The official notice of sale, ladies and gentlemen:

"Seanan McGuire writing as Mira Grant's Parasitology and Symbiogenesis, a duology of science fiction medical thrillers in the tradition of Frankenstein and Jurassic Park, in which parasites intended to bolster human immune systems rebel against their hosts, along with three novellas set in the universe of the Newsflesh series, to Tim Holman at Orbit, with Tom Bouman editing, by Diana Fox at Fox Literary (World English)."

I think of them as a bit more in the tradition of "The Only Really Neat Thing to Do" and Carnisaur, but that's why I don't write the announcements. The novellas included in this deal are...

"Countdown"
"San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats"
"How Green This Land, How Blue This Sky"

I also sort of want to do "The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell," which is the origin story of a character you haven't met yet, but that's not a part of this deal, which is to say, I have sold two more books as Mira, and three novellas (one of which has already been published), and I am very happy, and you should be, too.

First, the cool thing: I received my author's copies of Chicks Dig Comics last night, and they are genuinely gorgeous. Every essay in this book, even the ones that relate to properties I'm not emotionally invested in, makes me go "oh, my people, oh, we are growing every day." I have a copy in my bag to take to my comic book store tonight, and I will give it to Joe, the owner, and say thank you. And he will understand, because he is awesome, and also, he is used to me.

You can order Chicks Dig Comics on Amazon.com; it will be released, retail-wise, on April 10th. If you love comics, this is the book for you, regardless of gender. It says, very clearly, "you are not alone," both to men wondering what the female experience is like, and to women wondering if anyone else has ever had that female experience. I am so pleased to be a part of it. (Also, I am mentioned on the back cover. Great yayness.)

Now, the favor: I'm preparing for the second batch of "Wicked Girls" shirts, and I realized that I no longer need to use the mock-up from the original post, because there are actual shirts in the world now. So please, if you have a shirt from batch one, and you don't mind being shown as an example of a wicked girl, snap a picture and leave it here for me to maybe link in the shirt post. I'm hoping to put the post up within the next week, so time is of the essence, but I'd really love to see all of your awesomeness.

And that, for the moment, is all.

I am very pleased to be able to properly and formally announce that my very first ever book with the awesome Subterranean Press will be coming out this fall. Presenting...

When Will You Rise

This gorgeous hardcover will be 144 pages long, and contains "Countdown," my novella of how the Rising began, as well as the first print edition of "Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box." It will be illustrated, inside and out, by Lauren K. Cannon. Limited to 1,000 copies, all signed, which is also pretty much hammered awesome.

I am so excited about this book. So excited. I hope it does really well and everyone loves it and Subterranean lets me do lots more beautiful books with them, because wow.

When will you rise?

I guess we'll finally know.

Pre-ordering books.

I've seen some people going "Oh, no, I pre-ordered! I'm sorry!" and variants on this theme. I want to state, for the record, that pre-orders are awesome. Pre-orders are the rainbow sprinkles on the delicious sundae of a new book: not always necessary, but always an improvement. Pre-orders tell bookstores that there is a demand for something, and can increase initial on-shelf orders. They also tell publishers how many copies of a physical book are likely to be needed. Pre-orders rule.

The issue here is not pre-orders: it's that some retailers started releasing books early. Normally, your pre-orders do count against week one sales, because normally, that's when the pre-orders are charged and delivered. In this case, due to no fault of my publisher or anyone who ordered a copy ahead of release, those pre-orders will be counted two weeks ahead of week one. My sales for week -2 are going to be awesome!

Calculating bestseller lists.

I want to say this plainly: all sales count. Period. If you buy a book, your sale is counted. That said, not all sales count for purposes of making bestseller lists, because those lists are snapshots of certain measures of time. In the case of the NYT list, it's calculated on a weekly basis, and a new book's best shot (not only, but best) of making the list is week one, when all the pre-orders are delivered and all the bookstores have the book on their "new releases" shelf.

Not making this list doesn't mean your book is a failure. I'm pretty sure Feed is my best, steadiest selling book, but it didn't make the NYT. It's simply continued to sell, week after week, and that demonstrates good long-term health for both book and author. But that's long-term. In the short-term, making the list is a good way for publishers to know that they have something worth holding onto. That's why authors hope to make it; because they want that position of "see? People like me" to support them when they try to sell the sequel.

Early sales are still counted against your overall "my book sold this many copies." They just don't count against snapshots of release week.

My publisher is awesome.

My publisher rules. They did not release my book early; some online retailers did that. They are not dropping me if I don't make any bestseller lists; they've already bought the second InCryptid book, and the next two Toby books. I worry about my sales partially because I want my publisher to be happy with me, and partially because I want to be able to sell them the next three books in both my series, but also because I love them and want them to benefit from everything they've done for me.

To recap: DAW rules, DAW did nothing wrong, DAW is standing with me, DAW is very annoyed about people calling me names.

You are awesome.

All the support and kind words have been just amazing. Thank you so, so much. I really appreciate it.

I feel a little better because you're here.

My nihilistic little tale of magical worlds and giant spiders has been published at Fantasy Magazine! I give you...

"Crystal Halloway and the Forgotten Passage."

Kinda in love with this piece. Not gonna lie.

If you're wondering where all this came from, there's also an author spotlight interview with me in this issue, wherein I ramble about magical worlds, corn mazes, and My Little Pony.

Enjoy!

Hello, everybody, and welcome to my journal. I'm pretty sure you know who I am, my name being in the URL and all, but just in case, I'm Seanan McGuire (also known as Mira Grant), and you're probably not on Candid Camera. This post exists to answer a few of the questions I get asked on a semi-hemi-demi-regular basis. It may look familiar; that's because it gets updated and re-posted roughly every two months, to let folks who've just wandered in know how things work around here. Also, sometimes I change the questions. Because I can.

If you've read this before, feel free to skip, although there may be interesting new things to discover and know beyond the cut.

Anyway, here you go:

( This way lies a lot of information you may or may not need about the person whose LJ you may or may not be reading right at this moment. Also, I may or may not be the King of Rain, which may or may not explain why it's drizzling right now. Essentially, this is Schrodinger's cut-tag.Collapse )

I am very pleased to (somewhat belatedly) announce that I have sold a short story to The Edge of Propinquity, the very same electronic magazine which once upon a time published my Sparrow Hill Road serial (oh, let me tell you about Rose Marshall...). I'm so pleased to be a part of this publication again, even if it's only for a visit, and not for keeps.

So it is without further ado that I tell you to go forth and read about Uncle Sam, the founding of America, why girls go to the bathroom in groups, and how Chinese restaurants can save your life, if you let them.

"Uncle Sam."

Enjoy.

It's reasonably rare for me to have a short story run up, punch me in the teeth, and run away giggling to itself. On the occasions where this happens, I sort of feel like I have to write the story down, since otherwise, it might come running back and hit me again. That was the case earlier this year, with a nihilistic little piece that I kept describing as the prelude to a Vertigo comic series.* I wrote the story, I revised it, I read from it at Arisia, and now, finally, I get to announce...

"Crystal Halloway and the Forgotten Passage" has been sold to John Joseph Adams at Fantasy Magazine, to appear in one of their upcoming issues (probably still within 2011). It's the story of a girl named Crystal, and how she finds her way home after an awfully big adventure. It involves dire bats, children's book logic, wicked roses, giant spiders, and broken hearts.

I am very, very pleased with this piece, and very, very proud of it; it's the same sort of half-mad fantasy as "Lost" or "A Citizen in Childhood's Country," but it's also its own creature, wild and strange and a little bit lost in its own world. I'm totally delighted to have a story in Fantasy Magazine, which I love, but I'm even more delighted that it's this one. I feel like I'm growing as a short story author. I feel like this story proves it.

Coming soon to an internet near you!

(*Dear editors at DC: I am an internationally well-known author with a good sales record, and I love your Vertigo line. So if you want to make this the prelude to a Vertigo series, I would be a whole wide world of happy to discuss it with you. Just saying.)

First:

I have leveled up in Real Author. How do I know? I know because I actually managed to miss a publication date. Not a deadline; a publication. As in, "something got released, and I completely missed it." So! My poem, "Clockwork Chickens," was published in issue #25 of Apex Magazine, which previously published the stories "Dying With Her Cheer Pants On" and "The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells." Hooray!

You can read my poem here, for now. Apex takes down back issues in a sort of rolling pattern, so you should read soon, or better yet, buy the e-book download of the issue so that you can keep it forever and for always. Apex is a company that does good work, and they keep buying my stuff, which naturally endears them to me. I would like it if they would keep doing that. And also, I like this poem.

In other news, I am safely home from Ohio, and attempting to figure out where I left my head. I sadly suspect it may have been in the Houston airport, where I was so hungry that I ate an entire cheeseburger in approximately four bites and an inhale. I think I scared the waitress. I know I counted my fingers when I was done. Just in case. So I am tired and I am grumpy, and I am getting tired of being tired.

I am almost done packing the most recent run of poster orders, and should be getting those in the mail this week. Better yet, the lovely Deborah has finished collating all the T-shirt orders, and I am working with the printer now to get everything submitted and start the production process. We wound up with over three hundred shirts on the order. My house is going to be one hell of a shipping party.

I am also almost done with the technical revisions on Blackout, which I will be shipping off to my publisher Real Soon Now. And thus do I buy myself time to finish the other three books I need to be working on, and perhaps someday, one day, take a nap.

Onwards and upwards.

Zzz.

Hey. Remember when I wrote a novella leading up to the release of Deadline, and we called it "Countdown," and everybody had a good time watching the end of the world? Yeah, that was fun. In fact, that was so fun that Orbit wound up purchasing the novella for the Orbit Short Fiction Program, which gave me the luxury of revising and expanding on the original text (since I couldn't really afford the time when I wasn't getting paid for it). Good times.

Well. The times are getting better. Subterranean Press, the publishers of amazing limited-edition, illustrated works of speculative fiction, have acquired the rights to "Countdown," and will be publishing a special hardcover edition of the novella. These books will be limited to a signed and numbered print run of 1,000, and will include both "Countdown" and "Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box" (also previously published by the Orbit Short Fiction Program).

I am so excited. I don't know yet exactly when the books will be available, although believe me, I'll be announcing it as soon as I have any information. They should sell for about $35 USD, and are likely to sell out, if past books from this publisher are anything to measure by. Subterranean does small, beautiful, collector's-quality books, and having an edition from them is something I have dreamed of for years.

Life is good.

So after hoping and praying and telling people to write to Brilliance Audio instead of writing to me, I am absolutely overjoyed to be able to announce that the audio book rights for Late Eclipses and One Salt Sea have been sold. Here are some Amazon links, in case you don't feel like looking for them yourself:

Late Eclipses, the audio book.
One Salt Sea, the audio book.

I am so happy right now. I know that the lack of audio books for book four has been a big deal for people with vision problems, or who like to listen to books while they drive, or who just prefer things in an audio format. Being able to make those readers happy makes me happy.

And now is where I turn to you, or at least those segments of the greater "you" who asked for these editions, and I say: Please, buy these. Brilliance Audio has been wonderful, and the letters you wrote expressing a desire for these books is what enabled them to go back into the studio and make the books happen. But the sales need to be strong if we want them to continue the series; this is not the same as my contract with DAW, and does not have a one-to-one guarantee.

The unabridged audio book of One Salt Sea in MP3 form on a single CD is less than eleven dollars on Amazon right now. If you are one of the people who asked for these audio books, and have an interest in seeing Toby's adventures continue in this format, please, order a copy. This is how we make them keep letting us have nice things.

Audio books!

This is a week full of things! For example, it's full of Home Improvement: Undead Edition, edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni Kelner. And Home Improvement: Undead Edition is, in turn, full of things. Specifically, it's full of awesome urban fantasy and paranormal romance stories...

...including a brand new October Daye adventure.

That got your attention, didn't it?

"Through This House" is set chronologically between Late Eclipses and One Salt Sea. It is specifically NOT required reading (something I didn't think would be fair in a side story), but it provides a bridge between the two books, and lets you have a sneak peek at Goldengreen as it was when Toby and the gang first came to claim it. See Toby be cranky, May be damp, Quentin be awesome, and Danny be large! Enjoy happy Barghest fun times! And best of all, get a little more Toby for your troubles.

Home Improvement: Undead Edition is available now. I could not be prouder to be a part of this book, you guys. Seriously, being asked was just...was like...it was just absolutely a dream come true, and I remain stunned and happy and just totally amazed that I got to be a part of it.

Things!

Some of you may remember that I did a series of blog posts "counting down" to the release of Deadline, chronicling the days leading up to the Rising of 2014. Some of you may remember asking me whether there would ever be a collected edition. And, well. Some of you may remember getting my standard "I can't say anything right now" reply of "LOOK! A BUNNY!"

Well, look. A bunny. Or more specifically, look, Countdown: A Newsflesh Novella now available for your e-reading pleasure! Countdown retails for $2.99, and is an awesome opportunity to have more Kellis-Amberlee goodness for your very own.

Click here to go to the official Orbit Short Fiction page for Countdown.
Click here to go to Amazon, and the Kindle store.
Click here to go to Barnes and Noble, and the Nook store.
Click here to go to the iBook store.

Now, some people will doubtless ask why they should pay for this when they can (and possibly have) read it for free on my blog. They may not ask me directly, 'cause we're normally more civil than that around here, but I'm going to answer anyway. There are four really good reasons.

1. This is a professionally formatted file, with all thirty days in the same place. No clicking, scrolling, or getting lost in my occasionally quixotic tag system. Basically, it's three dollars for total convenience.

2. I said a few times while writing the original series of posts that errors would creep in because writing live left me no time to go back and revise. Well, the luxury of Countdown becoming something I was paid for allowed me to go back, edit, adjust, and correct a lot of things, some little, some big. It also got a pass through the Machete Squad, making it a much higher-quality work.

3. The novella I want to do next year for Blackout is much larger and more ambitious, and it's really going to need those editorial revisions to be as good as I want it to be. The sales of Countdown will encourage Orbit to buy The Rising 2014: The Last Stand and Final Fall of the California Browncoats.

4. My cats like to eat. My cats like to eat a lot. My cats will, eventually, if unfed, eat me. If the cats eat me, I stop writing. If I stop writing, everyone will be sad. Except for me, as I will have been eaten. Buying Countdown helps me shove gooshy food into the fluffy monsters, and allows me to remain uneaten.

Countdown!

(If you have links to other ebook stores, please kick them over, and I'll add them.)

Hey hooray, it's ANTHOLOGY TIME! I love anthology time. And I have stories in two upcoming anthologies, both available for pre-order now!

First up is Home Improvement: Undead Edition, edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni Kelner. This is my first-ever hardcover publication, and I am so excited I'm flailing. What's more, this is the first time a Toby short story has actually been printed. Yes; my story in this is a Toby piece.

"Through This Houses" chronologically bridges Late Eclipses and One Salt Sea. It isn't required reading; you can skip it, read the books, and be totally happy. But if you do, you'll miss Toby shoving May off a cliff, Quentin being awesome, killer pixies, and the house telling everyone to get out. Home Improvement: Undead Edition will be published August 2nd, and can help take the edge off your need for more Toby Daye.

Second is Human For A Day, edited by Jennifer Brozek and Martin Greenberg. This is Jennifer's first DAW anthology, and I couldn't be prouder to be a part of it. What's more...

Who read Tales From the Ur-Bar? Good. And who remembers Mina Norton, my cranky little gaslamp alchemist bartender with the seasonal monarch issues? Better! Well, Human For A Day contains my second Mina Norton story, "Cinderella City," in which she and the King of Summer ("James" to his friends) team up with the incarnate city of San Francisco to stop all of California from tumbling into the sea. Human For A Day will be published December 6th, and needs to grace your shelves.

And that's my publication news for today. I will now resume preparing frantically to leave for San Diego. Shower time!

Today is a day for poetry.

My poem, "Post-Modern Cinderella," has been published in the summer issue of Goblin Fruit, along with many other lovely things, by many other lovely people. Cat is telling Persephone's story all over again (we are forever telling Persephone's story, apples and snow, pomegranates and winter, lilies on a grave), there is Coyote, and Apollo, and a beauty in a tower. You should go and read and be filled with fairy tales, because fairy tales exist to fill the hollow places.

And also and also and also: my darling Mia, of chimera_fancies, who has made me so many beautiful fairy tales to hang on ribbons 'round my neck, is selling little bits of Bordertown for you to take, and wear, and love. They're made from ARCs of Welcome to Bordertown, and they're amazing.

As with all Mia's pendants, each piece is unique, hand-made, and waiting for the right person to claim it. You should take a look; one of them may be singing for you, waiting for you to come and carry it away.

And that is the time, and that is the tide, and there are pomegranate ices in the garden. I'll see you soon.

You've already heard about these, because you're wonderful and also here, but some of my deal announcements have finally gone public. Hooray! Namely...

The first two books in the InCryptid series, described here by Romantic Times as being about "a family of cryptozoologists who are trying to ensure the survival of endangered mythological species." They also call me "often scary, but always wonderful." I can deal with that as a description, personally.

Books six and seven in the Toby Daye books, which Romantic Times describes as "the adventures of a half-fairy in a dark and dangerous human world." Toby is a little more afraid of Faerie than the human world. At least the human world comes with coffee. A Toby without coffee is like a day without sunshine. Or oxygen. Or gravity.

And that's my next few years all charted out for your amusement. So when you wonder why I'm not coming to your birthday party, well. You can reference this post.

Remember how back in March of this year, I had a short story in an anthology called Tales from the Ur-Bar? It was pretty awesome. I had a great time, and the editors were fabulous to work with, and so when Josh and Patricia (see re: the editors) asked me if I thought I might want to do it again, I was delighted. I love anthologies, I love an excuse to write short fiction, and I love working with people who have already proven themselves to be rockin' cool. And so I wrote them a story, and now...

"We Will Not Be Undersold" has been, well, sold to the anthology The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity, edited by Josh Palmatier and and Patricia Bray. The anthology will be coming out in March of 2012, which seems at once very far in the future, and far, far too soon for my taste. It involves a big box super-store, true love, picnic tables, M&Ms, and plastic.

This is most definitely not a Toby universe short story; it contains fae creatures, but they're not playing by the rules of Toby's world, and I bet none of them could take her in a fair fight. At the same time, they're strange and quirky and were a huge amount of fun for me to write, and I really, really enjoyed the process of writing their story. (Story, singular. Unlike Mina Norton or the Fighting Pumpkins, these folks are not turning into a series. Dammit. I absolutely refuse.)

I'll post again as we approach the time when the book will become a sweet reality, rather than a future milestone, but for right now, remember, shop smart. Shop Undermart. We will not be undersold!

Just last week, I announced that I would have a story in the YA anthology Wicked Pretty Things. I was extremely excited; this was going to be my first young adult publication, and I really, really want to start publishing some of my YA (werewolves and movie stars and sociological experiments, oh my). It seemed like a great opportunity.

Then I heard that one of the authors, Jessica Verday, had pulled out of the anthology. Which seemed a little odd, given how late we were in the process.

And then I found out her reason. To quote her blog post on the subject (originally posted at http://jessicaverday.blogspot.com/):

"I've received a lot of questions and comments about why I'm no longer a part of the Wicked Pretty Things anthology (US: Running Press, UK: Constable & Robinson) and I've debated the best way to explain why I pulled out of this anthology. The simple reason? I was told that the story I'd wrote, which features Wesley (a boy) and Cameron (a boy), who were both in love with each other, would have to be published as a male/female story because a male/male story would not be acceptable to the publishers."

...uh, what? That's not okay. I mean, really, that's not okay. I began, in my slow, overly careful way, to get angry. Then I saw a statement from the editor, saying that the decision had been entirely hers, and had been in no way a reflection of the publisher's views. I sat back. I thought very, very hard. And I decided that, barring any additional developments, I would stay in the anthology, rather than hurting the other authors involved with the project by pulling out.

Naturally, there were additional developments. In light of the ongoing situation, my own discomfort with this whole thing, and the fact that discriminating on basis of sexual orientation is never okay, I have withdrawn my story from the collection.

And here's the thing. There is absolutely no reason to censor a story that was written to the guidelines (which dictated how much profanity, sexuality, etc. was acceptable, as good guidelines should). If Jessica had written hard-core erotica, then rejecting it would have made perfect sense. Not that kind of book. But she didn't. She wrote a romance, just like the rest of us, only her romance didn't include any girls. And she didn't get a rejection; she got her story accepted, just like the rest of us. Only while we got the usual editorial comments, she got "One of your characters needs to be turned into something he's not." And that's not okay.

Books do not determine a person's sexual orientation. I was not somehow destined to be straight, and led astray by Annie On My Mind and the Valdemar books. I was born with universal wiring. I have had boyfriends and I have had girlfriends and I have had both at the same time, and none of that—NONE OF THAT—is because I read a book where a girl was in love with a girl and I decided that being bisexual would be a fun way to kill a weekend.

But those books did tell me I didn't have to hate myself, and they did tell me that there was nothing wrong with me, and they did make it easier on everyone involved, because here was something I could hand to Mom and go "See? It's not just me, and it's not the end of the world, and it's not the only thing that defines me." Supposedly, ten percent of people are gay or bi with a tropism toward their own gender. It stands to reason that there should be positive non-hetero relationships in at least ten percent of YA literature. And they're not there. And things like this are why.

I am not withdrawing from this book because I'm not straight. I am withdrawing because of my little sister and her wife, and because of my girlfriend, and because of my best friend, and because of all the other people who deserve better than bullying through exclusion. Thanks to Jessica for bringing this to our attention, and thank you to everyone who has been supportive of my decision to withdraw.

I am sorry this had to be done. I am not sorry that I did it.

UPDATE: I will not be appearing in this anthology, and this is why.

I am pleased to announce the sale of "The Prince is Right" to the anthology Wicked Pretty Things [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], a YA collection of "dark fairy romance" to be published on August 2nd, 2011.

Questions I have been asked already:

Is your story set in the Tobyverse?

No. "The Prince is Right" is set in an entirely new fae-centric world, one that plays around with my fondness for seasonal monarchies and John Hughes movies. Salem Lyons must find the Harvest King and be crowned the new Harvest Queen, or everything she loves will pay the price. But what if she doesn't want the job?

Is your story a dark fairy romance?

It's a fairy romance that takes place almost entirely at night, which makes it dark. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. I, um, sort of missed the whole "dark = grim" memo, and wrote a classic 1980s teen romance, complete with Molly Ringwald jokes and buckets of John Hughes references. Also, one of my central characters spends about half her time as a hairless cat. So the grim is not so present in this particular tale.

I am super-excited about this book, where I get to appear alongside authors whose work I respect and admire, like Rachel Caine, Tera Lynn Childs, and Lisa Mantchev. This is the first time Rachel (who is awesome) and I have been in a book together, and that's pretty much cause for celebration right there! Also, the cover is gorgeous.

Yay! Wicked Pretty Things!

Today is the official release date for Whedonistas: A Celebration of the Worlds of Joss Whedon by the Women Who Love Them. No, we don't expect you to use the book's whole name every day. That's just for company. You can call it Whedonistas when it's at home.

This is a book of essays about the many and varied works of Whedon, from Buffy to Dollhouse. I somehow managed to resist the burning urge to write about his work on the X-Men* in both movie and comic form, and wrote instead about how Buffy: the Vampire Slayer shaped my identity as both a fan and a creator of my own work. When the apocalypse comes, beep me.

I am, naturally, biased in favor of this book, which contains some awesome essays by some awesome women, many of whom are friends of mine. So here's a review written by an objective third party, which should hopefully sell you on the sheer awesome of this book better than I, who am biased, could ever manage. But if you buy this book, angels will sing, pixies will get their wings, and my cats will feast on sweet, sweet tuna. I'm just saying.

Or you could always win this book. My beloved catvalente is having an awesome book giveaway, for Whedonistas AND her upcoming totally rockin' books Deathless and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland... Go forth! Enter! Read the instructions carefully before entering, because they are specific and also important. There could be ice weasels in your future if you don't read the instructions. Again, just saying.

Whedonistas! Happy birthday, awesome book of awesome!

(*Let's be realistic here: I was able to resist solely because I was already planning to write about the relationship between Scott Summers and Emma Frost, and why Jean Gray needs to stay dead, for Chicks Dig Comics. I am a blonde with very basic needs.)

Friday night, I was chilling at my computer when an acquaintance of mine congratulated me. On what?, I wondered. A link was provided. I clicked the link. The link took me to the New York Times Best Sellers, which seemed like a bit of a cruel joke, since I would have known if I had made the list. Right? Right?

I scrolled down the list.

Late Eclipses, the fourth October Daye adventure, held the #32 slot.

I stared at it for a few minutes before calling Vixy and asking her to click the link. I didn't tell her why, because let's face it, I wanted to know if she could see it, too. She made inquisitive noises as she scrolled...and then she started shrieking. Okay, so yeah. She could see it.

Lots of screaming and flailing followed, as well as a phone tree that managed to double back on itself about seventeen times. Oxygen was not a priority. The Agent eventually returned my call, and then we spent a lovely half-hour or so going "Oh my God" a lot, which is basically what I was hoping she would do (sometimes, being coherent is for other people). The cats watched all of this with disdain, thus proving that the essential laws of reality had not changed, and eventually, I watched Fringe and went to bed.

I'm a New York Times bestselling author. Me.

I still can't believe I'm not asleep.

April: Short story, "Riddles," in the anthology Human Tales from Dark Quest Books. This is a fairly small press, so you may need to buy the book online or ask your local bookstore to special-order a copy if you want one.

Short story, "Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box," through the Orbit electronic fiction program. This story is being released on April 18th, as a Kindle download. It's a Mira Grant story, but is not set in the Newsflesh universe.

May: Novel, Deadline, from Orbit/Orbit UK, under the name Mira Grant. This is the second book in the Newsflesh trilogy. I do not have ARCs. Please do not ask me for ARCs. Deadline is e-ARC only, and I do not have download codes or physical copies. All asking does is add stress to an already stressful time, and then I have to go hide under the bed for a little while.

September: Novel, One Salt Sea, from DAW. This is the fifth of the October Daye books, and was preceded by Late Eclipses. It will be followed by Ashes of Honor, probably in September 2012.

March 2012: Novel, Discount Armageddon, from DAW. This is the first of the InCryptid books, and will be followed by Midnight Blue-Light Special, probably in March 2013. Yes, InCryptid is taking the March slot in my year. Yes, I consider this a good thing. Doing two Toby books a year is fun, but I need to diversify sometimes.

That's the schedule!

Some of my earliest memories of bookstores involve combing through the shelves while my grandmother looked tolerantly on, searching endlessly for more anthologies. Anthologies were the best thing ever, at least if you asked my reasonably limited book-buying power, because they gave you so many stories. If you guessed wrong on whether you'd like a book, you were stuck with a whole book you didn't like, but with an anthology, there would always, always be at least a few stories you'd enjoy.

A lot of those anthologies were published by a company called DAW, which must, I believed, have the smartest owners in the world. (At the time, I truly believed that anthologies made more money than any other kind of book, because they were so hard to find. I was a very innocent child.) And a lot of those anthologies were edited by a man named Martin Greenberg. Someday, I swore, I was going to be in one of those anthologies. When that happened, I would know, absolutely and for certain, that I was going to be a writer.

Yesterday, I went to the bookstore, and I bought the new Martin Greenberg anthology, co-edited with Stephen Antczak and James Bassett. It's called Zombiesque; it's all stories from the perspective of the zombie.

And I'm the sixth name on the table of contents.

There are viral zombies, pharmaceutical zombies, totally unexplained zombies, nanobot zombies, even black magic zombies. Zombie businessmen, fathers, policemen, doctors, authors, and cheerleaders. I'm reading the anthology cover-to-cover, that being what you do, and so far, the stories have been excellent. I'm the only one who's gone for black humor, really, but when you're writing a story about zombie cheerleaders (GO PUMPKINS!), a little black humor is sort of legally required.

I'm in a real DAW anthology, edited by Martin Greenberg, writing about zombie cheerleaders. Who belong to the Fighting Pumpkins cheerleading squad.

So you're aware, there's every chance that I currently control the universe.

Things that are awesome, part one: writing for anthologies.

Things that are awesome, part two: being asked to write for anthologies.

Things that are awesome, part three: being asked to write for anthologies being edited by John Joseph Adams, who is one of those anthologists I just have crazytrain respect for.

Things that are awesome, part four: ...did I mention the mad science?

When John announced The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination, I knew that failure to submit a story would result in hand-wringing, retribution-seeking, day-ruing agony on my part. This knowledge did not present me with an instantaneous understanding of what I should write. And then my iTunes decided to do a mad science medley, concluding with the me-and-Paul version of "What A Woman's For."

And then my cackling scared the cats.

I am crazy-pleased (or maybe just plain crazy) to announce that "Laughter at the Academy: A Field Study in the Genesis of Schizotypal Creative Genius Personality Disorder (SCGPD)" has been sold to John Joseph Adams for inclusion in the book The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination, coming in 2012 from Tor Books. It's a charming little tale about lab assistants and alternate paths to mad genius, and it has rapidly become a favorite of mine for live readings, because it's so. Much. FUN.

Plus, just look at this lineup: Carrie Vaughn, Alan Dean Foster, Daniel H. Wilson, L. E. Modesitt, Jr., L. A. Banks, Austin Grossman, Marjorie M. Liu, Ben Winters, David Farland, Mary Robinette Kowal, Harry Turtledove, Seanan McGuire, David D. Levine, Genevieve Valentine, Naomi Novik, Jeffrey Ford, Grady Hendrix, Theodora Goss, Jeremiah Tolbert, and David Brin, plus an introduction by Chris Claremont. See that? That's me, in a book with Chris Claremont. THOSE FOOLS SAID MAD SCIENCE DIDN'T PAY, BUT I'VE SHOWN THEM! I'VE SHOWN THEM ALL! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...er. Sorry.

I consider "Laughter at the Academy" to be part of my mad science triptych, along with "The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells" and "Apocalypse Scenario #693: The Box." This piece is the sheer, unfettered id, my delight in things that mutate, melt, and devour your brain while you're not looking. It makes me happy.

From my heart and from my hands, why don't people understand my intentions?

So there's this anthology coming out in March, called Tales from the Ur-Bar. Every story takes place in a different location and time period, and by the time I was invited to the anthology, my usual time periods had all been taken, leaving me with the early 1900s. Everyone assumed I would write steampunk. I wrote gaslamp instead, which is a subtle distinction. I did it out of annoyance, I'll admit, and then, I...I liked it. I had a good time. I enjoyed the setting, I enjoyed the characters, and I enjoyed writing about a cranky alchemist using cocktails as her magical weapon of choice.

Jennifer Brozek asked me whether I'd consider submitting a short story for her first DAW anthology, Human for a Day. I said "sure," and pitched a story involving the Fighting Pumpkins and the harvest queen and the Homecoming Game. And I tried to write it, I really did, but my heart kept drifting back to San Francisco in the early 1900s, when the fog was silver and the bridges were gold. And this is why Jenn got the sheepish "I appear to have written the wrong story," message. A story which she was gracious enough to let me submit anyway. And so...

"Cinderella City," being the second adventure of Mina Norton, James Holly, and Margaret Holly (although she's asleep for the entire story, so it's mostly just Mina and James) has been sold to Jennifer Brozek for her anthology Human for a Day. It involves the city of San Francisco, an evil plot, a potential earthquake, absinthe, and lots of pigeons.

Some of the pigeons are on fire. I'm pretty pleased.

It looks like I'm going to be writing a whole series of stories about Mina and company; I'm starting to see the overall shape of their story, and with me, that usually means I'm pretty much doomed. But I don't mind that much. I like it in the gaslight. It's all very pretty there. And besides, I get a discount at the bar.

I appear to have accidentally set myself a "get a piece of short fiction published every month of the year" goal in 2011, with short stories confirmed for January, February, March, and now April. That pretty much takes us through my current backlog, although I have a few possibilities for May and June, but, being me, I still find it hysterical. As for what brought this on...

"Riddles," my story of what really happened when mankind met the Sphinx, has been purchased by Jennifer Brozek for inclusion in the anthology Human Tales, coming out in April from Dark Quest Books. This actually happened a little while ago, but I kept waiting to find out the publication date, and then I got distracted, and look, you should have figured out by now that sometimes, I have the attention span of a mayfly. A mayfly which is ALREADY DEAD.

"Riddles" is a rare piece for me, in that it's just fantasy, not urban in the slightest. Even my historical fantasy, like "Alchemy of Alcohol" (coming out in March, in Tales From the Ur-Bar), tends to take place in an urban environment. So getting to play with a world where there were no sidewalks, really kind of awesome!

I'm super-pleased with the story, and I'm super-pleased to have sold it, and I can't wait to see what else will be contained in the book. I'll let you all know when you can get a copy of your very own.

And now I want to go to Borderlands, so I can hug the Sphynx kitties. Hee.

If 2010 was the Year of the Ghost in my weird personal cosmology, 2011 is going to be the Year of the Rabbit. One rabbit in specific: Velveteen, former member of the Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division, reluctant superhero, and too long a stranger around these parts.

I can't commit to a story a month for the whole year, but I can commit to a story every other month. So here you go: I will be writing and posting a minimum of six Velveteen stories during 2011. Not sure who she is? Check out the series landing page for background and archived stories. I'll be bringing the website up to speed on her adventures, and then a new adventure can finally begin.

Coming in January, "Velveteen vs. the Secret Identity."

Heroes unite!

So Kate swears that I'm the creepiest thing going at any length less than thirty pages (I suppose because when I'm working under thirty pages, I don't have time for the why-porn to really saturate whatever it is I'm writing). Now's your opportunity to find out if she's right, because "The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells" will be appearing in the January issue of Apex Magazine.

YOU GUYS YOU GUYS I SOLD "PAVLOV'S"!!!! THE STORY WITH LIKE ONLY THE MOST TIPTREE TITLE EVER!!!!

...in case you can't tell, I'm pleased.

"Pavlov's" is the middle piece in what I view as my mad science triptych. The other two pieces are "Laughter at the Academy: A Field Study in the Development of Schizotypal Creative Genius Personality Disorder," and "Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box." (No, you can't read the other two yet; I'm hoping you'll be able to eventually, I just need to get there.) They're sort of my id/ego/super-ego of mad science, and now that they're all written, maybe I can get it out of my head for a little while.

Ha. Ha. Ha. No, really.

But anyway: I finally found a home for "The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells," and it's a totally cool home, and I couldn't be more pleased. And if I ever do a short story collection, the odds are good that it'll be called The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells, so publishing the title story is always a good maneuver.

Mad science, killer viruses, and all that other good stuff can be yours in just one short month! You're welcome.

I keep saying that the dead of winter is when we need to be reminded that we're allowed to have nice things, since that's when nice things often seem to be the furthest from our grasp. And so it is with awe and delight that I announce that the next two October Daye novels have been acquired by DAW Books. These urban fantasy/mysteries continue the adventures of October Daye, under-caffeinated changeling detective, and will be coming soon to a world near you. They are:

Ashes of Honor
The Chimes at Midnight

...that's books six and seven, respectively. I am grateful and staggered and overjoyed and a little dizzy over the idea of being able to bring more of Toby's adventures to the world. I'm going to be working with the same team at DAW, which is awesome, and I'm really looking forward to wading into these books and taking the steps necessary to make then wonderful.

The world gets more Toby!

Happy holidays!

As a pop-culture junkie who treats monster movies as something barely this side of a religion, it was inevitable that I would wind up falling in love with a certain California blonde girl when she funky chickened her way into my life ("How loose is your goose? My goose is totally loose..."). My love for her impacted my view on life, my video collection, and even my speech patterns—you can tell when I've been watching old episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer by changes in my cadence and intonation. It's a little freaky.

So it was also inevitable that when I was invited to be a contributor to Whedonistas: A Celebration of the Worlds of Joss Whedon by the Women Who Love Them, I would jump at the chance.

This star-studded essay collection is the second in the female-centric essay series from Mad Norwegian Press, and was edited by Lynne Thomas and Deborah Stanish. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but just the list of contributors feels me with geeky glee. I'm in a book with Emma Bull! My fourteen year old self can finally die happy! I mean, except for the part where then, I wouldn't remember why being in a book with Emma Bull is cool, so let's skip that.

One of the other contributors, Teresa Jusino, has written a lovely post explaining the book and why it's awesome at Tor.com. Just to further convince you that the book is made of win, the editors and Tor.com have conspired to let you get an early look at my essay, "The Girls Next Door: Learning to Live with the Living Dead and Never Even Break a Nail." (If you can come up with a more me-esque title, I'm not sure I want to know about it.)

Go forth! Read! Maybe improve your holiday season and chances of surviving when the Hellmouth finally opens by ordering yourself a copy! It's going to be fun for the whole family.

Grr. Argh.

It is with extreme pleasure and with no small degree of squeaky joy that I announce that the first two InCryptid books have been acquired by DAW Books. These urban fantasy adventures focus on the Price family of cryptozoologists as they seek to protect the cryptids of the world from humanity...and humanity from the cryptids of the world. The first two volumes are:

Discount Armageddon
Midnight Blue-Light Special

Cryptids and cuckoos and field guides, oh my! Words really can't express how insanely happy I am right now. I'm going to be working with the same team at DAW, which means I know I will have great editorial, fantastic in-house support, and a whole lot of sheer bonus fun. I'm so excited that you're all going to get the chance to meet these people. They're some of my favorites. And now, in the words of the Aeslin mice...

CHEESE! AND! CAKE!

Psst.

I've been sitting on this for months and months and months, and now, finally, I can show you something totally bitchin' that you really want to see. I mean, assuming you like things that are awesome, that is, and that you include FEED on that list.

Go ahead. Take a peek.

( Cut-tagged for the protection of your friends' list, which really doesn't need something this huge suddenly showing up without warning. But trust me, you should totally click.Collapse )

A year ago, I sat in my hotel room at Duckon and listened as The Agent walked back and forth, negotiating contract terms on her cell phone. It was an amazing process, frightening and enlightening and elating and terrifying and wonderful. And at the end of it, we had a verbal agreement with Orbit/Orbit UK to purchase the Newsflesh Trilogy (Feed, Deadline, Blackout) under the pseudonym "Mira Grant."

Since that day, I have launched a new website (www.miragrant.com), written the second book in the series, argued the logic of my zombies with a hundred people, and, best of all, seen the publication of Feed in the United States and United Kingdom, made available in virtual form, released as an audio book...and this is all just the beginning. Other languages, other volumes, other miracles, other outbreaks, they're all ahead of us.

It's amazing. It's just amazing. This last year has been such a wonderful adventure, and such an incredible education. I couldn't be more grateful, or more amazed. I've worked so long and so hard, and it seems a little, well...

It's all just a little unreal.

Thank you to everyone who's been here throughout this adventure. Thanks to The Agent, for making it happen; to Amy, for tolerating my crazy during the process of the contract negotiations; to David and Michelle, for all their amazing support; to Rae, for, well, everything; to Mars, for keeping the politics from becoming too much of the pie; to Chris and Tara, for my website; to Steve and Spider, for phone tech-checks; to Brooke, for the medical details.

Thank you to everyone for reading. Hasn't this been an amazing year? And there are two more to come. It's just amazing.

We are now ninety days out from the release of An Artificial Night (October Daye, book three). It's up on Amazon.com, and people are pre-ordering. The ARCs should be arriving at my house any day now; they may even be waiting for me when I get home tonight. My page proofs have been reviewed, returned to DAW, and confirmed as received, which means this book is now officially outside my control: I can't change anything.

Ninety days.

An Artificial Night is the third and last book on my original contract was DAW. It's also the last book to be mostly complete at the time of sale. Barring editorial notes, small changes, and typo correction, all three have been done since before Rosemary and Rue was released. In many ways, this has been a great thing. On the one hand, it's meant that I couldn't change what I was doing based on outside criticism. On the other hand, it's meant that I couldn't change what I was doing based on outside criticism—I couldn't fix anything, but I also couldn't have a first-time novelist freak-out and wind up completely rewriting the rest of the series to meet an unreachable standard. I know this has been a luxury. It's one I'm very, very glad to have had.

This book is my favorite of the first three. I love the whole thing. I love the situation, I love the reality of it, and I love that Toby is finally past the events of the first book to such an extent that she can really stand up and do her job. I love that in just ninety days, you'll be able to hold it in your hands.

How many miles to Babylon?

Not that many.

The mail at my house tends to arrive in the late afternoon. Once I judged that the mailman would have had sufficient time to navigate the horrifying suburban wasteland in which I live, I opened the door...and stopped.

Even around here, it's not every day that a big blue biohazard bag hits my porch. I'm just saying.

I picked up the bag, checking the tags in the vague hope that it had been mis-delivered to my house, and was actually intended for the mad scientist down the way. Nope; there was my name and address, along with the ominous routing tag for Sweden. Yes, Sweden, land of chocolates and, quite possibly, human organs and anthrax. I mean, why else would it have been secured with two heavy plastic zip-ties?

Lacking anything better to do with the bag, I took it inside, cleared the cutting board, and put it down. Then, after a quick check of my time zone-based options, I called Cat. "I have a big international biohazard shipping bag in my kitchen," I informed her, without preamble.

"What?" She was laughing. This is because humor is the best defense against me sometimes.

"Big international biohazard bag. I need you to call the CDC if I start screaming and drop the phone."

"Um...okay."

It took several minutes with the industrial-grade scissors to work my way into the bag, which kept producing more and more ominous routing stickers as I ripped my way inside. Finally, I ripped away the last layer, and shrieked happily.

Cat did not hang up and call the CDC. All those of you not currently trapped in the blasted quarantine zone that used to be California, you can thank her.

"It's the British edition of Feed!" I told her exultantly.

"Oh, good."

I have the UK copies of Feed! They're so pretty! They're only subtly different from the American edition—redder blood, because presumably the Rising is still fresher in England's memory; the word "bloggers" is actually on the back cover; no number "one" on the spine; a quote from Publishers Weekly on the front—but having them fills me with deep, atavistic satisfaction. This is the first British edition of one of my books. I am PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, yo. The cast of Doctor Who could wander into a Waterstone's and just pick up one of my books, without worrying about the import sticker. I'm global. And stuff.

This is even better than illegal human organ trafficking. I'm just saying.

Two years ago today, I got out of bed (way too early), put on clothes (because nudity is frowned upon on public transit), and went to work. I don't usually remember what I was wearing on any given day, but this one, I do: jeans, bright yellow tank top, pink-and-yellow Chimera Fancies pendant that reads "fairy changeling this is all a dream." It was an ordinary start to what seemed likely to be an ordinary day.

Two years ago today, The Agent was shopping the Toby Daye books, trying to find just the right house for my debut series. I mean, really, we knew what Just The Right House was: DAW Books. It was 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. All I could do was hope that they wanted to work with me.

Two years ago today, my phone rang. Caller ID said that it was The Agent—that's actually what her number is saved as in my phone book, because I am sometimes a little bit bizarre about such things—so I excused myself to take the call.

The Agent said three 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.

Two years ago today, I sold the first three Toby books. Today, I have three framed cover illustrations on my living room walls, and five framed covers hanging scattered through the rest of my house. I have books on the shelf with my name on them, and published reviews in places like Locus and the Onion A.V. Club. I have a contract for two more Toby books after those first three, and my fingers crossed for more after that.

Two years ago today.

Wow.

I spend a lot of time trying to explain literary rights to my mother, who is trying very gamely to learn all the weirdness of the world of publishing. It probably doesn't help that my understanding in many arenas remains fuzzy, so my explanations involve a lot of waving my hands and going "blah blah blah fishcakes." She takes this with reasonably good grace. I have a good mom.

Right now, I keep trying to explain foreign rights sales. Because you see, right now—during the conveniently timed volcanic ash cloud, oops—the London Book Fair is going on. This is one of the biggest foreign rights sales events in the world. If I want Toby in the United Kingdom and the Masons in Japan, this is very likely where it's going to happen. I am thus, I think understandably, a little twitchy about foreign rights at the moment.

I've had awesome luck with foreign rights, in part because I have an awesome foreign rights agent, who works very hard to get my stuff out there. Toby has been sold in Germany and Russia; the Newsflesh trilogy has been sold in Germany. I'd really like a UK edition of the Toby books, and a French edition of both, but there's no counting on it; I need to sit back and wait to see how things settle out. But oh, how I wants it, my precious. I wants it bad. There's the artistic reason ("I just want more people to be able to enjoy Toby's adventures!"), and then there's the capitalist reason ("I really, really want to go full-time before I catch fire from lack of sleep").

My actual reasons are somewhere in the middle. I genuinely do want my books to be accessible to the entire world...and I really, really want to get up every morning, write for a while, take a walk, write for a while longer, and not have a commute further than bed-to-chair. Foreign sales aren't likely to change the world completely, but as many authors of my acquaintance can tell you, good worldwide positioning can make a huge difference in your end-of-year bottom line. Maybe even a full-time writer (or part-time day job) level of difference.

And this is why I'm crazy this week.

Do you like cheerleaders? Do you like aliens? Do you like urban legends? Well, then you're just gonna love my latest published short story, "Dying With Her Cheer Pants On," in which the Fighting Pumpkins Cheer Squad goes up against an alien invasion in a battle to the death, with the very fate of mankind hanging in the balance.

"Dying With Her Cheer Pants On" is available now, in the April 2010 issue of Apex Magazine.

Some of you may have heard me perform this story live, since it's a favorite reading piece of mine (and how could it not be? I mean, really). For those of you who haven't, there's an audio version of the same story in this month's issue. Totally awesome.

Go, read, enjoy, and remember...

GO PUMPKINS!

...quite soon, actually. Like, in a month. Actually, like, in twenty-nine days. (That's twenty-nine days if you believe the date I got from my publisher, IE, "May 1st." Everyone else seems to think the book comes out on April 27th. I am choosing to continue believing May 1st, because at least that's two months after my last book release, not one month after my last book release, and implies that I might have had the opportunity to take a nap in the interim.)

I am terrified, elated, and a whole bunch of other things that are surprisingly difficult to describe. See, Feed was a thought experiment. It was my game of "What if...?" What if the zombie apocalypse happened...and we lived? What if society had to restructure itself around the idea that the dead will always walk? What if this wasn't going to go away? What if?

I walked around for years with a zombie world and no zombie story. I tinkered with the ecology when I got bored, working out dozens of things that will never make it into the novels (as I lack a naturalist protagonist), but which combined to make a deeper, more convincing reality when I finally started really having a party there. I periodically bitched to my more understanding friends about how I had this truly awesome world, all full of zombies and personal firearms and stuff, and no story to tell there.

Then my friend Micheal Ellis said "Well, why don't you write about a Presidential campaign?"

And it all happened from there.

I'm sure I've told this story here before, because I've told this story a lot. But I'm still so grateful, and so overjoyed, that there are no words. I love the Masons, and my weird journalistic world, and everything else about this series, and for all that I am girl, paralyzed by fear, I really am unbelievably excited that you're going to get to meet them all.

One month 'til the Rising. Wow. It's been a long time coming.

It is with great delight and Muppet-like flailing that I announce that the next two October Daye novels have been acquired by DAW Books. These urban fantasy/mysteries continue the adventures of October Daye, under-caffeinated changeling detective, and will be coming soon to a world near you. They are:

Late Eclipses
The Brightest Fell

I am grateful, excited, delighted, and really looking forward to being able to bring more of Toby's adventures to the world. I'm going to be working with the same team at DAW, which is awesome, and I'm really looking forward to wading into these books and taking the steps necessary to make then wonderful.

The world gets more Toby!

Mindy Klasky has been talking about "author branding" lately. Is it a bad thing that my brand is "slightly maniacal but easily distracted Disney Halloweentown Princess on a never-ending quest to dominate your puny planet"? I mean, it doesn't fit very easily on a T-shirt...

Anyway, today is a day for awesome news that is awesome. Those of you who follow dianafox will have already seen the first part of this: the Newsflesh trilogy (Feed, Deadline, Blackout) has sold to Egmont in Germany. Egmont is also the German publisher of the Toby Daye books. Because of this (and some questionable black marks on Mira's legal record, but that's beside the point), they'll be publishing the Newsflesh trilogy under the name "Seanan McGuire." I like being confusing!

Meanwhile, rights to the first three Toby books (Rosemary and Rue, A Local Habitation, and An Artificial Night) have sold to Azbooka in Russia. Vixy is very excited, because she actually speaks Russian, and will thus be able to read my books in a whole new language. I'm very excited because dude, Russia.

Soon, my conquest of your world will be complete, and my collection of foreign language editions will require its own shelf.

Yay!

You may have heard me raving about an anthology called The Living Dead [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], a collection of some of the finest zombie fiction I've ever seen. I read it, I loved it, I told everyone I know who likes zombies that they should join me in buying, reading, and loving it.

Skip to the present, where John Joseph Adams—the original anthologist—has been putting together a sequel, The Living Dead 2, featuring still more of the finest zombie fiction around. The official announcement of the book's table of contents is here, along with the book's truly awesome cover art. The preliminary cover copy:

"Two years ago, readers eagerly devoured The Living Dead. Publisher's Weekly named it one of the Best Books of the Year, and Barnes & Noble.com called it 'The best zombie fiction collection ever.' Now acclaimed editor John Joseph Adams is back for another bite at the apple—the Adam's apple, that is—with forty-three more of the best, most chilling, most thrilling zombie stories anywhere, including virtuoso performances by zombie fiction legends Max Brooks (World War Z, The Zombie Survival Guide), Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead), and David Wellington (Monster Island)."

Pretty exciting, huh? But maybe my excitement seems a little odd. After all, I love David Wellington ("Good People" in this volume), Robert Kirkman ("Alone, Together"), and Jonathan Maberry ("Zero Tolerance"). And yes, there's a new Kelley Armstrong story in this book ("Last Stand"). So why am I so thrilled?

Because Mira Grant's new short story, "Everglades," will be making its debut in this volume. Oh, yeah. Not only am I going to be in the sequel to the best zombie anthology ever, I'm going to do it on a table of contents with Kelley Armstrong.

I win at universe.

The Living Dead 2 will be out in September, or you can pre-order your copy now.

Zombies!

Okay, so here's the situation:

The electronic edition of A Local Habitation [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] has been delayed twice now, resulting in people who were looking for the electronic edition seeing a slowly-shifting date that didn't necessarily make sense. It didn't make sense to me, either, since I don't really work on that side of the publishing process (and I've been a little busy with the whole "book release" process). I've been getting a lot of emails, blog comments, and Tweets about the electronic edition, so I'm aware that it's been frustrating, and I'm sorry.

I spoke to my publisher this morning, and confirmed that there was a problem with the file, which is now being fixed. The electronic version should be available in one to two weeks. This has been technical, not financial or anything else silly like that. Promise. I'll post when I have an exact date, or you can follow @dawbooks on Twitter, since that's a good way to stay on top of things.

In the meantime, if you really don't want to wait, please consider buying a copy of the physical book and donating it to a women's shelter, local library, or other charity of your choice when you're done. I realize that's not a perfect solution (among other things, if you're on a limited book budget, it can be impossible), but it's the best one I have, and it means that you not only get to read the book now, you get to bring the gift of literature to someone else when you're finished. Otherwise, well, chalk this one up to the learning curve of a changing industry, and you should be able to get your hands on A Local Habitation sooner than later.

Thank you so very much for your patience. It really means a lot to me.

As I wander the back alleys and the sleezy bars of the Internet underworld—the place I call home, because nowhere else will have me—I made the acquaintance of a seedy-looking, well, let's stick with "gentleman" by the name of Anton Strout (antonstrout, for the eight of you who don't know him already). He and I have established a polite working relationship, wherein he tolerates the fact that my ways are not like his Earth ways, and I don't send an army of kobolds over to his place to rough him up. It works out pretty well for both of us, really, since I like being tolerated, and he likes not being beaten by kobolds.

Anton's a good guy, a good author, and more importantly, he's damn funny (which is something I prize greatly, from Bureau 13 to The Middleman). Why am I telling you all this? Because his third book, Dead Matter, is out today, and it's awesome.

Dead Matter is the third adventure of Simon Canderous, a psychometric employee of the New York branch of the Department of Extraordinary Affairs. To semi-quote my 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.

Dead Matter is officially available right now, and will be sharing a three-title book display with A Local Habitation in Barnes and Noble stores around the country. 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.

Happy new book day, Anton!

Rose Marshall, also known as the Girl in the Diner, the Shadow of Sparrow Hill Road, and the Lady in Green, has had a pretty rough road of it so far...and things aren't getting any easier from here.

Issue 50 of The Edge of Propinquity is live, and with it, the second of the Sparrow Hill Road stories is available. "Dead Man's Party" takes us deeper into the twilight, and a few miles further down the ghostroads, where vengeance sometimes comes with a price that's a little bit too high for anyone to pay.

There are a lot of stories trapped and tangled in the twilight. This is only one of them. But it's the one I have to tell.

Give a girl a ride?

In addition to writing more books than is strictly good for me*, I write a lot of short fiction and even a few essays. I love the act of writing, the process of editing and finishing something, and some stories want to be shorter than novel length. Some stories need to be shorter than novel length. I really love "Lost," but it would lose a lot of what makes it work (at least for me) if I tried to stretch it out much longer. "A Citizen in Childhood's Country" is the same way. I may go back to that universe, but the story itself is complete and closed.

Anyway, this year, I joined the writing staff of The Edge of Propinquity as one of their universe authors, telling the story of Rose Marshall, whose adventures began the night that she died. I'm currently committed through 2010; after that, Jennifer (the managing editor) and I will look at my time commitments, and decide whether I'll be chasing Rose down the highways of America for a second year. This is actually awesome, because it means I get to treat my twelve stories as a self-contained "season." I keep picturing it as a television show on HBO or maybe the BBC, complete with opening credits and screaming theme music. It's fun.

talkstowolves has posted a long, lovely Rose Marshall retrospective, including a review of the first Sparrow Hill Road Story, "Good Girls Go To Heaven." She says...

"In one short story thus far, Sparrow Hill Road has managed to introduce me to an area of folklore previously unconsidered and left me considering it (i.e. truck-drivers and highway diners); evoked a believable urban legend and made the central figure of that urban legend multi-faceted and sympathetic; and enchanted me and fired my imagination with the intoxicating glimpses of a myriad of Americas, clothed in daylight, twilight, midnight. The other sides. The ghostside."

Also...

"I absolutely cannot wait to see more of this series unfold and discover where Rose Marshall goes. Also, though I am always excited to investigate my best-loved field, I cannot deny that Seanan has provided me with a fresh infusion of enthusiasm for urban folklore."

Meanwhile, over in the Livejournal Doctor Who community, the author and essay list for Chicks Dig Time Lords [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] has been announced. This is my first real non-fiction sale, and I'm thrilled. Especially since Tara, my dear friend and graphic designer, is one of the book's two editors, which makes this very much a "family affair."

Chicks Dig Time Lords is small press, and won't be available in all stores, but can be ordered online, and I hugely recommend it for fans of Doctor Who. Yay!

It's gonna be a fun, fun year.

(*I have three coming out in 2010: A Local Habitation, An Artificial Night, and my debut as Mira Grant, Feed. It's a wonder I get any sleep at all.)

First up, my short story, "Let's Pretend," will be appearing in the anthology Ladies of Horror, coming out in 2010. "Let's Pretend" originally appeared at The Edge of Propinquity (where my Sparrow Hill Road series will be launching in January). It's one of my rare vampire pieces, and is...nasty.

(It's also one of those stories that really makes me want to write "DVD extras" for a lot of my work. The first draft was written during a game of Three Beers and a Story. How do you play? Well, you drink three beers. And you write a story. Personally, I prefer Three Long Island Iced Teas and a Story, but that's sort of the X-Games variation.)

Secondly, the Orbit catalog for Spring/Summer 2010 is live, and includes the official press release on Feed. The book is available for pre-order now, and I am beginning to accept its reality, which is both exciting and terrifying. How did I get here? Where are we going? And why are we in this handbasket?

Finally, because it is THE MOST AWESOME OMG, Barnes and Noble has named Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] as one of the best urban fantasy releases of 2009. You'll pardon me while I scream like a girl, won't you?

2009 is drawing to a close; the number of days it has left to present me with awesome things is dwindling steadily. But this is a year that brought me my first anthology, my first novel, my first book release party, the first gathering of the Traveling Circus and Snake-Handling Show, my first Maine Coon, my first solicited artwork-for-pay that wasn't a personal commission, my first solo guest of honor slot, and so much more. 2009 is going down in the record books as a pretty good year to be a blonde.

Thanks for being here.

Nominations for the 2009 Nebula Awards have opened. To quote Wikipedia (source of all knowledge, "The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year." Since everybody seems to be putting up lists of their qualifying material, I thought I'd do the same. I'm generous like that.

First, of course, the novel. Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] was published by DAW Books in September 2009, putting it well within this year's window. Urban fantasy, fairy tale noir, and the beginning of my first series. Yay!

Short stories, I have several that appear to qualify quite nicely under the current rules. "Animal Husbandry" is a story of post-apocalypse survival and psychological horror, originally published by Morrigan Books in Grants Pass (August 2009). (Amazon says the book is out of print, and Amazon lies, but if you're a SFWA member and want to see the story, I'll happily send it your way.)

"Lost" is a sad, sentimental fantasy piece, originally published by The Ravens in the Library Project in the anthology Ravens in the Library (February 2009). This book is out of print, but again, if you're a SFWA member and want to see the story, I'll happily send it your way. The story will be reprinted by Wily Writers this coming December. You might also want to look at "A Citizen in Childhood's Country," which is not quite a companion piece, but might be, if you tilt your head and squint. It was published by the Book View Cafe in October 2009.

Finally, although I have other stories that technically qualify, I want to point out "Knives." This is a sort of modern-day revisiting of "The Little Mermaid," and was also originally published through the Book View Cafe, in August of 2009/

I find it almost terrifying that I have this many things that even technically qualify. And next year, I'll have two things to list as potentially qualifying novels.

Sometimes the world is amazing.

Come and get it while it's hot! The Edge of Propinquity is one of my favorite online magazines, featuring a monthly mix of ongoing, or "universe" stories—sort of like the classic old movie serials of the 1940s and 1950s, only without quite as many Rocketman cameos—and one-off guest stories, showing you the freaky side of the fictional world. I was a guest author for TEoP in 2008, with a gory little story called "Let's Pretend." Feeling the sting of my long absence, I went crawling back to their door, and was rewarded with the chance to be a guest in their home once more.

Ladies and gentlemen, my story for the November 2009 issue of The Edge of Propinquity:

Inspirations.

This is me enjoying the glories of being a horror girl, pure and simple. It's dark, it's squishy, and it makes me very happy to be able to get it out there and share it with the world. Blood stains and all.

Enjoy.

We knew from the day we started shopping the Newsflesh trilogy that they would probably need to be published under an open pseudonym. There are a lot of reasons for that. The easiest to spot is "avoidance of over-saturating the market"—after all, as a relatively untried author, it's probably best if I not compete with myself.* Oddly, this isn't the biggest reason, just the first.

(*Before there's a general hue and cry of "but I'm planning to buy both," I should probably explain. I know that the readership of this journal is highly likely to buy both. This is one of the main reasons that I love you. The Internet readership I already have is a large portion of why we knew it would have to be an open pseudonym. It's the random bookstore browsers we're trying to avoid frightening away, the ones who won't know me from Adam until they get their hands on a copy of Rosemary and Rue or Feed.)

Genre separation is a much larger part of why I was happy to agree to writing under a pseudonym. Rosemary and Rue is fairy tale noir. It's dark, it's gritty, and it's occasionally brutal...but I would still hand it to a savvy teenager without fear that their parents would beat me to death with a baseball bat later. You could adapt the Toby books into PG-13 movies without gutting them. I won't cringe when I see high school students discussing them on my forums. Feed, on the other hand, is distopian political science fiction/horror. It has a high body count. There's gore, there's sex, there's bad language. I love it to death and consider it one of the best things I've ever written, but I so don't want you to buy it for your niece who loved Toby on the basis of my name alone. Putting a different author's name on the cover is a screaming neon sign that maybe the contents are also going to be different.

Do I expect the name to hurt sales? No. My publisher is savvy and good at what they do, and I'm really hoping this book will build a reasonable level of pre-release excitement, since it's going to be incredibly fun to do the viral marketing for. But I do expect it to make people pause and read the back cover before giving in to expectations.

So we knew I'd need a pseudonym, and after the trilogy sold to Orbit, they confirmed it. That meant we needed to pick one.

There are a lot of factors that go into selecting a good pseudonym. First off, it should be pronounceable (thus knocking my real name cheerfully from the running), and it should fall within the first half of the alphabet. That gets you a good spot on the shelf, which is important for catching the eye of the casual browser. People aren't tired of looking for something to read when they get to you. Who is Aaron Aardvark? Probably a best-seller. Your pseudonym shouldn't sound too much like the name of an author already working in your genre. We're not porn stars here. Calling myself "Maya Bone-hoff" or "Jane Hinds" isn't going to increase my sales, although it might get me slapped.

Your pseudonym should also be something you're willing to answer to in public, and don't hate. You should know what it means, since no one wants to choose "Variola Majors," thinking it's pretty, and discover later that they've just named themselves "smallpox." The Agent and I sat down and came up with a list of about twenty options, some mix-and-match, some not, all of which I was willing to live with (and all of which were somehow a complicated horror movie or television joke), and sent them to The Editor II. He gave us his preferences, we winnowed, we argued, and we settled on "Mira Grant."

"Mira" is an interesting name, in that it appears in a great many languages, always with a different meaning. The version I was looking at was from the Romany, meaning "little star." It isn't short for anything, despite its resemblance to "Miranda," and I will answer to it in public. Plus, since my real signature includes both a capital "M" and a capital "G", I shouldn't have issues during signings.

And that's why I am Mira Grant. First person to catch the horror movie in-joke in my pseudonym wins a prize (and if you already know, no hinting!).