This weekend, Murasaki — the fourth and final book of Seasons of the Sword — was awarded the Silver Medal in Young Adult Fiction at the IBPA Book Awards (aka the Benjamin Franklin Awards). As I said when Murasaki was first nominated, I’m grateful and a little stunned. These are the most prestigious awards in independent publishing, and being honored in the company Murasaki was nominated with is its own kind of win.
I’d put together a few notes for the ceremony, just in case. I didn’t get to use them. But the speech says some things I’d like to say anyway — so, with apologies for the wishful thinking embedded in the first sentence, here it is:
I’m deeply grateful to IBPA for honoring Murasaki — first by nominating it in the company of two wonderful novels, and then by awarding it this lovely medal.
Mukashi mukashi — long, long ago — I went with my daughter Julia to the park where she was playing with her friend Lucas. Lucas’s mother and I got involved in trying to solve the world’s problems, as we sometimes did. When we looked up, the kids were nowhere to be found — until we heard a giggle from the way up in the tops of the trees.
Now, I have what the late Sir Terry Pratchett would have called a great respect for depths. And so I very calmly asked them to come down.
And I started thinking about writing a book about a girl who loves to climb.
At around the same time, Julia’s older sister Sasha read a magazine article about a Japanese war widow from sixteenth-century Japan named Mochizuki Chiyome, who ran a school for orphan girls — teaching them to become spies, bodyguards, and assassins. I thought, Wow. Someone should write that book.
So I did. And the three that followed.
All these years later, I have come to realize the truth of the saying that, if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes an army to create a young adult novel.
I have many people to thank:
All the teachers, students, librarians, and beta readers who gave me feedback and support My fabulous editors IBPA and BAIPA for their incredible resources My cover designer, the wonderful James Egan of Portland’s BookFly Designs My incredible narrators — my daughter Julia and the amazing Allison Hiroto My middle school English teacher, who happened to have been my mother, and who brought that same fierce eye to bear on the first three books before we lost her My wonderful wife, who has enriched every draft of each of my books And especially my daughters, who inspired me from the beginning, who continue to inspire me today, and I hope will keep on climbing. Don’t worry about me. Keep being fabulous.
Thank you.
Murasaki concludes the Seasons of the Sword series — four novels following Risuko, the climbing girl, from the kitchens of Chiyome-sama’s school to the battlefields of a country tearing itself apart. If you’re the kind of reader who likes to know a series is finished before starting it: it’s finished. You can start with Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale.
And if you’d like a way in that won’t cost you anything: subscribers to my newsletter are getting Old Wood, a brand-new prequel novella about Mieko and Masugu (two of Risuko’s mentors), delivered free in weekly installments right now. You can join here: risuko.net/old-wood.
To everyone who’s been with these books for a while — thank you. The series is what it is because you read it.
I’d put together a few notes for the ceremony, just in case. I didn’t get to use them. But the speech says some things I’d like to say anyway — so, with apologies for the wishful thinking embedded in the first sentence, here it is:
Murasaki concludes the Seasons of the Sword series — four novels following Risuko, the climbing girl, from the kitchens of Chiyome-sama’s school to the battlefields of a country tearing itself apart. If you’re the kind of reader who likes to know a series is finished before starting it: it’s finished. You can start with Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale.
And if you’d like a way in that won’t cost you anything: subscribers to my newsletter are getting Old Wood, a brand-new prequel novella about Mieko and Masugu (two of Risuko’s mentors), delivered free in weekly installments right now. You can join here: risuko.net/old-wood.
To everyone who’s been with these books for a while — thank you. The series is what it is because you read it.
— David Kudler