I’m at best a haphazard and slightly under-orga­nized person.  I didn’t realize just how close July the 1st was until, well, today.  June has disap­peared in a trail of words, chap­ters, and the end of school.  I’ve done a fair amount of writing, and I’m three quar­ters of the way through Cast in Chaos (which I always now type instead of Silence).  I’ve also finished revi­sions on what exists of House Name, having added some seven thou­sand words, and I’m now at the point where I’m once again writing new words in that book’s closing arc. Someone came into the store a couple of months ago and suggested that one of my future Cast novels should be titled Cast in Concrete, which was very funny – and if … Continue reading →

For those of you who live in, or around, Toronto, I’ll be attending Polaris 23, which will be held between July 10th and 12th this year. I haven’t got a full list of panels yet, but hope­fully I’ll be able to post a list closer to the date. Hope to see you there, Michelle

Thank you for your comments, emails, or input on the West group list.  I’ve added a page to the sidebar, called Down­loads.  On it, you will find three short stories.  The first, Echoes, is a West-universe related story about Kallan­dras, the Master Bard.  The second, Birth­night, is the first short story I sold; it was written as Michelle Sagara.  The last, Nightin­gale, is one of the stories that I partic­u­larly like, and one of the few SF stories I’ve written.  For some reason, my SF stories end up being some­what darker than my fantasy stories. I’ve closed comments on the Down­loads page, because in theory it’s static, so if you have anything to say (links not working, etc.), here’s a good place to leave comments. … Continue reading →

I have some news for Michelle West readers. But first, a small digres­sion. I’ve said before, and will no doubt say again, that no two writers I know work in the same way. It doesn’t matter what their stated process is; when you get down to details, the process that sounds the same actu­ally differs widely. Some writers are outliners. They can write an outline which they can more or less follow, and use the outline to guide their story as they write the actual book. I can’t. I’ve done it once, and what it taught me was that it’s not a guide — for my partic­ular creative process — it’s a straight­jacket. Some writers can look at a story and have a natural feel for its length; they know when … Continue reading →

Hi, Was wondering why there seems to be a major prob in getting hold of Lady of Mercy? I have the other three books and didn’t want to start reading htem until I had a full set but I can’t get a copy of this book unless I am willing to pay £400.00 or more for second hand …. Are there going to be any more published at all? Thanks for your time xx   A couple of people have asked this, so I thought I would pull it up out of comments and answer the ques­tion here. The publisher, BenBella books, changed distrib­u­tors, which meant shifting all existing stock out of one distrib­u­tor’s ware­house and carting it to the new ware­house.  The books that went out of stock during this period … Continue reading →