It is my considerable pleasure, absolute delight, and no small amount of awed bafflement, to announce that the Mason trilogy has been sold in a three book deal to Orbit, with concurrent publication by Orbit UK. They will be published beginning in 2010, with Feed (working title: Newsflesh) coming out sometime mid-year. All three books will be published under the name "Mira Grant," my shiny new open pseudonym. I have a pseudonym and a horror series. You have absolutely no concept of how much this makes me feel like Stephen King right now.

We sold the Mason books. Alive or dead, the truth won't rest.

Rise up while you can.

(PS: Please don't ask "why the title change" or "why the pseudonym" on this post. I'll post explaining both when I get over sitting here looking stunned and giggling to myself.)

One year ago today, I got up, got dressed, and went to work. I put on jeans, a bright yellow tank top, and my pink-and-yellow Chimera Fancies pendant that reads "fairy changeling this is all a dream." This sentiment would become very, very easy to believe, very, very soon.

One year ago today, The Agent was out beating the streets as she looked for the right house for my Toby Daye books. Actually, we knew what The Right House was: it was DAW Books, the very first publisher we'd been in contact with, after being referred there by one of their existing authors. They had exactly the right sort of atmosphere, and they'd published a lot of books I've really loved. I wanted to work with these people. I just had to hope that they wanted to work with me.

One year ago today, my phone rang. My display informed me that it was The Agent (which is actually what her number is saved under in my phone, because I am occasionally bizarre like that), so I excused myself to take the call.

One year ago today, The Agent said these words to me: "We got DAW."

This was followed by a lot of other information about contracts and money and publishing schedules and blah blah blah fishcakes, because I had really checked out completely. Out of the conversation, out of body, out to lunch, buh-bye. I made all the appropriate noises of assent, and managed to sound like I wasn't crying, because years of fake-it-til-you-make-it has made me really, really good at that sort of thing. (Severe back injury plus chronic pain issues plus "suck it up" equals I can sound perky and happy about my situation while being consumed from the toes up by a giant snake. It's awesome. Also sort of bad, because my automatic response to trauma is frequently "gosh, what fun.")

Eventually, the call ended. I went outside. I called Vixy. I made horrible shrieky bat-noises, causing dogs all around San Francisco to bark themselves hoarse, run in circles, and slam into trees. Pigeons lost the ability to fly, and splattered down on the pavement like really disturbing rain. Vixy, upon determining that I was shrieky with joy, not distress, made suitable noises until I calmed down enough to tell her what was going on. Then she started shrieking, too. It was a shrieky day.

One year ago, I sold my first trilogy. Today, I have three framed cover illustrations on my living room walls, I have cover blanks on my dresser, and I have stacks of ARCs on my bedroom floor.

One year ago today.

Wow.

One hundred twenty-five days. That's all that remains between me, in this moment, as I'm typing this, and me, standing in a book store, holding a copy of Rosemary and Rue in my hands. Which will probably be shaking. I'm intending to creep quietly into a large chain store where nobody knows me, pay retail for the first copy I can find, and then go sit in a bathroom and cry for a good long while. And then I will dry my face and go back to the business of dealing with a release, IE, "being perky and accessible," "signing books and being charming," and "not reading my Amazon reviews." (For serious. I have been forbidden to read my Amazon reviews, and I support this commandment. I'm going to be crazy enough that week without the extra feedback.)

One hundred twenty-five days. I received my page proofs in the mail on Saturday, and have been dilligently crawling through them with a red pen, hunting and killing any errors that I find. If it makes it through the proofs, it's my fault. So I have to hunt and kill like a velociraptor trying to feed her young, aware that any mistakes made in the prehistoric jungle could lead to being eaten by a larger predator. Okay, so maybe it's not that bad. I mean, we're not at "burst into tears during the Hellboy II credits because I just figured out a continuity error" levels of high-strung yet, and we may not get there ever. But it's definitely very brain-and-stress-intensive, as well as being a fascinating exercise in reviewing my own text.

One hundred twenty-five days. My cover flats came in yesterday's mail. Actual, printed covers with my actual, printed cover image and my actual, printed back-cover text. My name and the title of the book are both embossed. After I finished crying, I started to laugh hysterically, because—without my having any actual input or control over the graphic design—I have wound up with a first novel whose title is presented in large, embossed, eye-catching, pumpkin-fucker orange lettering. Did you need proof that I control the universe? Because I actually got proof that I control the universe. And the proof is awesome.

One hundred twenty-five days. My to-do lists are starting to look like an elaborate piece of conditional theoretical math, because, of course, they fall down every time I need to wait for somebody to get back to me. "If X has not happened, Y; if X has happened, Z" is becoming a distressingly common entry. (And if you're wondering why I'm doing lists that far out, you haven't checked my schedule recently.) I'm trying to make things as unconditional as I possibly can, simply for the sake of my own sanity. And Kate's sanity. And Vixy's sanity. And The Agent's sanity. And the sanity of anybody else who has to deal with me between now and the end of September.

One hundred twenty-five days. That's when you get to meet Toby properly and in print for the very first time.

I'm so excited I could scream.

During my wandering and wending through the dark, dank, disturbing sewers of the Internet underworld -- in short, my home town -- I managed to stumble over a, well, let's go with the word 'gentleman' by the name of Anton Strout (antonstrout, for those of you in need of someone else to stalk). For the most part, I made note of his existence, was unwooed by his weirdling ways, and wandered off to do what I normally do, ie, 'poke dead stuff with sticks and see what happens.' Then came the amazing used book bonanza of 2008, which united me with a truly epic number of books both familiar and strange. One of these books was Anton's Dead To Me, about which there will be more later. I read it. I enjoyed it. I added context to his manic capering and moved on, preoccupied by the ongoing surreality of the local madmen.

Then Anton made what was either a fatal mistake, or a majorly good move, and started waving shiny banners in the air, hence attracting my mercurial coyote-girl attention. "What do you want?" I asked. "I want you to be awed by the awesome of my new book," he said. "Hmm," I said. "Also, look, shiny things," he added. "New best friend!" I cried. Because my love is always for sale, ladies and gentlemen; always for sale.

Deader Still is the second adventure of Simon Canderous, a psychometric employee of the New York branch of the Department of Extraordinary Affairs. To semi-quote myself in my upcoming review of Simon's first outing, take one part Men In Black, two parts Bureau 13, three parts 'I can totally see this as a Phil Foglio comic book adventure,' and mix thoroughly. Simon's luck is marginally better than Toby's, in that he spends slightly less of the book knocked unconscious than she tends to, but other than that, he's another bad plan minefield walking through an unsuspecting world.

And it's awesome.

Deader Still officially comes out tomorrow, but you can find it on store shelves already, since it's a sneaky little thing, and it's been escaping from store rooms like a sort of, I don't know, fungal infection. In honor of this fun, frightening event, I present another shot of my resident Pretty Little Dead Girl, this time in her formal role as a member of the Department of Extraordinary Affairs. I recommend staying on her good side, and not submitting to any body cavity searches, as there's no real way of being sure that she's not planning to do something nasty.

I'll be reviewing Dead To Me later this week, and probably doing a review of Deader Still, since Anton was kind enough to send me an ARC of my very own. Because that's just how we roll around here.

Happy new book day, Anton!

February 22nd -- yesterday -- was the official 'release' date for Ravens in the Library, a benefit anthology to benefit S.J. Tucker following sudden, unexpected medical bills. (Yesterday was also, coincidentally, Sooj's birthday. Wonder how those two dates wound up synching up so closely...) Ravens features stories by twenty-five authors, some of whom are household names, some of whom ought to be household names, and some of whom are going to be household names if they have anything to say about the matter. I've read two of the original-to-this-volume stories, as well as several of the reprints, and I've seen some of the original interior art. This is going to be an amazing book.

Illnesses and technical issues during the layout process (read 'our editors came down with the plague' -- I DIDN'T DO IT) delayed delivery to the printer slightly, and the book's first run (comprising pre-orders and a few extra) is now at press. Barring issues with the printing, it should be flying out of that aerie in about two weeks, and landing on doorsteps everywhere. Everywhere that's ordered a copy, anyway.

To clarify one question I've seen asked several times now, yes, the book is still available for order. It will be print-on-demand when the initial 'print run' has been exhausted; how long that takes will depend somewhat on how many orders are received. Not available in any store, etc., etc. You know the drill by now!

On a more personal note...Ravens in the Library was the second anthology I was ever invited to be a part of (the first being Grants Pass, which will be out in July, from Morrigan Books). It was also the first anthology where the editors actually sought me out to invite me to participate. I am thrilled beyond all words to be a part of this project -- if, as various people have joked, writing were an RPG, this would represent leveling up my Anthology Writer character class. It makes me a little giddy. I can't wait to get my hands on this book. If you like anthologies at all, neither can you.

Words within our grasp: do we let go?
Do we fly heavily with the weight of what we know?
Words within our grasp: do we let go?
Do we fly heavily with what we know?

-- 'Ravens in the Library,' S.J. Tucker.

Lots of things have happened on September 1st. That's the day the last passenger pigeon died. That's the day Juno (great big space rock) was discovered. That's the day Alberta and Saskatchewan (also full of rocks) joined the Canadian confederation. In America, it's Emma M. Nutt Day -- she was the first female telephone operator, back when the phones were mostly manned by young men. In New Zealand, it's Random Acts of Kindness Day, which really seems to me like the sort of holiday that we could stand to celebrate with a little more frequency.

And it's the projected release date for Rosemary and Rue, the first of the October Daye books. Let me repeat that, in case my tendency to ramble has obscured today's big announcement:

Rosemary and Rue will be coming out on SEPTEMBER 1ST, 2009!!!

That's a hundred and ninety-three days from now. That's really no time at all. And now, some fun with the number '193,' since I love math geeking and Ryan prodded me into doing it:

193 is a prime number -- always lucky for me. It's also the only currently known odd prime for which 2 is not a primitive root of 4p2 + 1. So that's pretty awesome. It's a cuban prime, a happy prime, and a lucky prime. I feel lucky! It's the twin prime of 191 (a twin prime is a prime that differs from another prime by two). And it can be written as the difference between the product and the sum of the first four primes. In conclusion?

193 is awesome.

September 1st is awesome.

And September 1st, 2009 is quadruple extra-special awesome, because that's the day you can walk into your local bookstore, take Rosemary and Rue down from the shelf, and dare the bookstore clerk to pronounce my name.

Today is made of win and pie.

Pause a moment. Consider that. My mother is on Facebook. The land of faces and geeks now contains my crazy-train mom. Which is very much a 'what the fuck?' moment for me. (Also a sort of hysterically awesome one. She's Micki McGuire. Feel free to go over and say howdy. She's unlikely to tell you any embarrassing stories about me that I wouldn't happily tell you myself, but wow will she be perplexed if she starts getting friend requests from people who enjoy her book reviews.)

Yesterday in the Other Change of Hobbit, I was faced with an issue of Locus Magazine which listed -- under the DAW Books section of the 'Upcoming Releases' article -- Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire, coming to shelves in September 2009. So there I am, standing in the store where I've been buying books for most of my life, staring at my name in Locus. Fortunately, the store comes equipped with several cats on which to dry my tears. (I'm going to Borderlands tonight, where they also have cats, but the cats are genetically insufficient tear-dryers, on account of not having any fur.)

Today is January 23rd. Ravens in the Library comes out on February 22nd, and contains stories by several authors with whom I was greatly besotted in high school. That's less than a month from now, and the time between then and today is so full that it's going to be over before I have a chance to think.

The world is getting smaller by the hour. Good thing I'm not claustrophobic.

I am pleased* to announce that the release date for Rosemary and Rue, the first of the October Daye books, has been officially confirmed and announced as September 2009. Yes. Nine months from now. On store shelves. Actual store shelves, not just shelves on the bookstore inside my head (they have very affectionate store cats).

Watch this space for news, updates, contests, giveaways, and hyperventilation. But for right now, I resort to the obvious:

HOLY SHIT OH MY GOD SEPTEMBER 2009 THAT'S LIKE PRACTICALLY TOMORROW THAT MEANS I'LL HAVE BOOKS AT OVFF AND WORLD FANTASY AND OH MY GOD AND I CAN'T BREATHE AND MADE OF WIN AND DINO DANCE PARTY TIME FOR EVERYBODY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahem. That is all.

(*By 'pleased,' we mean 'incandescent with glee and hasn't stopped squealing for the past hour.' It's a specialized definition.)

Okay: here's the thing. SJ Tucker is a sweet, generous, talented woman who has freely given of herself and her music for as long as I've known her. Unfortunately, a recent illness (entirely unplanned, as illnesses so often are) has left her with a lot of medical bills hanging over her, and the life of a bard has never been a terribly lucrative one...not in money, anyway.

They're often surprisingly rich in friends.

Ravens in the Library is a limited edition anthology, collecting stories and art dedicated to the health of S.J. Tucker. It will become available on February 22nd, and will remain available only for as long as it takes for Sooj's medical bills to be covered. For once, I can say with the utmost seriousness that this product will not be sold in stories. It's a real book, it's going to be real and physical in your hands, but it's not going to be real and physical on the shelves of the store down the street. Which makes it sort of extra awesome, really. You can view the original press release in Phil Brucato's journal. Phil is our mastermind and ringleader, and much of what this particular gang of Lost Boys and Wicked Girls does can be blamed on him. Who's along for the ride? We-ell...

Ari Berk
Francesca Lia Block
Phil Brucato
Sam Chupp
Storm Constantine
Charles de Lint
Ben Dobyns
Jaymi Elford
Neil Gaiman
Alexandra Honigsberg
Elizabeth Jordan Leggett
Shira Lipkin
Angel Leigh McCoy
Seanan McGuire
Kris Millering and Storm Wilder
Mia Nutick
S.J. Tucker
Carrie Vaughn
Catherynne M. Valente
Terri Windling
...and others...

Behold. For now we wear the human pants. There's also art! Art is key. And we have art by...

Amy Brown
James A. Owen
Brian Syme
...and others...

This volume is being edited by Phil Brucato and Sandra Buskirk, and to say 'for a limited time only' is to understate things more than a bit. It's great stories and glorious art for a good cause. Ordering information is here, in the press release.

I am so happy to be a part of this.

It's official: my short story, 'Animal Husbandry,' will be appearing in the anthology Grants Pass, to be published in July 2009 by Morrigan Books. This anthology focuses on the world eighteen months after a man-made pandemic has killed, oh, practically everybody. (We're not quite talking The Stand levels of 'who dies? Everybody dies!' here, but we're definitely into 'game over, man, game over' territory.) The world's few survivors are staggering towards the promise of a safe haven, a meeting-place for the people who made it through alive.

Grants Pass, Oregon.

I don't know about the rest of the anthology, but I can promise you virology, corpses, and big buckets of creepy. Also, a chance to get your hands on my very first anthology appearance, which is going to be awesome. Remember, your purchase prevents my mother from acquiring more than six hundred copies, and thus saves me from being forced to kill her.

Or, to announce this fantastic news in another way:



Because nothing says 'holy shit, I sold a story!' like a comic strip full of corpses.

PS: James Gunn needs to call me.

The Edge of Propinquity is a monthly webzine edited by jennifer_brozek, and is updated the fifteenth of every month. It's a creepy, atmospheric medium that specializes in stories focusing on the hidden world around the more mundane, everyday world that most people are aware of. Which is all very nice, and it's an awesome webzine, but why am I telling you this again?

Because I have a story in this month's issue. And I think that's both pretty spiffy, and something that people would probably like to know. My story, 'Let's Pretend,' can be viewed currently through the main page of the Edge, or by following the permanent archive link:

http://www.edgeofpropinquity.net/library.asp?id=202

It's a fun little slice of creepy pie, and I'm pretty pleased with it. More to the point, it's the first slice of creepy pie I've served anywhere in 2008 (which was a primarily novel-length year), so I'm incredibly delighted about that part of things. Go, read, enjoy the whole webzine, and meet my creepy friends. I think you'll like them.

I definitely do.

Six months ago today, my agent called me while I was at work to tell me that I was getting everything I wanted for Christmas, because we'd just sold the first three October Daye books to DAW. This was right after we finished putting book one, Rosemary and Rue, through a really torturous revision process -- seriously, it was like taking a machete and a staple gun to a classroom full of kindergartners -- and started the revisions on book two.

A month later, book two, A Local Habitation, was ready to be turned in to my publisher, and a month after that, in July, I went to New York to turn myself in to my publisher. It was the most surreal summer of my life. It hasn't really gotten less surreal since then.

In September, I turned in my final author-draft (distinct from the final 'my editor has had time to review and request rewrites' draft) of book three, An Artificial Night, to DAW, and started working seriously on book four, Late Eclipses of the Sun. (No, it's not under contract. Yes, I believe in being prepared.) And during that time period, I finished Newsflesh and Lycanthropy and Other Personal Issues, and started on The Mourning Edition and Discount Armageddon.

It's been a busy six months.

We don't have a publication date for Rosemary and Rue yet (obviously); my new website has yet to launch; all the frantic writing and revision has done a number on my social life and my recording schedule; we haven't even started shopping the next few books. There's going to be a lot of work that has to get done before I can actually start saying 'go buy my book' and praying for an audience. I know that. And it doesn't matter, because six months ago today, we sold my first novel.

I am still the happiest blonde there is.

Hey, check it out -- I have two recipes in the Cake Walk calendar, a charity project organized by Mindy Klasky. The link takes you to a Cafe Press store; here's a bit o' description:

This Cafe Press store features real recipes from the imaginary bakery -- all recipes were provided by leading authors, including Julie Czerneda, Kelly Gay, Laura Anne Gilman, Mindy Klasky, Seanan McGuire, Saundra Mitchell, Mary Stanton, and Jennifer Stevenson. All proceeds from sales of all merchandise benefit First Book, a nonprofit organization with a single mission: to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books.

So, y'know, buy a calendar, get some awesome recipes (I submitted two of them!), help kids get access to books -- everybody wins! My recipes are awesome, by the way, and involve the use of a cathartic hammer. You can't get much better than an excuse to smash things and eat tasty treats.

Life is good.

So I belong to SFWA (The Science Fiction Writers of America), a truly massive organization filled with writers of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. Having grown up in fandom, the fact that I now qualify to be a part of SFWA -- to belong to an organization with all these people -- still sometimes seems like proof that I'm going to wake up any second now. Seriously. There has to be a catch.

SFWA publishes a bi-monthly magazine, The SFWA Bulletin, to make sure that all its members have at least a vague notion of what's going on. Each issue includes a spotlight on a brand-new member, someone who's just recently joined and needs a cheery introduction to the rest of the clubhouse. Guess who the spotlight's on in the October/November issue?

You're a good guesser.

So there's a little interview with me, and a picture from my website, and it's all very posh. It's also all very real. I mean, the potential that somebody's going to yank this football away from me goes down daily, because there's just too much concrete evidence piling up out there. I'm in the magazine that SFWA sends to all its members.

How awesome is that?

So you know that series of essays based on my thoughts on writing that's been appearing here? Well, it turns out that the folks at Aphelion -- a science-fiction and fantasy-oriented webzine with a history of scholarly articles -- like those essays so much that they've decided to reprint them! (With my permission, of course, not being the sort of folks who really want to be attacked by an army of plague bats.)

Only the first of the reprinted essays is up so far, but be sure to drop by and check out the rest of the 'zine. It's pretty spiffy. And obviously, they have really excellent taste in columnists.

Three months ago today, we officially sold the first three October Daye books to DAW. At that time, we'd just finished putting the first book, Rosemary and Rue, through the editorial wringer to end all wringers; I could practically teach a seminar based on the process of revising that book. A month after that, book two, A Local Habitation, was ready to be turned in to my publisher, and I was just getting things underway with book three, An Artificial Night.

Two months ago, I was in New York, meeting my editor and my publisher and -- in a weird, sort of existential way -- my future, because this is what I've wanted my whole life, and it's become basically impossible to say 'but it's never going to happen.' It is going to happen. It's all happening right now.

In the past three months, I've learned more about the publishing world than I had managed to learn in the previous thirty years. In the past nine months, I've learned more about myself as a writer, and the craft of writing in general, than, again, the previous thirty years. I've finally figured out where the pieces go. An Artificial Night is almost ready to be turned in, now. I'm working on Late Eclipses of the Sun, aka, 'book four.' I've finished Newsflesh. I've finished Lycanthropy and Other Personal Issues. I've outlined InCryptid, in all its weird and wonderful glory. I'm moving forward, and I've come so far, and I've got so far to go.

We don't have a publication date for Rosemary and Rue yet (obviously); my new website has yet to launch; all the frantic writing and revision has done a number on my social life and my recording schedule; we haven't even started shopping the next few books. There's going to be a lot of work that has to get done before I can actually start saying 'go buy my book' and praying for an audience. I know that. And it doesn't matter, because three months ago today, we sold my first novel.

I am the happiest blonde there is.

Upon returning to my humble abode, I discovered that a) my room looked like it had been hit by a small explosive device, b) my cats missed me, c) I get a lot of mail in the course of a week, all of which was cascading off my desk and enhancing the appearance of being under siege, d) my cats missed me, e) it is possible to be too damn tired to feel like getting online, f) my cats missed me, and g) Morpheus has a mean right hook. Half of Sunday was lost to the blessed, blessed mists of sleep, where I enjoyed the wonders of not being awake, and my cats enjoyed the wonders of knowing exactly where I was at all times. It's good to be easily satisfied.

Since returning home, I have turned in Rosemary and Rue* with all editorial notes incorporated, started processing the editorial notes on A Local Habitation, processed a bunch of edits on An Artificial Night, and chewed through another twenty pages of Late Eclipses of the Sun. The universe has thus decided to reward me by revealing the identity of my cover artist. Moreover, the universe has decided to reward me by confirming that he's contracted for the first three books, meaning that we'll have an ultra-consistent look and feel to the volumes. (This is the part where I faint from joy.) Best of all, I don't have to try keeping it a secret, which might cause me to actually explode -- I have permission from DAW to share the glory. I think this is probably because they don't want me to try holding my breath for however long. Are you curious? Do you wanna knoooooooow?

Well, click here, and you can find out for yourself.

Yes.

YES.

THAT IS THE MAN WHO GETS TO DRAW TOBY.

I realize that I'm supposed to be cool and professional and above dancing around waving my hands in the air and screaming. I am sorry to say that I have not yet achieved that level of zen, and am, instead, dancing around waving my hands in the air and screaming. It's fun! You should give it a try. And seriously, look around the galleries, and just marvel at how insanely lucky I am to be working with this publisher. I have total faith that my cover art is going to be the kind that gets it right, and that's just amazing.

Best. Monday. Ever.

(*I know I keep saying that, but dude, you have no idea how nice it is to know that it's not pending anything anymore -- it's gone -- and I can now treat the text as canon, rather than some sort of weird Schrodinger's canon. 'The book is neither alive nor dead until your editor opens the file.' The file has been opened. The book is alive. We can begin sending out invitations to the birthday party.)

Hey, look, I'm in Dear Author! I'm assuming I fall under the category of 'leaves me completely unmoved' for the blogger, but that's okay, because it just gives me a lot more room to be a total DINO NINJA SURPRISE ATTACK. For serious. I will come out of nowhere and blind the world with science!

Oh, and hey, I found my official genre acquisition announcement. It reads:

"Seanan McGuire's ROSEMARY AND RUE, the first book in a new urban fantasy series featuring a half-human, half-fae private investigator, to Sheila Gilbert at DAW, in a three-book deal, by Diana Fox at Fox Literary (world)."

...have you ever noticed how almost everything sounds bland when you boil it down to a single sentence? Must. Blind. World. With. Science. Well, in this case, must blind world with folklore, magic, and an insanely intricate plot. But still. I have an announcement!

From seferin: Animated icons of my horror movie alphabet. Because dude, there is no world in which that is not awesome. Also because dude, there is no world in which this is not all very good advice. (Mike wants to make a calendar of the horror alphabet. I admit to being enormously tempted by the idea of an illustrated comic. And the beat goes on.)

What's new and awesome in the world of you?

My first trilogy has been purchased by DAW Books! This set of urban fantasy/mysteries is best described as 'fairy tale noir', and will be coming soon to a world near you. The order is:

Rosemary and Rue
A Local Habitation
An Artificial Night

I am grateful, excited, delighted, and really looking forward to the full-contact editing bonanza that's sure to be coming my way. There's nothing more exciting than a red pen, a machete, and a whole manuscript to explore. So this is the beginning of the process. Now, we make our hack-and-slash way to the end!

Yay!