A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage at Shelf Awareness:
"Powerfully moving"
I'm grateful to Shannon McKenna Schmidt for a wonderful article, "Handselling Favorite: Nancy Olson's Novel Choice," about how Nancy Olson of Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh has championed A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage. (And yes, I am infinitely grateful to Nancy and her exuberant love for good books.) The article "to the trade" is here. An article in Shelf Awareness can help with sub-rights interest and queries--and, indeed, already has. Thank you, Shannon and Nancy...
Recommending an illuminating post: "The Tyranny of Suspense"
Go here for a wonderful blog post about why spoilers are not an issue, why literature is not about suspense, and how literature has been derailed from its ancient purposes. And since D. G. Myers says that spoilers don't spoil, here's the wonderful closure: Fear and pity are compliments to human freedom, to the possibility of change and variation in human stories; suspense and anxiety are the taxes paid by an impoverished culture of reading to the literary tyrant that occupies the throne once held by tragedy. I found this post especially interesting because one of my upcoming novels uses a very well-known life as a template. Everybody who knows anything about that life knows that it ended with a bullet in the brain. There's a spoiler for you!
More on artist Clive Hicks-Jenkins and Thaliad
Still following the progress of Clive's wondrous work on Thaliad (forthcoming epic poem in blank verse, Phoenicia Publishing)? Here's a back jacket and back cover image for you! I like those uncanny green windows; every epic needs some glow from the supernatural world.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
4 comments:
Alas, I must once again remind large numbers of Chinese salesmen and other worldwide peddlers that if they fall into the Gulf of Spam, they will be eaten by roaming Balrogs. The rest of you, lovers of grace, poetry, and horses (nod to Yeats--you do not have to be fond of horses), feel free to leave fascinating missives and curious arguments.
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So many things to comment on here. Clearly, resting on laurels is something you would never do! Despite the continuing rise of this work in popularity, you continue to produce more and wondrous works.
ReplyDeleteI guess I will not be able to afford all of them, and will have to pick and choose one here and there. But I am glad to have the opportunity and the delight of knowing you and your work.
RE: spoilers, that's pretty interesting. I'm a sucker for the issue of why people like and need to read and make stories, always.
And Clive continues to embellish your books with wonderful images. How lucky you are to be part of this collaboration!
Yes, I adored that post. It was meaningful to me in many ways...
ReplyDeleteAnd Clive is wonderful. It's grand to have a kindred spirit who wants to play!
I feel that I am doing nothing at the moment, but of course I'm reading NBA-YPL books for the judging panel stint, working on dratted marketing, and so on. But I'm not making much: no time. The day after the NBA banquet, I'm starting a novel! I've had lots of daydreams about it. I think it will be rich and wild! Can't wait... I also need to write some poems or I shall go mad. Maybe the NBA-YPL books will inspire something besides exhaustion!
If I know you, there'll be a couple more manuscripts in the in tray in a few months or so.
ReplyDeleteYou're amazing.
Aw, shucks, Miss Robbi...
ReplyDelete