Phoebe Yeh at Crown has bought The Dragon Squire by Lou Anders, a middle grade medieval twist on Freaky Friday, in which an arrogant dragon and a hapless young squire switch bodies after a spell goes awry. Publication is slated for summer 2018; Barry Goldblatt at Barry Goldblatt Literary sold world English rights.
I'm honored to report that I'll be the Keynote Speaker this coming October 14th at Pioneer Con 2016, a new event described as "3/4 Comic-Con and 1/4 academic conference" being put on by the Sigma Kappa Delta English honor society of Jefferson State Community College. Here are the details:
I'm a guest today on episode 6 of author Paul Durham's wonderful new podcast, Telling Lies to Children. It's a great day for it, as Skyborn (Thrones & Bones book 3) just debuted! As Paul puts it, we talk about "we talk about Lou's many accents, video-gaming as inspiration, and the utility of collapsible Viking helmets."
This October, Alamo City Comic Con has announced a brand new programming track, the Young Adventurers!Alamo City Comic Con and Barnes & Noble have partnered up to provide ACCC2016 attendees a whole new and exciting experience: YOUNG ADVENTURERS! Held at the Henry B Gonzalez Convention Center from October 28th-30th, 2016, our Young Adventurers experience focuses on 6 award-winning middle grade authors. Holly Black (The Spiderwick Chronicles series, The Modern Faerie Tale series), Bruce Coville (My Teacher Is An Alien, Unicorn Chronicles series), Lou Anders (Thrones & Bones series), Obert Skye (Leven Thumps series, The Pillage trilogy), Melissa Marr (Wicked Lovely series, The Blackwell Pages series), and Matthew Cody (Supers Of Noble Green trilogy, Will In Scarlet) will be in attendance to meet fans, sign books, and offer children's programming (panels) that is open to all ACCC attendees. SPECIAL LIMITED-SEATING EVENT: On Friday, October 28th, join our special guests and emcee, David Liss (Randoms, The Day of Atonement), to get first-hand knowledge of the ins and outs of creating best selling works. Our in-depth WRITERS WORKSHOP is limited to 75 attendees, so act fast to secure your seat to this unique and informative event geared towards amateur and professional writers alike. For more info, and to stay up to date. Keep up with the Facebook event Page.
Huge news!
My novel, Frostborn, book one in the Thrones & Bones series, has just been listed as a nominee in the 2016-2017 Young Hoosier Book Award Nominees in the Middle Grade category. The Young Hoosier Book Award is administered by Indiana Library Federation. Each year the YHBA committee selects twenty titles in the category of Picture Books, Intermediate, and Middle Grade. Indiana students serving in grades K-8 then vote on their favorite book. Any Indiana student can vote, provided they have read 5 of the 20 books in the Middle Grade category. I'm thrilled to be on this list, alongside many great works, including books by friends Jonathan Auxier, Holly Black, and Brandon Sanderson.
I'm very excited to announce that I have joined the amazing guest lineup of FaerieCon 2015, held in Baltimore, MD on November 6th-8th! Come see me and a host of other guests, including Holly Black, Kami Garcia, Kelly Armstrong, Melissa Marr and Einar Selvik, founder of the band Wardruna, who provide the music for the show Vikings! 
My editor at Random House Children's Books, the wonderful Phoebe Yeh, conducted a three-part interview with Yours Truly to celebrate the release of Nightborn. Part one, "On Norse Mythology, Strong Female Heroines, and Gaming," debuted on the website Brightly. Part Two, "On World Building," appeared on Suvudu. Part Three covers my research trip to Norway, and what being an editor taught me about being a writer. You can read it on SF Signal.
inspired artwork, and even costumes from readers across America and the UK. I'm always happy to add to this wonderful repository!
with the Tween Book Club of the North Suburban Library District's Roscoe, Illinois Branch. The club is hosted by librarian Tammy Tucker, and meets only twice annually. Each time, they choose one book and meet once a week for three weeks to discuss it. At the first meeting, they discuss the first 1/3 of the book and do crafts related to the read. In this case, the Tween Book Club made their own Thrones and Bones games! In the second meeting, they Skype with the author. In the third, they have a party and eat food related to the book (which, in the case of Frostborn, means they can try some skyr!).
This past weekend, my family and I got to visit an actual storybook castle!
We visited their house on Saturday, for food, coffee, and a long visit between our two families. The Moshers are all very creative people, even if they didn't live in a castle. Pagan is the Artistic Director at Children's Dance Theatre of Fairhope and Owner/Director at Creative Outlet Dance Center. Dean is an historic painter whose work is in museums around the country. His “Wilbur Wrights Greets Lady Liberty" is on permanent exhibition in the Early Flight wing of the National Air & Space Museum! The story of the year's long research period for the "Battle of Flamborough Head" is jaw-droppingly amazing. Dean actually constructed a 20 foot wide section of a ship's hull and fired a cannon ball through it to get an accurate rendition of the blast effect and debris! And that's just one aspect of his process. The detail and historical accuracy of his work is amazing, and someone could make an incredible (and enjoyable!) history book by charting the process of creating one of his paintings start to finish (all of which are photo-documented and backed up by scholars and experts). Check out his portfolio here. Their son and his girlfriend are also creative types and were very fun to talk with too. I didn't get a chance to meet their daughter, but, in addition to being a television producer, she is also an author, having co-authored a book called The Spirit of Fairhope with her father).
they left out on the coffee table!) - it was absolutely the highlight of the trip and an experience we'll never forget.
On the seventeenth episode of Reality Bomb we have another supersized episode featuring our final panel review of Series 8 that includes Lori Steuart, Jon Arnold and Children's Fantasy author Lou Anders (Thrones and Bones: Frostborn). We also have a conversation with Cat Smith and Lindsey Mayers about Missy / The Master. And Titan's Doctor Who tenth Doctor comic book writer Nick Abadzis tries (and possibly fails) to get The Twin Dilemma into the Gallery of the Underrated. All this plus Listeners' Letters, poltical attack ads you need to hear... and host Graeme Burk gets an offer he can't refuse!
