Thurber House: Day Seven, Week One & a Manuscript Complete!

Woohoo!

This evening marks a solid week I've lived in Thurber House as the 2016 Children's Writer-in-Residence.  I've spent the time working on a rewrite of a recently completed manuscript, and today, I knuckled down and wrote for the longest protracted session since I got here. I didn't even stop for lunch, just drank a protein shake at my desk.

I did take a break at 5pm, to take an hour walk around the city, during which I passed the spot of the original Wendy's hamburger restaurant. (It isn't there anymore, but a marker is).

Then I came back and wrote for another two hours and I finished! Draft two of the secret project is done, and it's already been sent to a few of my volunteer readers.

So this Herculean accomplishment must be celebrated in style, and it was--with a huge plate of nachos, Dragon's Milk, and catching up on episodes of Game of Thrones.  (I'm not to the finale yet, but I'm getting there. So far, though, I prefer season five to season six.)

Meanwhile, I've been making notes towards the next project all week, and tomorrow I start working on it in earnest. No other obligations tomorrow, just writing, so I have a good chunk of time to dive in on day one of project two. And three more weeks to go!

Thurber House: Day Six (Alone for the Weekend)

Thurber House is mine! All mine! Mwa-ha-ha!

Actually, I'm alone here today. The people who work here during the week are gone and I've the house to myself. Some volunteers come by in the afternoon to lead tours, but the house has been largely silent.

Oh, and the handyman came to fix the toilet! So, that's a little taste of real life.

But I  spent several hours of the morning researching the quality and type of medieval locks and the history of the looking glass. All work for the next project. And the bulk of the day was spent on polishing the previous one. I've reached chapter fourteen (of twenty one) in the rewrite. It's 9:41 pm here but I hope to get at least one more chapter polished before I head to bed.

Around four o'clock I set out on a two-ish hour jaunt around Columbus. This time I returned to German Village and The Book Loft, then had a Milk Chocolate Passion Fruit and a tea at Pistachio Vera. Although the sign pictured here is from Mikey's Late Night Slice.

Then it was back here to cook my own supper and more writing. And a phone call from a good friend in Los Angeles.

Uneventful days actually mean productive work, so I hope we'll have more of those.

Things I Miss Most About Home, Part Two:

1. My Dishwasher.
2. My Dishwasher.
3. My Dishwasher.
4. My Dishwasher.
5. Weight Lifting (but not as much as My Dishwasher).

Thurber House: Day Five (The Self-Guided Food and Drink Walking Tour)

I stayed up late last night and was woken early by a phone call, but despite that I still managed to get halfway through the rewrite of my first draft of the recent project. Which is pretty good progress here in week one of my  Thurber House Children's Writer-in-Residence stint. Then at 3:30 pm, the campers in the Thurber Center had a presentation for their parents, after which they brought their folks to Thurber House, gave them a tour of the first two floors, and best of all, has me sign copious copies of Frostborn and Nightborn. I was in the front parlor of the house, seated on a couch at a table that normally holds an historic tea set, mobbed by enthusiastic children. A wonderful afternoon!


Then, after a day of being inside, I decided to walk half an hour to North Market, where I sampled Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream. The  Salted Caramel was good, but Brambleberry Crips was everything the stranger in line behind me said it would be!

After this, I walked fifteen minutes to Wolf's Ridge Brewing, with the best intentions to merely scope it out for later. But in their wonderful Tap Room Francis the very helpful bartender introduced me to one of the best beers I've had in ages, the Dire Wolf Canis Mexicanus, an imperial stout spiced with Mexican peppers. This had to paired with something, naturally, and so I dined on Duck Confit Tacos. But one glad of Canis Mexicanus is hardly sufficient, so the second glass was paired with Habanero Cheesecake.


Finally, I took a twenty minute walk in the still hot sun back to Thurber House, where I decided to take Friday night to finish watching Game of Thrones season five (wow).

Now that's a day!

Salud!

Thurber House: Day Four

I survived.

The storm was heavy rain and lightning, but the power stayed on, the winds weren't as hard as predicted, and I did not have to take shelter in the basement of a supposed-haunted house in the dark of night and that's a good thing.

However, I don't sleep during any storm, not after having had a tornado drop an enormous white oak on my rooftop some years back before touching down in the ravine next to my house and felling another twenty or so trees. Therefore, it was a late, slow, and slightly dim start this morning.

Breakfast, a pot of coffee, and Game of Thrones made it quite enjoyable (I'm still on season five). Then some real progress on the rewrite of the manuscript I finished last week. Lunch was a leftover boxed dinner from the previous night's literary picnic and then more revision.

Around 3:30 I decided I really should get out of the house once, so I took an hour and twenty minute walk. I headed East then South, and found myself in Corner Stone Craft Beer & Wine in Old Towne East. I took a walk through the historical district, passed many beautiful old homes, and then came upon The Topiary Park, which is beautiful.

I came back up through downtown, decided to head deeper into downtown, and then take 4th Street North until I hit Gay Street. There is a beautiful building on the corner of Young and Gay. I got back to Thurber House seconds after everyone there had locked up and were headed to their cars.

Before going inside, I took a moment to sit in the little garden area between Thurber House and Thurber Center, where I shot a photo of some of the statues of Muggs the dog.

Then it was more work, more Game of Thrones, more food, and now more writing. Later tonight, it will also be more Dragon's Milk.

As to the legends associated with this old house, the mirror did jump in its mounting on the wall twice while I was shaving, but I've chosen to view that as a quirk of the air conditioning cooling the glass on a hot day and not, say, a supernatural comment on my rendition of "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)."

Sing it with me...

See these eyes so green
I can stare for a thousand years
Colder than the moon
Well it's been so long

And I've been putting out the fire with gasoline

Thurber House: Day Three

I saw two rabbits today.

As I left Thurber House to go next door where their Summer Camp programs are held, in the little garden outside, full of statues of James Thurber's dog Muggs, a rabbit ran right past me and into the bushes.

Then I taught two groups of campers back to back from 9:30 until 11:30. The kids were great and, to my tremendous relief, took to the material. Why is that a relief, you say? Well, it's like this. I have several presentations I usually give. One is an hour long presentation on the world of Thrones & Bones. One is a one or two hour presentation called ScripTips, which uses my particular take on cinematic story structure to teach plotting and outlining to would be novelists. And one, created recently, is an hour long workshop taking participants through exercises drawn from ScripTips lessons. Today, I combined all three of those presentations into one hour long performance. I felt a bit like the Doctor in that episode "Flatline" where he's stuck inside a shrunken TARDIS, everything compressed together tightly. But it went well, and now I have a new presentation I can do. And, as in each of these classes I've taught this week, while all the kids are bright, imaginative, and enthusiast, there's always a couple kids who really take to the material and set off writing their stories like wildfire. Which is always tremendous to see. (Future competition).

Next, I took off on a trip 30 minutes northish to teach a course at Worthington Park Library. Billed as "Description: Write On: A Creative Writing Workshop," I taught a group of about 9 kids (and one adult) a writing workshop, helping them construct the basics of a story. I'll have pictures from that tomorrow, but it was a very fun time in a cool library (in a strip mall!). Thanks to Ellie and Dustin for arranging and facilitating a great afternoon!

Then it was back here for a brief rest and then off to a "literary picnic" that Thurber House holds. Author Pauline A. Chen was in town to speak about her new novel, The Red Chamber. Based on the epic Dream of the Red Chamber—one of the most famous love stories in Chinese literature—Pauline described it as being, not so much retelling, as a work that sits in relationship to the original in the manor that Wicked aligns to The Wizard of Oz. The book sounds fascinating and Pauline certainly was. She also has degrees from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. So there you go.

And during her talk, I looked out a window and saw yet another rabbit bounding around.

Now I'm back in my apartments awaiting a thunderstorm. Apparently between midnight and 3 am there's a real chance of dangerously high winds. So fingers crossed I don't end up crouched in the basement of a spooky old house, sitting in the dark with no power! But wouldn't that be a story!

Thurber House: Day Two

Today was day two as Children's Writer-in-Residence at Thurber House!

After working this morning, we set out again for the Homeless Families Foundation's Dowd Education Center, where I met with the same group of kids from the day before. This time, I lead them through a series of exercises utilizing what I'd taught them on Monday. The kids were great--some really bright, imaginative answers--and I was delighted that several students had considerably fleshed out plots by the end of the hour. This stuff took me decades to learn and they've absorbed it in days. No doubt I've created my future competition this week, and proud of it!

Returning to Thurber House, I tested out a new portable blender and made my usual lunch of yogurt and fruit protein shakes. New blender doesn't do frozen fruit well, so I ate that with a spoon but the rest was great. Then I walked 36 minutes to The Book Loft of German Village, which boasts 32 rooms of books. I was understandably lost inside for a bit, then I hoofed it back in time to get ready for the evenings reception (ahem, in my honor, ahem), the highlight of which was a performance by the Thurber Chamber Theater who did dramatic readings of short fiction by James Thurber. And there were cookies!

Afterward, Meg Brown, Director of Children's Education, gave me a tour of Columbus.

And now I'm back, feeling like I need to eat something vegetable, and settling in to do some work before a very busy day tomorrow.

Having a great, productive time immersed in my world, but here is list of...

Things I Miss Most About Home:

1) My wife and kids
2) My Japanese Toto toilet
3) My coffee machine
4) My Xbox One
5) Big Spoon Creamery

Thurber House: Day One

Today was my first full day as Children's Writer-in-Residence at Thurber House!

I got in around 5pm yesterday, where I was met at the airport by the very nice Meg Brown, Director of Children's Education. Meg took me to drop my bags off at the house before heading out to do the necessary grocery shopping in preparation for my living on my own for a month.

Now, let's pause here in the Adventures of Lou for a bit on the house itself,  a three-story historic building which served as the home of author, humorist, and New Yorker cartoonist James Thurber and his family from 1913 until 1917. Since 1984, (the year, not the book or the album by Van Halen), the house has served as a non-profit literary center and museum of Thurber materials. The first floor of the house has a bookstore, which currently has a very nice display of Frostborn and Nightborn titles, while the second floor is home to the Thurber Museum (the lights of which flickered when I came in, though not ominously). The third floor is more modern and has been converted into a small apartment for the writer-in-residence, in this case me. So...

After dropping off bags, we went to Kroger, where I was delighted to find I could get New Holland Brewing's Dragon's Milk, a bourbon-barrel aged stout that I love and cannot get in Alabama, as well as essentials like cereal, yogurt, jalapeños, pop tarts, stuffed mushrooms, the ingredients to make a killer ham sandwich, tea bags (iced and green), coffee, and a variety of microwavable frozen foods. Unfortunately, somewhere in that smorgasbord of easy to make necessities, I forgot toothpaste!

Then it was back to the house, where Meg gave me a quick tour, handed me the keys, and taught me the alarm code. Then I was alone in the house for the first time. Which is very alone, in a dark, old house with very little happening on the street outside. At this point it should be noted that Thurber House is very creaky. Every footstep I took last night didn't just cause the floorboards to squeak, but started a cascade of echoing creaks that rippled down through the house, so that it sounded like every step was followed by an answering step. Truthfully, it was a bit unnerving, but I found a solution: planting my butt in one spot and largely not moving! Also playing lots of David Bowie. And the aforementioned Dragon's Milk.

Still, I spent the evening working on an outline for the new project and dining on some sushi that I was somewhat strong-armed into buying at Kroger by a very persuasive and persistent chef (but it was very good). I ended up working quite productively until 2am, though I got hit once by a wave of intense missing-of-the-family. Then I woke up this morning, mastered the art of pouring milk over cereal, and met Meg downstairs for a visit to the Homeless Families Foundation's Dowd Education Center, where I gave my talk on understanding story construction using Hollywood blockbusters. The kids there were great, very enthusiastic, very cinema-knowledgable, and very smart. (I'll return tomorrow to take them through some writing exercises based on today's concepts.)

I returned to Thurber House where I met Erin Deel, General House Administrator and Barbie Tootle, Interim Executive Director, both very nice. Then lunch (pot pie), after which the aforementioned lack of toothpaste was just too much. Erin kindly took me back to Kroger, where I picked up everything I forgot to make yesterday. I walked around the house some more, reading the placards for the self-guided tour and looking at all the historical items. At five, everyone working at the house left, so I shut myself upstairs and continued working. Which is where I am now. Though I think I'm about to pause and begin the good work of catching up on Game of Thrones.

More tomorrow! Meanwhile, here is a picture of what I believe to be an ancient iPod:

Thurber House: Day Zero

Today is the day! I'm standing with my laptop propped in a windowsill overlooking the runway of the
Birmingham International Airport, drinking a Mocha-Not-Sure-This-Is-Light Frappuccino I certainly don't need and waiting to board the first leg of a flight that will take me to Columbus, Ohio. When I arrive, I'll be heading to Thurber House and starting my month-long sojourn as the 2016 Children's Writer-in-Residence.

While there, I'll be living in the third floor of the historic building, teaching up to ten hours a week of writing workshops to kids in a variety of programs across Columbus (including Thurber House's writing camps), exploring the city of Columbus, and enjoying the longest sustained period of writing seclusion I've ever had in my life.

It's going to be "an experience" from all kinds of angles. First, I've never left my family for so long (my daughter cried all the way to the airport, expressing the hope that they wouldn't let me in when I got there and I'd have to come back). Two, I'll be teaching some new workshop material I've never used before. Three, I've never had such an uninterrupted period to emerge myself totally in my work before. Four, it occurred to me the other day that a month is a lot longer to be in a place than just a vacation or visit. Columbus will join the lists of places I've actually lived. (I know that's a nebulous, subjective thing, but I figure when you are shopping for groceries, doing laundry, and cleaning your own bathroom, that counts as living there.) Of, and the house is reported haunted! (I don't believe in ghosts, but if there are any, I sure hope they like David Bowie.) I've already spotted a brewery that serves dinner about ten minutes walk to the west of me and a craft beer store two minutes to the southeast, so, you know, while I did forget my toothpaste, I've got the essentials covered.

Another thing that's going to be interesting. The plan was for me to finish a first draft of the current project two months ago and spend the time between then and now outlining something new. Instead, life got in the way and I only wrote "The End" earlier this week. And it was a very rough "The End." Meaning there is a LOT of rewriting and restructuring to do before anyone else can see it. But I really want to use this opportunity to write something else and produce two manuscripts this year. So while I'm polishing the previous project, I'll also be working on a new one. And where it usually takes me one to two months to outline my stories, I'll have to condense the outlining into the first few days I'm there or the time will be wasted!

So, Lou's got to plot and write faster than he ever has before, while making the previous manuscript shine, while living alone, without his family (who I'll miss terribly), in a potentially haunted house in a city I've never visited before.

I'll be making daily or near daily reports here on this blog and blabbing on social media. Feel free to comment, and if you are in or around Columbus, come by! They'll be selling my books the entire time I'm there, with several signing opportunities. And I know where the beer is!

(Oh, and the Frappuccino was a distraction to take my mind off the TSA guy who set my tennis shoes, soles down, on top of my laptop's sleeve. I had set my laptop on its sleeve so it didn't have to sit on the filthy bottom of those plastic bins. He moves my laptop to another bin and then puts my shoes on top of my case! Gross! Gross! Gross!)

Thrones and Bones Stop Motion

This is the Coolest. Thing. Ever. 

Students playing Thrones & Bones, the board game from my novel Frostborn, in stop motion.


The Jarl wins in part two:

Is This The World's Greatest Thrones & Bones Set?

I saw something utterly stupendous this week. My good friend and amazing author J. F. Lewis (Staked, Grudgebearer) decided he wanted his own Thrones & Bones set, Thrones & Bones being the board game played in Frostborn, the first book of the series of the same name. And he didn't just want any set. He wanted a beautiful, wood-carved set that could be an objet d'art as well as a playable game.

After some scouting, he found Ignited Arts & Design, the company of an artist named Jack Windsor. Jack does amazing work, and he specializes in hnefatafl boards, the real world Viking game that served as inspiration for Norrøngard's Thrones & Bones (though there are a few differences between Earth's game and the Qualth game).

And just look at the result! Notice the shields marking the spots for the shield maidens, the barrow mounds with broken corpse doors, the design on the edges! I think they've put my own prototype to shame.

Reflections from the Road: Catfish and ASLA

This past Saturday, June 4th, I was a guest of the Athens-Limestone Public Library's 2nd Annual Catfish Literary Festival, held in Athens, Alabama. There were no catfish in attendance that I could see, but there were some 33 Alabama authors exhibiting their works. I participated in a science fiction and fantasy panel and then gave a solo presentation on the world of Thrones & Bones. Thanks to host Kristopher Reisz, director Paula Laurita, and everyone else who came out to the show(and especially to those who bought books!).

Then on Monday, June 6th, I attended the Alabama School Library Association Summer Conference, held this year at Corner High School in Dora, Alabama. This is an annual meeting of school librarians from across the state. They come for a day of workshops and lectures, but in between each session, they mingle with the attending authors (and buy books!). As I've spoken to some seventeen schools in Alabama, I saw a lot of familiar faces. It was a good time and the door was opened on the possibility of several more school visits in the fall.

How to Arrange an Author Visit to Your School

I'll be hitting the road in September to promote the release of Skyborn, the third book in the Thrones & Bones trilogy. So far, I've visited 40 schools around the United States, the tours taking me to  Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Massachusetts, New York, and Washington. I'll be hitting Nebraska and Ohio this summer, and I'll be back in Texas in the fall. If you're a teacher, librarian, or student interested in having me visit your school in the Fall, please see the "For Educators" section of my website for how to make this happen!

Accolades for Frostborn include:

• A starred review in Publishers Weekly, who also selected it for the "PW Picks: Books of the Week" for the week of August 4th, 2014.
• A Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Books of the Year selection.
• An American Booksellers Association 2014 ABC Best Books for Children Catalog selection.
• A 2015-16 Beehive Book Awards nominee.
• A 2016-17 Golden Sower Award nominee.
• A 2016-17 Young Hoosier Book Award nominee.
• A 2016-17 Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Awards nominee.
• An Editor's Choice on Amazon for August 2014.
• An io9's "Must-Read Science Fiction And Fantasy Books For August."
• An Imagination Soup selection as one of the "Best Books for 10 Year Olds."
• Youth Staff selection for Best Books: Elk Island Public Schools PD Day 2015
• A Staff Pick at Book Shop Santa Cruz, Books Inc., Eagle Harbor Book Co., Edmonds Bookshop, Hoover Public Library, King's English Bookshop, Mockingbird Books, Politics and Prose, Powell's, Queen's Library, North Shelby Library, Santa Clara City Library F, The Springfield Missouri district library, The Waucoma Bookstore and Word Bookstores.

Review: Seducing Strangers: How to Get People to Buy What You're Selling by Josh Weltman

Seducing Strangers: How to Use the Secrets of Advertising to Get Someone Somewhere to Do Something by Joshua Weltman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Seducing Strangers was a fascinating read. This relatively slight book packs a lot of information. Before I was even a third of the way in, it had me rethinking my approach to online marketing and promotions, and I can see this being one of the few books that I refer back to frequently in years to come. Meanwhile, it's had the ancillary effect of making me want to watch Mad Men again! Recommended.


View all my reviews

Reflections from the Road: Dacula Elementary and Mulberry Elementary

This week, I made a return visit to Gwinnett County, Georgia for two school visits. On May 11th, I was a guest of Dacula Elementary School. I previously visited Dacula for an evening appearance at their Scholastic Book Fair. This time, I came back during the day to give three separate Thrones & Bones book presentations to their third, fourth, and fifth classes respectively. It was a great time, and all together I spoke to around 560 students across the three grades. What's more, the students had made some fantastic Thrones & Bones fan art--always a highlight of school visits!


That evening, I was treated to Jim 'N Nicks Bar-B-Q by Media Specialist Paul Carey and his wife Dea, where we had great food and wonderful conversation (everything from Terry Pratchett to Babylon 5.)

Then it was up early on May 12th for my first visit to Mulberry Elementary School, marking what is my 40th school since I began touring with the debut of Frostborn. (If you want to see the full list of my travels, click here.) I did three back to back presentations for their 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classes as well at Mulberry, and had an absolute blast! Thank you very much to Media Specialist Susan Noland for having me in her fine library  and making it such a fantastic visit!

Roleplaying in the World of Thrones and Bones

For the past year or so now, I've been running a role playing game for my son, my nephew, and other boys. We play using the wonderfully customizable Fate Core System rules from Evil Hat. And we play in the world of my Thrones & Bones novels. All the boys have read the books and are well verses in the universe (as, one hopes, is the GM).

We've been playing using the mostly unmodified rules in Fate up until this point, but after we finished our last campaign in November, I've spent my time customizing the rules using some options in the Fate System Toolkit, and the result is something a bit removed from the no-alterations Fate rules. We tried it out last Saturday for the first time. (The differences are mostly in character creation and the use of magic).

Also, for the first time, we played with miniatures and terrain. Fate doesn't require this at all, but I wanted to do something special to fire everyone's imaginations. Initially, I'd planned to use Rainn Studio's utterly magnificent TerraTiles (I have both the Misty Moorlands and the Coast & Rivers sets). And we will use them. But the way this campaign started, the team was supposed to get their marching orders in the elven city of Fair Shadow, a location that is mentioned but not visited in my novel Nightborn. Since I was going to have an amazing terrain set up after they left the city and started their quest, I wanted something to show them when they arrived. I hunted around and I found the incredible Faewood Loft and its expansion set from Heroic Maps. Well, I got a little carried away and ended up printing all the tiles out and gluing them to foam boards. The result was a large battle map of a city in the trees. And having such a large map, I couldn't just use it for five minutes while the characters were given their quest and sent on their merry way. Something obviously had to go down there to justify all this time and effort, right?

So next up, using a female wood elf drawn for me by the incredible Andrew Bosley, and supplementing with some found art, I made my own pawns and populated the city. We added a small number of Paizo's Pathfinder Pawns from the Beginner Box, and we used a ton of Pathfinder Pawn Bases. I picked up some pickle barrels from a craft store (and stained them with paint pens) to add some obstacles to the environment. And, because I saw one and it got me thinking, I picked up a Bunch-o-Butterfies too, because if there's one thing that's better than a crowded market high in the trees in an elven city, it's a crowded market high in the trees in an elven city during the festival surrounding the biannual giant butterfly migration! 

The game went incredibly well, with highlights being when Thurso Greenback, a wulver, ran across a giant butterfly's back to get from one wooden platform to the next, and Blitz Ironfist, a dwarven artificer, blasted across the market using his single-use jetpack. Also, Isha the cat person did some crazy parkour. 

Ironically, we never made it out of the city in this first session, so I still haven't used the gorgeous TerraTiles from Rainn Studios that inspired me to add terrain and miniatures in the first place. They'll have to wait till our next game. Meanwhile, they were represented at the table by the use of their foam risers, which gave some parts of the city more elevation than others. (Q-workshop's awesome dice tower and Paizo's Pathfinder Combat Pad also aided in play).

But we all had a magnificent time. And that's the point, isn't it?

Reflections from the Road: My Visit with Boy Scouts of America Troop 86

I've spoken to around forty schools since Frostborn debuted, all across America. You can see the list here if you are curious. I've also spoken at a lot of libraries and at literary festivals in addition to science fiction and fantasy conventions. But recently, a new venue for sharing the world of Thrones & Bones has opened up. You see, I'm very fortunate that this month my short story, "Kori and the Troll," is the featured fiction in the May 2016 issue of Boy's Life, the official magazine of the Boy Scouts of America. And through that connection, I got invited to speak to Troup 86!

Last night, I spoke to a room full of Boy Scouts. The scouts were from several different schools, but in a room of about twenty scouts, only two had me visit their school before. I presented the world of Thrones & Bones, including a ton of amazing imagery created by artists Justin Gerard, Andrew Bosley, and Robert Lazzaretti. I showed pictures of my research trip to Norway. And I talked about the creation of the Thrones & Bones and Charioteers board games (which feature in the books Frostborn and Nightborn respectively, with rules for each included in the back of their books). Afterwards, I got to sign and rune-stamp books for the scouts.

It was a great time, and I hope I get to talk to other Boy Scout troops in future. Meanwhile, thank you Troop 86 for hosting me!

The Summer Dragon

Happy Book Birthday to Todd Lockwood's The Summer Dragon, the first book of the Evertide. Todd is one of the top illustrators in our field. It's been my privilege to work with him on book covers in the past, and I know firsthand that he is also a tremendous guy. But just because someone excels in one field or is a nice person doesn't mean they are necessarily going to be great at something else. 

t was fortunate enough to be able to read The Summer Dragon in manuscript form last year, and I am happy to say that Todd is also a tremendous writer. This is a great book. The world is richly conceived, with a complex history as well as a confident grasp of the ins-and-outs of the daily life of a dragon breeder. At the same time, the world building is never heavy handed--no info dumping here--but a smooth passage through a fully realized environment. The characters are great--I hope my own daughter will read about Maia's adventures when she is old enough--and the plot exciting.

The whole book is beautifully executed, and if that weren't incentive enough, it's also copiously illustrated by Lockwood himself. You're going to want a hardcover of this because the book itself is an objet d'art. Not to be missed. Go buy it now!

Boy's Life Fiction: "Kori and the Troll"

Huge news!

I have a short story in May 2016 issue of Boys' Life, the official youth publication of the Boy Scouts of America!

"Kori and the Troll" is a story set in the world of my Thrones & Bones novels. In fact, the Kori of the title has a special relationship with one of my two lead characters in Frostborn. I don't write many short stories. I'm very proud of this one, and I'm absolutely thrilled to be in Boy's Life.

Plus, Antonio Javier Caparo provides the art and it's fantastic!

The story is currently behind a subscriber wall, but if you are a scout or have a scout in your life, I hope you'll check it out!

Reflections from the Road: Alabama Library Association 2016 Annual Conference

With my handler Annabelle. Thumbs up!

Last night, I drove to Gadsden, Alabama for the Alabama Library Association 2016 Annual Conference. I was there for the Author Expo, which was held at 210 at the Tracks, an event venue in downtown Gadsden. I got there an hour early so that I could visit Dragon Quills, the local comic and gaming store. Dragon Quills even has a small SF&F book selection, and I was tickled to see some fantasy books I edited on their shelf.

4pm saw a reception for the attending authors, about thirty of us, and then we were paired at booths with an equal number of exhibitors from 5pm to 8pm to mingle with librarians from around the state and sign books. Booksamillion was on hand with copies of Frostborn (in paperback) and Nightborn (in hardcover). I signed lots of books, met tons of wonderful librarians, and nearly sold out of Booksamillion's stock.

Afterwards, I got into an intense discussion with Joshilyn Jackson (The Opposite of Everyone) about Grant Morrison's best work and her peculiar "every other Doctor" preference for actors in Doctor Who (a bit like even numbered Star Trek films).

Thanks to Amanda Jackson, Director of the Gadsden Public Library and Gadsden Museum of Art, everyone at the Alabama Library Association, Booksamillion, and my wonderful handler Annabelle Barrow (check out her design work here).

Reflections from the Road: Altamont and Hilltop

With Spring Break just behind me, I've been remiss about reporting on recent school visits for the Nightborn tour. But last month, I visited both The Altamont School and Hilltop Montessori School. This was my second time speaking to both schools.

On March 15th, I spent a day with students at Altamont. In the morning, I spoke to the entire middle school, then I had lunch in the library with a group of about twenty students. Then, in the afternoon, I drew on my ten years as an art director to give a presentation about how book covers are commissioned, illustrated, designed, and produced to the 5th and 6th grade English classes. It was a fantastic time with some great kids.

Then, on March 23rd, I visited Hilltop Montessori School during their Spring Scholastic Book Fair. I didn't speak this visit, but sat at a table at the end of day signing the Scholastic edition of Frostborn. The school had also purchased several copies of Nightborn for sale to the students, and I'm thrilled to say we nearly sold out of both books.

More school visits coming up later this month! Stay tuned. And if you are a teacher, librarian, or student interested in having me visit your school, see the "For Educators" page of my website for information on how we can make this happen.