the Author
September
15
10 Comments

Sun Sword audiobook & sundry

Posted in Audio books, writing, Jody Lee.

I think I missed an August update =/. Life has been a bit busier than usual, with the usual blend of good and ugh. Good: My father cele­brated his 88th birthday. We had a private room at a restau­rant, but it’s the first time since February 2020 that I’ve eaten inside any restau­rant what­so­ever. Less good: I devel­oped a retinal tear; it’s been fixed (laser), and yester­day’s followup appoint­ment was all posi­tive – but it took twelve hours for the dilating eyedrops to wear off. Usual writer variant less good: the Magic School book which I was so looking forward to writing has been eating my lunch, but appar­ently leaving me with All The Calo­ries >.<. I have several chap­ters written but think I have to nuke the latest one. Which is better … Continue reading →

July
27
13 Comments

Cover Preview: Cast in Eternity

Posted in Kathleen Oudit, covers, Shane Rebenschied.

I real­ized belat­edly that I have a full cover for Cast in Eter­nity, which I did not actu­ally post. And as I’ve been a bit absent — I really didn’t realize that it had been three months since I last posted — I thought it would help compen­sate for lack of news. As usual, the art director is Kath­leen Oudit, and the artist, Shane Reben­schied, long may they continue!

July
26
11 Comments

State of the Author, July 2022 edition

Posted in writing.

I hadn’t real­ized that it’s been almost three months since I posted here T_T. Things on the home­front have been hectic. There are no disas­ters or tragedies, but I had copy-edits, a book review column, and my brother and sister visiting (sister from LA, and she’s still here). I did get copy-edits back on time, I did get the book review column done — and then spent FIVE DAYS trying to get the column from iCloud to gmail. This… did not work. My text mails were fine, my 64k .rtf column attach­ment was not. I have no idea why; I don’t know if it’s the name of the attach­ment, etc — but it’s the same naming conven­tion I’ve always used. I tend to be a bit over-focused when some­thing is going wrong on … Continue reading →

April
29
42 Comments

State of the Author, April 2022 edition: I have news

Posted in Audio books, Cast, Elantra.

I have spent the last day doing my taxes (in Canada, the dead­line is the end of April. Except appar­ently when that falls on a weekend, in which case it’s the first Monday after the 30th). But, I have bits and pieces of news. My new editor is Leah Mol, new to the Mira team. Like me, she’s a Toron­tonian, so I got to meet her in person. I am feeling vastly more comfort­able now. First: I have been invited to be a Guest of Honor at the UK’s East­ercon in 2024, which will take place in Telford, between the 29th of March and the 1st of April. Second: The audio­book for Riven Shield is now avail­able.  It’s narrated by Eva Wilhelm, as all the West novels are, and (some) of … Continue reading →

March
4
31 Comments

Spoiler Thread: Sword and Shadow

Posted in Elantra, Spoiler.

I try to put these up a week after a book has been released, but I was so focused on trying to finish Cast in Eter­nity that this did not happen. So, late, but: this is a discus­sion thread meant entirely for people who are not me to discuss Sword & Shadow. As the title suggests, it’s a spoiler thread, and while I ask people not to spoil a book in the main publi­ca­tion day thread, I’m obvi­ously not going to ask people not to spoil things in this one :). DO NOT READ if you haven’t read the book, unless you don’t mind spoilers.