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

This coming Saturday (April 2), I'm delivering the plenary lecture at the annual conference of the Children's and Adolescent Literature Community at Kansas State University, in Manhattan, Kansas. I'm so excited to go to this conference! The schedule of events is behind that link, and people from the local community are welcome to register, here. If it helps, here's the press announcement, too. The subject of the conference is "Truth, Memory, and Power" and my talk is called "Breaking Characters and Healing Them Again: The Fiction Writer's Perspective on Working with Trauma." Doesn't that sound light and fun? :o) Sigh, my poor sweet Bitterblue. I hope she is eating some chocolate cake right now, perhaps while saying something snarky to one of her cousins.

If you're in the Manhattan, Kansas area, do feel free to join us on Saturday for what promises to be a day of interesting panels and papers!

Next Friday, April 8, come to the Harvard Book Store at 7PM to see Marie Rutkoski and me, in honor of the release (yesterday) of the third book in her Winner's trilogy, The Winner's Kiss! I expect we'll both be reading, then chatting with each other, then chatting with you. It'll be fun, and Marie's new book is WONDERFUL -- come and see us!


In other news, here are a couple sweet songs I've been enjoying lately. As always, if you can't see the videos, go to my Blog Actual.

Fiona Apple, "Hot Knife"

Regina Spektor, "Eet"

On the chance you have not yet seen Bernie and the bird. (If you can't see the vid, go to my Blog Actual.)



Sorry again for the lack of blogging. I am trying so hard to get my next book in shape so it can get out into the world!

Sorry for my brief disappearance; after returning from East Africa, I got sick, then got better, then had to deal with an unexpected crisis. But all is well now!

And as a promise of future posts, here's a link to today's Flipboard Pictures of the Week, which struck me as being particularly interesting/ strange/ beautiful/ horrifying this week. Do you notice that the poor kid Donald Trump grabbed from the crowd is bawling his eyes out? Good instincts, kid.

These won't be my most beautiful pics, because they were taken from the plane and also because I'm jetlagged and frankly not putting my all into this post :o) -- but here are some scenes from the last 2 days' journey home. In reverse order, because I definitely don't want to end with the cloudy, snowy Boston scene that met us upon arrival!










I have more things to say about this trip. Especially about the many, many things I didn't photograph. I hope to come back and do that in the next few days, once I'm feeling less crummy.

Happy Pan-Universal Be Who You Are Day, everyone! (For those of you who are new to the blog, a few years back I decided to reclaim Valentine's Day and turn it into something else.) Here's sunrise this morning, in the order in which the various colors happened. Kevin, this is a good day to thank you again for Fancy Camera. :o)

I'm no longer in Rwanda. Can you guess where I am?

In my new location, it would be offensive to take recognizable pictures of people, which means it's also hard to take pictures of, well, anything, except in more isolated areas. So, before I get to the pictures, I'll start by saying that I might have taken a picture of the guy who cut open a coconut for us to drink. I might have taken a picture of cars driving on the left, through narrow, sunny streets. I might have taken a picture of a small, beautiful mosque, surrounded by cows that each had a distinctive hump behind its neck.

In this location, I cover my shoulders and upper legs when I'm in public, out of respect. The population is mostly Muslim and many men wear a fez. People keep trying to match Dave up with me or Stephanie, assuming one of us must be his wife; it doesn't occur to them that we are simply three traveling friends, maybe even with significant others at home. A cheerful man asked me yesterday, whe…