This Is My Secret: The Blog and Website of Writer Kristin Cashore

I was thinking the other day that it'd be nice to live on the planet where the kingdoms of Attolia, Sounis, and Eddis are. After all, that planet has Gen, Irene, Helen, Sophos, Costis, the magus, and some chill-inducing gods, which makes it a damn awesome planet.

At the end of my deliberations, though, I decided I like our own planet best, and here's why: we have Megan Whalen Turner.

Take that, Sounis! *thbbbbttt*

You are not going to be disappointed by this book.

(For the uninitiated: read The Thief first. And for those in need of gifts for a book lover: A Conspiracy of Kings doesn't come out until April 2010, but The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, and The King of Attolia are all out in paperback.)

(Also -- I don't know if any of my readers will have read A Conspiracy of Kings already, but just in case any have, here's a warning for others to tread carefully through the comments to this post, because there may be Attolia spoilers. Commenters, please be kind and use …

8. Warm hellos to everyone coming to my blog from NaNoWriMo. Welcome! The comments you've written here and there in various posts have brought tears to my eyes. Thank you! I really do know what it's like, and I really do hope you'll keep writing despite how hard it is, and despite all the voices that tell you not to. (To any of my regular readers who have no idea what I'm talking about, I wrote a pep talk for National Novel Writing Month, which you can read here.) To all those writing novels/short stories/fan fic/WHATEVER this November: good luck. Don't forget to be kind to yourself and KEEP THE FAITH.

7. For those of my blog readers who are Megan Whalen Turner fans -- and I know there are a lot of you -- check out her interview last week at Hip Writer Mama.

6. Next, remember the other day when I mentioned Tu Publishing, a small, independent multicultural SFF press that needs funding to get off the ground? Well, now there's a new, fun way to help: the Kicks…

A happy addition to my BEA schedule: On Saturday, May 30, from 1-3pm, I'll be signing books with Melissa Marr at Books of Wonder, 18 West 18th Street, New York City.

For today's post I direct you to the podcast of my recent conversation with Deirdre and Maria at the Mount Kisco Library in Mount Kisco, New York. Deirdre and Maria had some great questions about Graceling and YA lit! Here are some of the things we talked about:
Katsa's relationship with Raffinthe nature of Gracesfantasy character nameswhy YA is such a great genreMegan Whalen Turner and why "write faster!", though often meant as a compliment, might not be the most empathetic thing you can say to a writerthe anti-marriage thing (which, incidentally, I blogged about once, here)how my characters surprise me as I'm writing Warning: there are a few Graceling spoilers in the podcast.

Go here to listen. Thanks to Deirdre and Maria!

Quick news: Graceling has a Korean publisher, Moonhak Soochup. Also, Hörbuch Hamburg will be producing a German audio version, to be released in Fall 2009, which is, I believe, also when the German print version will be released. yAt!
Also: I've been getting some questions about ARCs for Fire. No, the Fire ARCs are not out yet. What's out now are reduced bound manuscripts in a very limited circulation. (I don't even have one.) I believe the ARCs will be distributed in March or April. (To explain what I'm talking about to anyone not familiar with the lingo: ARCs -- advanced reading copies -- are produced in a limited quantity by publishers as part of their marketing plans. They're meant to generate buzz and sales, and they're distributed by the publishers, usually at conferences such as BEA and ALA as well as to review magazines.)
Also, since so many people were raving about the Megan Whalen Turner books in my recent book meme post, I wanted to report ba…