1: When We Wake First pass pages: SUCCESS

[Transcript: A pile of printer paper bound with heavy duty rubber bands, many post-it flags indicating changes in the top left corner. The top page reads WHEN WE WAKE in a delightfully futuristic typeface]

Typically nervewracking work, because what if you don’t like the book anymore? Turns out I do, excellent, send it off on Monday.

2: First ever creme brulee: MOSTLY SUCCESS.

[Transcript: A creme brulee in a grey terracotta soup bowl, looking mighty fine if I do say so myself.]

Me: Where are those ramekins you said you had?
Mum: Oh, hmmm, let’s see, how about these?
Me: Those aren’t ramekins.
Mum: They’ll be fine!
Me: They’re soup bowls, they’re too big. The custard won’t set.
Mum: How about these two mismatched containers that are different sizes and made out of different materials?
Me: I will take the soup bowls.

They didn’t set. But the resulting thick custard was very nice!

3: Would you like me to critique your short story or novel synopsis plus first chapter? You can have that happen! You just have to promise the most money in the Alpha SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers auction.

It’s probably worth noting that, if we are not good buds – and even then I regularly have to prioritise other things – charity auction bids are pretty much the only way I critique others’ work, so this is a rare opportunity.

My item is here, but there is plenty of other super neat stuff up for grabs, and all the money goes to financially underprivileged young writers to assist with attending the workshop. A most worthy cause!

They don’t actually have to be my books. I once signed a copy of Sarah Rees Brennan’s The Demon’s Covenant with my name. I believe the salutation was, “Dear [Reader], I wrote this book. Happy reading!”

But in case you would like me to sign the books that I wrote, I can do that too.

Yes, it’s mini-tour time!

SAN DIEGO

Thurs 27 Oct, 7pm: Diversity in YA event!

San Diego County Library Poway Branch
13137 Poway Rd.
Poway, CA 92064

Highlighting fantasy and science fiction with authors Holly Black, Cinda Williams Chima, Karen Healey, Malinda Lo, Cindy Pon, and Greg van Eekhout.

I imagine that we’ll talk about diversity.

Then I am doing World Fantasy Convention, where I believe 300 copies of Guardian of the Dead will be in the giveaway bags. Should you like me to sign one of those, you may find me here:

Friday, Oct. 28: 8:00 PM – 11:00 PM

Town and Country/San Diego: Autograph Session

Saturday, Oct. 29: Noon

Pacific 1: I Believe That Children Are the Future

How do we convert YA fantasy readers into adult fantasy readers? What books will they read after Harry Potter, and how do we get them to want them? Using fantasy as an educational tool as a means of reaching more potential readers.

Cornelia Funke, Karen Healey, Marlene Perez (M), Tamora Pierce, Cindy Pon

(Chances that this panel will accurately follow that description: probably fairly low. Approaching YA as a gateway drug to Real Fantasy is not usually the chief focus of YA fantasy writers, so we may well be rebellious. I certainly intend to be.)

NEW YORK CITY:

Thursday 3rd November, 6-8PM, Books of Wonder

Fantastic Tween and Teen Fiction with KAREN HEALEY, LOUIS L. BUITENDAG, MARIANNA BAER, JOCELYN DAVIES.

PHOENIX:

Tuesday 8th November, 7pm, Changing Hands

Just me, by myself, being a dork.

So there it is! Mark calendars, etc.

So I went simple, and, in keeping with the theme, I went dark.

This recipe is not suitable for vegans, people with coeliac disease, or people with tree-nut allergies (although you can probably substitute the heck out of things at will). All photos illustrate the text without any additional information, and I will get to image transcripts soonish. Oh, and all measurements are in metric, because WHATEVER, AMERICA.

Dark Chocolate Teacup Puddings.

Set the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Assemble your ingredients! You’ll need dark chocolate, of at least 70% cocoa content (not pictured), milk, unsalted butter, cocoa, flour, nuts (hazelnuts, almonds and walnuts all work well; I’d love to try macadamias), caster sugar, brown sugar, and an egg.

You will also need a bowl, a wooden spoon, a small saucepan, measuring cups, scales, a baking tray, and six teacups.

Set the teacups on a baking tray. Break 100 g of chocolate into little bits, and divide them among the six teacups.

Break up 40 g of chocolate and put it in a small saucepan. Add 1/4 cup of milk (60 ml), 50 g unsalted butter, and one heaped tablespoon of cocoa. Heat over low heat, sitting constantly, until it’s almost all melted together. Remove from heat, stir in the last lumps.

NOTE: I am not kidding about stirring constantly. Burnt chocolate is horrifying. If you’re nervous, you can do this with the double boiler method (simmer some water in the bottom of a saucepan, rest a bowl on top [without touching the water], and stir until it melts). I’ve had practice, and I’m not very patient, so I do it the other way.

Pound up your nuts. This part is fun! Although more fun if your pestle isn’t broken.

If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, you can also do this by wrapping up your nuts and pounding them with a heavy object, like a rolling pin or a hammer or your copy of Breaking Dawn. You want them pretty fine.

If you’re in a hurry and you remember when you do the shopping (I never do), you can also buy pre-pounded nuts.

Measure out a 1/4 cup (60 ml) of nuts and dump into a small bowl. Add 1/2 cup (125 ml) flour, 2/3 cup (160 ml) caster sugar and 1/3 cup (80 ml) brown sugar.

Beat an egg with a fork in a cup. (Also fun. Baking probably relieves a lot of my violent tendencies.)

Pour the egg and the melted chocolate mixture into the dry ingredients. (We’re mixing up the chocolate first so it has a chance to cool. Don’t pour hot anything into raw egg unless you want it to stop being raw real fast.) Mix it up real nice and evenly distribute into your teacups.

Bake for 20-25 minutes. This is a good amount of baking time – long enough for you to do the dishes and wipe spilt chocolate mixture off the bench, and not long enough for you to clean up, get bored, go upstairs and start playing World of Warcraft, and remember ninety minutes later, when you smell something funny, that maybe you should have been paying attention to the cake you put in the oven.

This is a hypothetical situation that has never happened to anyone I know.

The edges should be setting while the centre stays dark – this is pudding, not cake. You want it gooey in the middle.

Let the baked puddings sit for 5 minutes. If you have homemade raspberry sauce in the freezer, this is a good time to thaw it!

Set a teacup on a saucer, scoop out a divot of delicious melty pudding with a teaspoon, and pour whatever you like into the gap. I would recommend against chocolate sauce because the chocolate at the bottom has already turned into a delicious sauce, JUST LIKE MAGIC.

But you can add cream. Or ice cream. Or raspberry sauce! Looks like blood, and is also delicious. I don’t get why people are all about raspberries and white chocolate when raspberries and dark chocolate are the clearly superior taste combination.

Enjoy your delicious dark treat, creepy bakers!

The Creepy Cake N Bake-a-Thon is ON! Vote for your favorite entry by commenting below. You can comment on EVERY Cake N Bake post, one entry per post, for a chance to win a $20 gift certificate from Barnes and Noble or an official Creepy Cake N Bake doll! Please include your email in order to be entered to win.

Trophies will be awarded on Halloween for the top creeptastic creations. Winners will be chosen by our special Celebrity Judge, Adam Rex, author of such deliciously creepy creations such as FAT VAMPIRE, FRANKENSTEIN TAKES THE CAKE, FRANKENSTEIN MAKES A SANDWICH, and PSSST!

Check the list of contestants and their post dates so you don’t miss any of the fun:

Mon Oct. 3 – Saundra Mitchell
Wed Oct 5 – Stacey Jay
Friday Oct 7 – Erin Dionne
Saturday Oct 8 – Sydney Salter
Mon Oct 10 – Brenna Yovanoff
Wed Oct 12 – Tara Hudson
Friday Oct 14 – Karen Healey
Saturday Oct 15 – Robin Bridges
Mon Oct 17 – Michelle Zink
Wed Oct 19 – Julia Karr
Friday Oct 21 – Victoria Schwab
Saturday Oct 22 – C.Lee McKenzie
Sunday Oct 23 – E. Kristin Anderson
Mon Oct 24 – Natalie Zaman
Wed Oct 26 – Stephanie Burgis
Friday Oct 28 – Dawn Metcalf

Half an hour later, when I had made trenchant commentary on a beautiful story the fabulous Belinda was working on in my spare room and was feeling very satisfied with myself, I got a text from Editor S.

No Rapture, instead an Aurealis Award for Guardian of the Dead!! Oh rapturous news!!! Congratulations!

I went into the good kind of shock. Clutching my phone, I wandered into the spare room. “I got an award,” I squeaked at the fabulous Belinda. “I got an Aurealis Award.”

When she hugged me, the news began to sink in. I levitated down the stairs. “[Housemate], [Housemate]!” I cried. “Guardian of the Dead just won the Aurealis Award for best Young Adult novel! Can you drive me to the wine shop so I can buy champagne? Oh gosh, I have to call my mum!”

It was 8.17pm on Saturday night – wine shop still open, and not too late for my New Zealand-based mother, who is living two hours into the future, and who I called from the car as my obliging housemate drove.

Predictably, I had to explain what an Aurealis award was, “like the Australian Hugos, kind of” not being of much help when talking to Mum. Dad was asleep, but my youngest brother was home and willing to chat – about Seussical the Musical, but no matter. I hung up and wafted into the wine shop.

“How are you?” the nice balding counter guy asked.

“I’m great!” I declared. “I’m a writer, and my first book just won its first award!” I pondered my champagne choices, and then recklessly reached for the Moet & Chandon. Out of my budget range, but when I lived in Japan there were half-bottles of this in my local supermarket, at not too outrageous a price. I bought it at every conceivable excuse, in the process regrettably developing a taste for good champagne that cannot be met by Yellowglen or Lindauer in times of great joy.

“That’s $61.10,” the nice counter guy said, grinning at me.

That was not what the price tag had said; it was substantially less. I beamed at him, delighted with the benevolence of a charming universe, and carried my booty back to the car, and home.

The fabulous Belinda and I clinked glasses, the twitter congratulations began to come in, and I have spent the rest of the evening in a pleasant fog. I really did not think this was going to happen. When prompted to nominate someone to pick up the award on my behalf, in the event that Guardian of the Dead were successful, I asked lovely Sean Williams to do it in a kind of desultory manner.

“If you win, do you want me to say anything, or should I just do a kind of happy dance?” he asked.

“Oh, thank the judges for the honour and acknowledge the awesomeness of the other nominees,” I told him, never dreaming that I was throwing away a perfect opportunity to make Sean do a happy dance in front of his peers.

I’d be sad about this missed chance for mischief, internets, but that’s impossible. I am just too happy. Too, too happy.

On mentioning this to my agent, he told me to have more confidence in myself.

I told him that I had plenty of confidence in myself! I just didn’t think the book had much of a chance.

“But how can you be sure?” he asked me.

And then I fatally said:

“Barry, I bet I won’t win. In fact, if I do, I will dress up like the trophy.”

You see, the Australian Shadows Awards do not go for geometric shapes or a simple plaque, or even the Hugo Award’s hilariously phallic silver rocket.

They go for full-on, full-figured dark fantasy lady awesome. Check these out:

While I do not know what this year’s trophy looks like, I dearly hope it also features a lady with a sharp object, and maybe some black wings of DESTRUCTION.

About a week before the awards were to be announced I bumped into my lovely Publisher E at the House of Onion. It seems that Agent Barry had told everyone at the Children’s Book Festival at Bologna that I might possibly be wearing several strips of fabric and brandishing a scythe, thus ensuring I COULD NOT BACK OUT.

I ask you, is this good agently behaviour? Surely his mission is to ameliorate my foolishness!

Fortunately, the honour went to Bob Franklin, for his short story collection Under Stones. I am certain he made no such foolish bets.

Congratulations, Bob! And thank you very much.

* Although other people think differently, and I am totally cool with that! But although I know it exists, I have a blind spot to the book’s horror appeal. I have hypothesised that it’s because I knew what was going to happen to the characters. For me, it lacks the suspense that I think is essential to a really good scare**.

** Good scares: I’ve just finished Dia Reeves’ splendidly gory Bleeding Violet and Dan Poblocki’s The Nightmarys, which I couldn’t read after dark because it freaked me out so much. Recommended!

As you know, I think I have had excellent fortune with covers; although I love some more than others, I think they are all beautiful, and none horrify my social justice sensibilities. Neither of these things are guaranteed in the world of publishing, and I am very lucky to have had excellent designers and ethical publishers working on these books.

This is all preamble to say that Little, Brown decided on a new cover for the paperback of Guardian of the Dead and I LOVE IT FOREVER.

[Image transcript at end of post]

It is so creepy and sexy and strong. This is no vacillitating damsel in distress, this is a lady STARING DIRECTLY INTO YOUR SOUL*. Every single person I have showed this to said “Oooh!” or “Oh my God. Wow.”

Actually, one person said “Is that the font from the Angel title sequence?” but 1) she is a typeface geek and 2) I love both Angel the TV series and that font, so I interpreted that as “Oooh!”

It may or may not have the silver Morris medal on it when it hits stores, and I am fine with that either way. I am just so very in love with this cover!

* Who is the lady? It is a mystery! Although probably not to those who have read the book.

[Image transcript: A head/neck/bare shoulders shot of a woman with bronze/brown skin and dark hair scraped back, is facing forward, unsmiling, at the viewer. Her eyes are in complete shadow. Superimposed on her forehead is the title GUARDIAN OF THE DEAD. A silver medallion is superimposed over her right shoulder, reading WILLIAM C. MORRIS DEBUT AWARD FINALIST. At the bottom of the image a blurb reads: "'Creepy, funny, sexy, smart' - Libba Bray, author of A Great and Terrible Beauty and Going Bovine."]

Hi Interwebs! I have a confession to make.

You see, after a lot of discussion, Allen and Unwin decided to go with a new cover design for the Australian version of The Shattering. They went with a new designer, RC Fleming, and a really different take on the book.

I’ve been sitting on this for a while, DYING to let you all see. And today, I finally get to unveil the new cover design to you!

This design really speaks to the lighter side of the book, and these typefaces are elegant and fun at the same time. I totally love the mystery of the shopping bag. What’s in there, Interwebs? We don’t know! Who do those legs belong to? Could be anyone!

Not gonna lie, I really liked the old cover too, but the more I look at this one, the more I think it’s even better.

Anyway, today is my publishing anniversary! One year ago, Guardian of the Dead was officially released, and my goodness, I might do some reminiscing on that tomorrow.

But today you get a cookie. And in celebration of this anniversary, I am going to give you the scene from The Shattering referred to on the new cover!

Sione stared at the girls, wondering if his face might explode from blushes.

“Heyyyyy Sione,” Keri slurred, waving a wine bottle at him. “How’s it gooooing?”

Janna jumped off her bed and grabbed his hand, yanking him into her room. “With my mum out of town and my sisters away at friend’s places, I thought tonight would be the perfect night for a shopping session and then a sleepover!” she said perkily.

“But… our brothers?” Sione asked, trying not to look directly at her. Janna’s outfit was very brief, and her voice wasn’t the only thing that was perky. “I thought we were going to find the killer tonight? Um, deeds of daring, great magic, that kind of thing.”

“Killers schmillers,” Janna said.

“Killer schmillers willers,” Keri giggled. “SIONE have a drink.”

“I don’t drink,” Sione said. “but okay!”

“JELLY SHOTS! JELLY SHOTS!” Keri shouted, and Sione downed 12 – no, 24! – shots and didn’t throw up because he is a hard man.

“Let’s play Spin the Bottle!” he said. “That is the best game!”

Sione spun the bottle, but it shattered!!!

“Oh no!” Keri gasped. “Look at all this shattering! Why, it reminds me of my shattering heart!”

“And the peace of our hometown that is soon to be shattered!” Janna remarked.

“Girls, the important question is, who do I kiss?” Sione asked questioningly.

“I want to kiss Sione!” Janna insisted determinedly. Her eyes were enormous sapphire ovals, and her lithe, opaque nose twitched like the cutest bunny rabbit you’ve ever seen. “He’s a hard man, and soooo confident.”

Keri shook her head shakily. “No, me! Sione’s the best,” the wild wench winsomely wheedled.

Sione felt a smile crawl across his face like a Very Hungry Caterpillar crawling to the next leaf. “Now, now, ladies,” he said, like that guy in the towel who gives you tickets to that thing you like. “You can BOTH kiss me.”

They did. It was the best night ever! And no one died!

COOKIE END.

What do you guys think?!

Despite the fact that “triage email” was further down the list, I have never been able to resist the allure of Inbox (1).

Also, the subject was “SQUUEEEEEEEEAALLL!!”

There was no actual content. Instead, there was an attachment containing the Aurealis Awards Finalists press release.

From these FIENDISHLY DIFFICULT CLUES, I deduced that Guardian of the Dead might be listed, and clicked in nervous anticipation.

At the same time, my phone beeped. It was a text from the lovely Tessa.

The Lovely Tessa: “You’re up for an Aurealis!”
Me: “In the divine words of Ms Gwen Stefani, this shit is bananas.”
The Lovely Tessa: “B A N A N A S”

So, yes! Guardian of the Dead is indeed a finalist in the Young Adult Novel section, along with Merrow (Ananda Braxton-Smith), The Midnight Zoo (Sonya Hartnett), The Life of a Teenage Body-Snatcher (Doug Macleod) and Behemoth (some guy who fed me this weekend).

The full list can be seen in the press release linked here. It is a very, very good list. Congratulations to all the nominees!

This is my William C. Morris Award finalist plaque for Guardian of the Dead!

You see it below in the hands of my American editor, the supersmart Alvina Ling (who is rocking that bob!) and my fabulous editor Barry Goldblatt.

Big congratulations to the other finalists, Barbara Stuber, Lish McBride and Eishes Chayil, and HUGE congratulations to Blythe Woolston, whose book The Freak Observer is the 2011 William C. Morris award winner!

I am currently writing something about which I shall tell you NOTHING as yet. But it has been brought home to me that people might want snippets of my next book, The Shattering. Teasers, as they say! Or in the book world, cookies.

Internets, would you like some cookies?

I don’t think I am in a fit state to compose a message that adequately conveys my sincere gratitude.

Instead I would like to have a serious discussion of pie.

In my part of the world, when one says, “I want a pie,” one generally means something like this:

That is a steak and onion pie from venerable Australian chain store Brumby’s bakeries. Om nom nom delicious gravyness.

In other parts of the world, by which I mean North America, when one asks for pie, one tends to mean this:

That is apparently pieces of pumpkin pie and lemon chess pie.

Internets, you are smart. You probably knew the pie/pie differential already. But you may not have known that the confusion does not stop with pie, but extends to foods in the pie family.

Once upon a time, I was eating at a very good Mexican restaurant in Tucson with BFF Robyn. Undefeated by the awesome chicken mole, we both ordered flan for dessert.

I was expecting something like this:

Instead, I got something like this:

It was yummy, I GUESS, but my expectations had been dashed, and I was very sad.

Of course, I think it can be generally agreed among people who are fond of both chocolate and coffee (eg, me) that the best pie of all is John Scalzi’s Schadenfreude Pie.

Much like John himself, this pie appears to be composed of equal parts sweetness and high-grade evil.

I have not yet dared to make it, but when I do, I confidently expect the earth to tremble, ever so slightly, at its unholy inception.