EVERY HEART A DOORWAY...: seanan

EVERY HEART A DOORWAY...

...every word a prayer.

Every Heart a Doorway is in the wild and in the world today. It's a beautiful book. Saying nothing about its contents, only about the book as a physical object, it's a beautiful book. The cover, the heft, the whole design, it's just gorgeous. And I made this. Me. This book exists because Lee Harris said "write me a thing," and my response when someone says "write me a thing" is to write a thing. This book exists because Irene Gallo designed it with love and care and attention to detail that takes my breath away.

It's so beautiful. It's something that will exist in libraries and on bookshelves forever. A hundred years from now, someone will still own this book. They will have this beautiful thing. That is just...it's amazing.

I feel like this is some of my best work. It's short and it's elegant and it's important in a way that's hard for me to fully articulate. It's about teenagers and trauma and magical doors and the things we are and the things our parents want us to be, and the things that we become.

If you already have your copy, thank you so very, very much. Thank you for helping me to get this book out into the world, thank you for helping me to convince Tor.com that I'm a good bet, and thank you for letting this story live. Stories need to be read to be real.

If you don't have your copy yet, that's absolutely okay. The world is big and has many things in it. If you were thinking of buying one, signed copies can be purchased now from Borderlands Books and The Booksmith, both in San Francisco (both do mail orders). I will also be signing copies for the University Bookstore in Seattle this coming weekend at Emerald City Comic Con.

Thank you all again, so, so much.

This will also serve as your discussion post.

alexseanchai.dreamwidth.org

April 7 2016, 05:01:17 UTC 1 year ago

New comment

Well. I know what I'm nominating for Yuletide.

seanan_mcguire

April 14 2016, 15:52:15 UTC 1 year ago

Hooray!

I'll have to watch for it. I know authors don't get to dictate fic (and I know this both as an author and a fic writer), but if it makes the list of fandoms, I will post asking people to please not erase Nancy's asexuality. It's so rare to have an explicitly ace canon character.

ordered mine last month

siriosa

April 7 2016, 18:47:48 UTC 1 year ago

picked it up yesterday. because timing matters.

RE: ordered mine last month

April 14 2016, 15:53:35 UTC 1 year ago

Thank you.

Pamela Adams

April 7 2016, 22:56:08 UTC 1 year ago

Absolutely loved it. I received it yesterday, devoured it last night, and am now planning this evening's re-read.

I was afraid of how it would end, but we got a perfect happily-ever-after.

April 14 2016, 15:53:52 UTC 1 year ago

It was deeply important to me that she get to go home.

anne_d

April 7 2016, 23:35:06 UTC 1 year ago

It came today. I stopped what I was doing, and just read until I was done.

Wow. There is so much to love in this story - the diversity, the beauty of the writing, the sheer magic of it. And the ending. I still don't know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe both are in order.

April 14 2016, 16:01:38 UTC 1 year ago

k_crow

April 8 2016, 02:42:45 UTC 1 year ago

Thank you for writing this book. It was the book I needed and couldn't find at 13, and nearly-40-year-old-me is so glad it exists in the world now. It's the book I'm going to encourage a dying friend to read, because I think they need what it says. It broke my heart in all the best ways, and lightened my spirit. Thank you, Seanan.

April 14 2016, 16:01:55 UTC 1 year ago

You are so welcome, and I am so sorry for your impending loss.

wendyzski

April 8 2016, 23:33:32 UTC 1 year ago

I've been holding off - because I knew that once I started reading it would be nearly impossible to stop. But I gave in last night.

Only 30%ish in and my heart is already broken. When Lundy tells Nancy about the girl who went back through the mirror during holiday break. All I could see was the woman waiting in the shadows of her home as the clock strikes midnight, watching her daughter step through that mirror, and having the strength and so much love and pain and memories and regret and courage to break the glass so her daughter would never again know the pain of having to return. I was weeping on a bench in the library.

I want to hear her story. I want to WRITE her story - and I'm a terrible writer!

April 14 2016, 16:08:35 UTC 1 year ago

If things continue as they are, and I continue to be me, I'll get there.

pghbekka

April 9 2016, 01:16:19 UTC 1 year ago

I don't have my very own copy yet (because My budget needed to go to Wicked Girls cds this month) - but I was the first on the library hold list and i get to pick it up tomorrow!

April 14 2016, 16:08:46 UTC 1 year ago

Yay!

tamry

April 9 2016, 21:11:02 UTC 1 year ago

This is so very much the book I didn't know I needed. Thank you for writing it.

I think I may need a physical copy as well as my nook one.

April 14 2016, 16:08:57 UTC 1 year ago

I fully support this plan.

Deleted comment

April 14 2016, 16:20:24 UTC 1 year ago

Thank you so much for reading.

joyce

April 10 2016, 16:59:59 UTC 1 year ago

So, I went to a special high school - one of those public boarding magnet schools - and my little gang of folks were the weird folks at the school full of weird folks and it was one of the very first times I felt at home and things felt right and I knew I'd figure out how to be. So now I'm sitting here trying not to weep over my lunch. Thank you thank you thank you.

We are the stories, not the epilogues, indeed.

April 14 2016, 16:20:45 UTC 1 year ago

Oh, wow.

You are so very welcome.

April 14 2016, 16:21:12 UTC 1 year ago

You are so welcome.

April 11 2016, 02:19:37 UTC 1 year ago

I waved the book under the Husband's nose. He just finished it. He said, among other things, that he was impressed with how much was in such a short book, and that he wanted more. He also said he kept thinking of you as Mira Grant, but that's because he's only read the Newsflesh books previously. I think he liked it. Heh heh heh, now, what do I tempt him with next? Indexing, maybe?

April 14 2016, 16:55:58 UTC 1 year ago

Indexing, or Sparrow Hill Road.

1 year ago

shanejayell

April 13 2016, 00:38:06 UTC 1 year ago

Oh, I just find myself sitting here wanting MORE. More Kade, more Nancy, more Jack and Jill even. It's such a interesting yet vaguelly CREEPY little world you've made here.

April 14 2016, 16:56:23 UTC 1 year ago

There will be more!

April 13 2016, 01:31:52 UTC 1 year ago Edited: April 13 2016, 01:32:31 UTC

Mine mine me me yes. and also more please. I loved everything about this, and also it kept reminding me of your most amazing doll story, and like every story you tell, i want more, and at the same time all your stories fill the nooks and crannies in my soul and are enough and please don't mind me as i settle at your feet for storytime.

April 14 2016, 16:56:34 UTC 1 year ago

dar205

April 15 2016, 00:11:27 UTC 1 year ago

I found you via InCryptids, and then October Daye. Thank you.

This book was wonderful. I really loved the lines "When I danced with the Lord of the Dead for the first time, he said it was beautiful, and ran his fingers through it. All the hair turned white around them, out of jealousy." (p25)

I was pretty much hooked, and sad when I came to the end because the story was finished.

sdn

April 17 2016, 01:05:37 UTC 1 year ago

Seanan, I loved this so much. You're right; it is some of your best work. Thank you.

heavensgardener

April 18 2016, 16:40:49 UTC 1 year ago

I preordered it and then unfortunately didn't have the brainpower at the time to actually give it a good read since I was finishing my undergrad thesis draft + another paper + a short story for a class workshop. It's sitting on my desk, waiting for when I'm free of this last paper tomorrow to read and I am looking forward to it so much.

meddlingkids22

April 18 2016, 19:20:51 UTC 1 year ago

This book was incredible. It spoke to me on so many levels. I think what I love most is how the kids all have different ideas for what an adventurous quest would be. The description of the various darker worlds really resonated with my inner Tim Burton fan. And the way the "unicorns and rainbows" brigade saw them as screwed up or disgusting brought back memories. When I was a budding teenage writer, my first stories were all about places like the Halls or the Moors.

killjoy188

April 19 2016, 01:02:44 UTC 1 year ago

The part that really got me was Loriel and her Webworld (apologies for probably getting her name wrong, I don't have the book in front of me now). The way she was so close and so far from going home. She was the most unlikable person in the book and then she became my favorite. That just killed me, how she almost made it home. And I instantly knew what she meant when she pointed beside Jack (which made me feel smart ;) ) I think Jack knew exactly what she meant too.

groblek

April 19 2016, 18:00:44 UTC 1 year ago

This was both lovely and heartbreaking in places. The bit about how long and where Loriel's gate and her adoptive mother would sit waiting for someone who would never return particularly struck home. I loved Jack's character, and Kade, and that ending was perfect.

And the next time I go visit my parents, I'm going to have to go see if Mom and I can dig up the portal fantasy she wrote for me when I was a kid and she was trying to write children's books. She quite literally wrote me in as the main character, and I spent a long time after picking up sticks and hoping they'd turn into a magic book like the one in Mom's story.

naurwen

May 3 2016, 08:28:25 UTC 1 year ago

I finally got this book via order and read it and it's amazing.
Thank you for this book! Thank you!
It's one my mind keeps coming back to and I think will do so again and again.
***precious***

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EVERY HEART A DOORWAY...

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ordered mine last month

RE: ordered mine last month