Happy Halloween Gentle Reader!

I hope you are going about looking fabulous today, eating things that are not good for you, and generally getting in touch with the silly and the fun. I'm dressing up as Julie Newmar and heading into San Francisco despite rain, crazy city parting, and the Giant's Victory Parade. Wish me luck! Mostly, wish me the benefit of my hair staying in place?

Just a note to say the name a Finishing School class contest (win 1 of 20 ARCs) ends officially tonight. More precisely, it probably ends when I haul my sorry self out of bed tomorrow and close comments. If you win, you'll be notified by my publishing house at which point they will ask for your mailing address.

Also both Timeless (in Paranormal Fantasy) and Soulless Vol. 1 (in Graphic Novels & Comics) have been nominated for Goodreads Choice awards. If you feel inclined to vote, I'd be most grateful.

GAIL'S DAILY DOSE

Your Moment of Parasol . . .


Your Infusion of Cute . . .
My pumpkins!



Your Tisane of Smart . . .


Your Writerly Tinctures . . .
7 Steps to Creating Suspense

PROJECT ROUND UP
Prudence ~ The Parasol Protectorate Abroad Book the First: Release date Fall 2013. Writing rough draft. Crazy encounters and climatic battle sequences ahead.
Curtsies & Conspiracies ~ The Finishing School Book the Second: Title changed. Copy edits incoming.
Etiquette & Espionage ~ Finishing School Book the First: Release date Feb 5, 2013. Working promo schemes to begin September.
Manga ~ Soulless Vol. 2: (AKA Changeless) Reviewing chapter by chapter, each drops on YenPlus by subscription. Print release tentatively Dec. 2012.

BIG FAT SPOILER ALERT on the Parasol Protectorate series! Really, DON'T READ THE BLURB ON AMAZON if you haven't read the other books first!

The Omnibus hardback editions are limited run through the SciFi Bookclub only.

The manga editions, Vol. available in print, Vol. 2 by subscription to YenPlus.

Most short stories available in ebook form world wide!

The first Finishing School book ~ Out Feb. 5, 2013

Book News:

Fan pumpkin art!

Quote of the Day:
Frisbeetarianism (n.): The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
~ Unknown


My darlings please recall, this is my blog and I am goddess of this little corner of the interwebs. You are always welcome to comment, as I am to delete said comments. As my dear mum often murmurers: if you haven't anything nice to say then please don't stay anything at all. Also: Thou shalt not commit Logical Fallacies.

Boxed Set Birth

The boxed set of the Parasol Protectorate releases officially today!

The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set: Soulless, Changeless, Blameless, Heartless and Timeless (Alexia Tarabotti)

All five books in one tidy box!

My first boxed set as a kid was the Chronicles of Narnia. And contrary to most The Horse and His Boy was always my favorite. Then The Complete Anne of Green Gables. Lastly, but certainly not least, I discovered Susan Cooper and the amazing Dark Is Rising Sequence.

Boxed sets somehow represent an iconic moment of maturity for me. I can't remember owning my first book, but my first boxed set was something significant ~ the completeness of it, the tidiness of it. I was old enough to have them all. I was old enough to have lived long enough for the author to have written them all! (You'll have to remember that at this time, life seemed to be an endless wait for the next Tamora Pierce The Song of the Lioness Alanna book.)

I suppose, all I'm trying to say is that I'm excited to have all my books in a tidy little box!


GAIL'S DAILY DOSE

Your Moment of Parasol . . .


Your Infusion of Cute . . .


Your Tisane of Smart . . .


Your Writerly Tinctures . . .
Cliffhangers: Not Just for the End of a Book

PROJECT ROUND UP
Prudence ~ The Parasol Protectorate Abroad Book the First: Release date Fall 2013. Writing rough draft. Crazy encounters and climatic battle sequences ahead.
Curtsies & Conspiracies ~ The Finishing School Book the Second: Title changed. Copy edits incoming.
Etiquette & Espionage ~ Finishing School Book the First: Release date Feb 5, 2013. Working promo schemes to begin September.
Manga ~ Soulless Vol. 2: (AKA Changeless) Reviewing chapter by chapter, each drops on YenPlus by subscription. Print release tentatively Dec. 2012.

BIG FAT SPOILER ALERT on the Parasol Protectorate series! Really, DON'T READ THE BLURB ON AMAZON if you haven't read the other books first!

The Omnibus hardback editions are limited run through the SciFi Bookclub only.

The manga editions, Vol. available in print, Vol. 2 by subscription to YenPlus.

Most short stories available in ebook form world wide!

The first Finishing School book ~ Out Feb. 5, 2013

Book News:
Boxed set! Yay!

Quote of the Day:
"That place that does contain
My books, the best companions, is to me
A glorious court, where hourly I converse
With the old sages and philosophers;
And sometimes, for variety, I confer
With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels;
Calling their victories, if unjustly got,
Unto a strict account, and, in my fancy,
Deface their ill-placed statues."
~ Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher


My darlings please recall, this is my blog and I am goddess of this little corner of the interwebs. You are always welcome to comment, as I am to delete said comments. As my dear mum often murmurers: if you haven't anything nice to say then please don't stay anything at all. Also: Thou shalt not commit Logical Fallacies.

Convention Report ~ Nimrod Writer's Conference 2012

I have returned from Tulsa Oklahoma and the Nimrod Writer's Conference, my penultimate event of 2012. I had a marvelous time. Fortunately for me, the lovely Talia warned me via twitter that the weather had turned quite cold. I snatched up my much loved and rarely used Pink Blanket Coat of Doom (yes, you read that right) and was warm as a, um, warm thing? the entire stay.

Tulsa is a great deal more ~ How to put this delicately? ~ up-and-coming, than I had anticipated in my snooty California way. This, for example, was the amazing view from my hotel room.

There are also food trucks, on of which served up Kmichi Fries. Did I order them? Of course I did.

The Truck


The Fried

I was also informed that Tulsa boasts an anglophile West End, hipsters with ironic facial hair, and stills resist the idea of Southern Sweet Tea (yes!!!). The hotel bed was puffy and deliciously comfortable. I scored a salad with seared ahi tuna at the grill downstairs that wasn't overcooked or overdressed. (It's my firm belief that only salads can be overdressed, in all other cases it's best to make the effort extraordinaire.) As a result of all this, I pronounce the city Most Civilized indeed.

Although, I could not get tea at teatime on a Sunday. Le sigh.

Self and my angel of warmth, Talia

Nimrod is a literary conference. I was the only genre writer. Thus I presumed that I was there to represent the "genre meets commercial Read It Because You Enjoy It" cause. I hope I fought well and academically in defense of the frivolous. Yahveh! I hurled 200 years of critical bashing of genre fiction squarely at the foot of Anne Radcliffe and then drilled a sleepy Saturday afternoon crew on the subject of Gothic Literature as the Root of Everythign good (including steampunk) in a hopefully awe inspiring (but mostly just comical) manor. Conference attendees left my classroom looking slightly shell shocked, which, in my book, is all you can ask for from students.

I met the Poet Laureate of the United States 2011-2012, Phillip Levine, a charming and decidedly amusing gentleman, as well as whole host of other amazing writers of every ilk.

GAIL'S DAILY DOSE

Your Moment of Parasol . . .


Your Infusion of Cute . . .

Beautifully wrapped gift from Samantha of Bohemian Romance
What's inside? See my Retro Rack post on the convention

Your Tisane of Smart . . .

Gift from Talia, fab book on Cherokee Nation full of wonderful period photos.

Your Writerly Tinctures . . .
Novel Editing

PROJECT ROUND UP
Prudence ~ The Parasol Protectorate Abroad Book the First: Release date Fall 2013. Writing rough draft. Crazy encounters and climatic battle sequences ahead.
Curtsies & Conspiracies ~ The Finishing School Book the Second: Title changed. Copy edits incoming.
Etiquette & Espionage ~ Finishing School Book the First: Release date Feb 5, 2013. Working promo schemes to begin September.
Manga ~ Soulless Vol. 2: (AKA Changeless) Reviewing chapter by chapter, each drops on YenPlus by subscription. Print release tentatively Dec. 2012.

BIG FAT SPOILER ALERT on the Parasol Protectorate series! Really, DON'T READ THE BLURB ON AMAZON if you haven't read the other books first!

The Omnibus hardback editions are limited run through the SciFi Bookclub only.

The manga editions, Vol. available in print, Vol. 2 by subscription to YenPlus.

Most short stories available in ebook form world wide!

The first Finishing School book ~ Out Feb. 5, 2013

Book News:

Available now!
The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set: Soulless, Changeless, Blameless, Heartless and Timeless (Alexia Tarabotti)

Quote of the Day:
"Sir Francis Walsingham, born in Kent, 1536; died, 1590. He was a celebrated statesman, and secretary to Queen Elizabeth: his integrity was so great, that he died extremely poor. Britons own much to Walsingham, as the zealous supporter of the Protestant religion, the encourager of navigation, arts, and sciences; and one of his favourite maxims should be deeply impressed upon the minds of youth, "knowledge is never too dear.""
~ Mangnall's Questions, 1830


My darlings please recall, this is my blog and I am goddess of this little corner of the interwebs. You are always welcome to comment, as I am to delete said comments. As my dear mum often murmurers: if you haven't anything nice to say then please don't stay anything at all. Also: Thou shalt not commit Logical Fallacies.