's a long overdue progress report.

 

Shadowfell:

 It looks as if the first novel in this new YA series will be called simply 'Shadowfell', and the others will have different titles followed by 'A Shadowfell book.' I've just finished a round of revisions based on the combined report from my Australian and US editors, and the manuscript has gone back to them. If they're happy with the revisions, we'll move on to copy edit stage (where the ms gets checked for errors of logic, spelling and punctuation etc.) Basically, this means the hardest work (for me, at least) is done on this book. I love it and I hope readers will too. Although Shadowfell is shorter than my adult novels I think it's a satisfying read for adults.The editors commented on what a wonderful protagonist fifteen-year-old Neryn was. And guess what? They let me keep the Scots dialect.

 

We discovered the name Shadowfell had been used recently in Dungeons and Dragons, but decided to keep it.

 

Return to Sevenwaters:

Please note, this is not necessarily the final title for this new Sevenwaters book - I just needed something to call it while I was working on it. I've written around 109,000 words out of an estimated 150,000. Because the deadlines for this book and Shadowfell 2 are very close to each other, I am going to be extremely busy until around April 2012. The trip overseas plus the need to put this project down to do the Shadowfell edits meant I fell a bit behind my schedule. I've also got some other activities coming up (see below) that will gobble up some time. So I am likely to be very slow to reply to emails and letters from readers, and not very active on the online forums. The place you're most likely to see me is on the Facebook Fan Page (link in left column.)

 

I am pleased with Return to Sevenwaters so far. Maeve is an interesting narrator. Her character has been shaped by the traumatic accident in her childhood and her resulting injury, and also by the fact that she has spent ten years living at Harrowfield as a foster daughter of Bran and Liadan before returning home at the age of 20. Young Finbar, aged 7, also has a major part to play in the story.

 

Other writing-related activities:

I am a guest at the Big Sky Readers and Writers Festival in Geraldton, Sept 9-11. Program details should be available from the Geraldton Public Library. My sessions below:

 

Friday Sept 9 (9.30-10.30): Creating Your Own Legends (for young adult writers)

 

Saturday Sept 10 (2.00-3.30) Finding Your Writers Voice (for adult writers)

 

Sunday Sept 11 : Panel discussion with Lara Morgan  'Out of this World'

 

I'm presenting a three hour writing workshop on November 19, in Rockingham, as part of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, for those who haven't encountered this phenomenon.) More details available later.

 

I have third 'extra' job between now and the end of the year, which I can't make public at this stage. To put it simply, my workload is ridiculous. Must learn to write faster ...

A peek inside

Check out Helen Lowe's blog for a series of 'peeks inside' the anthology Tales for Canterbury. There are some wonderful stories in this collection, and all profits from sales go to the Red Cross fund for victims of the Christchurch earthquake. Last week she featured my story, Juggling Silver (and said some very nice things about it.)

To find out how to purchase the anthology in print or e-book form, visit the Short Fiction page of this website.

Interview with Darkstar's Fantasy News

Heir to Sevenwaters has just been released in Germany by Knaur. At the same time, the third in the Sevenwaters audiobook series, Das Kind der Sturme, has been released. To mark the new releases, I was interviewed about my writing by Darkstar's Fantasy News. Please visit the interview and leave a comment! 

Here's the English language version.

And here's the German language version.

New Interview

Click here for a comprehensive new interview with Juliet, courtesy of fellow Australian fantasy writer Rowena Cory Daniells.