One of the questions that I hear fairly often these days is “Which of your books should I start with?” I now have an entire page on this website to help with your questions about reading order.
The short answer is: “Start anywhere you like with any book set before 1935.” (Though there are a couple where you might have more fun in a specific order.) Read on for a few more thoughts about that.
Shoemaker’s Wife is about coming home from the Great War and trying to figure out your life now. It’s about the difference between falling in love and having a happy marriage. It’s about keeping a business running (and dealing with a difficult customer). It’s about finding work that will keep body and soul together for a bit longer. (And maybe something more.)
And it’s also got a theatre during panto season, a theatre ghost, and the art and craft of shoemaking.
And for those who loved Golshan, Seth, and Dilly (seen in Casting Nasturtiums, which ends about 8 months before Golshan appears in Shoemaker’s Wife), they all lend a hand.
I’ve had a couple of questions recently about how I feel about fanfic – so time for a post where I can lay it all out.
Short version: I love and approve of fanfic, but please don’t send me any fanfic (or related text, like ideas you’ve had for it) or otherwise directly wave it in front of my eyes. Sharing fan art, craft projects, and other forms of fannish goodness are all wonderful.
Read on for more of an explanation (and why I’m putting it this way.)
One of the reasons I’m excited about my website (and authorial wiki) updates is that they’re making it easier to share more about what you can expect from a given book. Time for me to talk about your options here, depending on what information you’re interested in, and whether you want to avoid certain kinds of spoilers.
Before we get into that, though, a general word about what you will and won’t find in my books.
(more…)Recently, a friend commented on how much she loved the alt-text on my images, and I promised I’d do a post talking about how I think about that. I’m aiming this at people talking about things like book covers – whether you’re a reader, a librarian, or an author – though I’ll be linking to some more general resources as well, some of which talk about describing more complex images.
Hello, and welcome to my newly redesigned website! I wanted to take a moment to share some of what you can find now. I’ve also revamped and redesigned my authorial wiki, and this post also has more about what you can find there.
I’ve written an ever increasing number of books, and I have a lot more in mind. While you can absolutely still read almost all of them in any order you like, I wanted to make it easier to find the books you’re interested in.
Here’s what the website and wiki now make possible. Read on for more specifics and a lot of links.
A way to follow characters or larger arcs across multiple books. Are you curious about a particular character? The wiki will let you find out all the places they appear, and which books are significant. Curious about the full arc of the books about the Carillons or the Edgartons or the Council? You can find lists and brief notes about each book in one place.
A way to find the books you’re most interested in (or avoid the books that aren’t your thing, or not right now). To make this easier, I’ve created tags, content notes, and a list of books with context that let you browse for those things you want to read.
A way to put books in order in different ways. With books reaching from 1882 to 1940 right now (and expecting more Victorian-era books to come, as well as books up through 1947 or so), timelines and internal chronological order start becoming a lot more useful.
A site that fits the feel of my books – and highlights my gorgeous covers. I love my covers so much. Augusta does an amazing job on them. I’m delighted to have a site that puts them front and centre. You’ll notice other details like the header font matching my cover font.
(more…)Welcome to our idea to book post for the last book in the Mysterious Powers series, Mistress of Birds. The idea for this book grew out of three things: a desire to try my hand at something more in the gothic vein, being fascinated by Dartmoor, and of course, apples. (With a bonus note about titles, for fun.)
It’s time for summer reading challenges where I am. Whatever time of year it is for you, I thought it might be fun to do a round up of some reading challenges. Some of these come from libraries, and some come from other groups. I’m still waiting on my local library’s challenge (out on June 17th), but I’m thinking about how I’d like to nudge my reading a little bit.
(To be honest, a lot of it has been research reading, one way or another, and I would like to mix it up, and also just read more.)
Here are some different challenges to check out. You can also check your local library systems (a lot of libraries put something together for adults, as well as for kids and teens.) If there’s nothing up yet, check back later in June, my local public library isn’t launching theirs until the 17th.
(more…)If you’ve been anywhere on the Internet recently, you’ve probably seen a lot of comments about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning when it comes to creative applications like art and writing. (Among other reasons, it’s a big part of the current Writer’s Guild of America strike.) It’s about time for a post from me about what that means for my writing, and then some general thoughts about the larger implications of these new and ever-improving technologies.
One thing that’s making some of these conversations complicated is that people are using the terms “artificial intelligence” and “machine learning” in a variety of ways. Here we’re mostly talking about situations where computers use information they’ve been trained on to give output (basically, making predictions of what makes sense based on what they’ve already seen.)
Reviews are a fantastic way for readers to help out authors they want to support. But a lot of readers are nervous about what to write, where to share them, and what they ought to know about the process.
Here’s a little demystification to help. I’m focusing here obviously on books, but the same basic process can help with music, podcasts, and all sorts of other content out there.
The short version: Leaving a brief (2-3 sentence) review of books you love wherever you get or talk about your books is a fabulous way to both help other readers and the author. They don’t need to be long or complicated to help.
When authors talk about reviews helping, what we mean is usually something simple.
We’re talking about a review of one to four sentences from a real human who read the book and wanted to share a couple of thoughts. You don’t need to be elaborate and you don’t need to include tons of details. Reviews like this help provide what gets called “social proof”, that real humans read the book and had a range of feelings about it.
Detailed reviews and literary criticism are fantastic too – but they’re a completely different thing. Many people aren’t up for writing that (and certainly not about all the books or music or whatever else it was they enjoy).
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