The Supernatural Underground
My second-to-be-published book, The Heir of Night—my first, Thornspell (Knopf) came out in 2008—will be published by Eos (HarperCollins) in the USA on 1 October. And because this officially makes me a HarperCollins USA writer, I was invited to be part of the Supernatural Underground, a blog site (and related Facebook page) where HarperCollins USA Fantasy, Science Fiction and Paranormal Romance authors post about their writing (and related matters). Those of you who are regulars here may recall that my debut post, on Why I Love Fantasy, appeared on 1 July—and I will be posting again on the first of every month from now on (so watch out for 1 August!)
But being part of the Supernatural Underground isn’t just about posting once a month and supporting other HarperCollins writers when they post, it also means I am now part of a network of writers (around forty, I believe) who are all doing the same thing I do—writing books, promoting books, dealing with the everyday of being a writer. This includes lots of stuff like deadlines, editing, contracts et al, as well as the fun of “what are my characters doing today?” So it’s really good to be able to hear the wisdom of my fellow writers, many of who have been succeeding in the wriitng game for a long time.
But sometimes there are other moments as well, when an email will fly around saying, “my next novel debuted today” and then—it feels like an incredibly short time later—another whizzes round the circuit saying: “And it just made the New York Times bestseller list!” Heady stuff—although I believe New Zealand’s very own Nalini Singh can lay claim to quite a few such moments over recent years.
One fellow HarperCollins USA author whose work I have been following since reading her first novel, Wicked Lovely, is Melissa Marr. So you can imagine how thrilled I was on Saturday when Melissa’s email flashed around the group to say that, not only has she signed a deal with HarperCollins for a new 3 book YA series (about a “a girl assassin, a demon with a soul, and a world where myth and science meet”, which sounds fairly exciting) but that fans of Wicked Lovely can also expect a forthcoming Wicked Lovely movie. The rights have been bought by Universal Pictures and Caroline Thompson (Edward Scissorhands) has been hired to write the screenplay.
Very, very exciting news and a tremendously well deserved success for Melissa—but exciting, too, for a writer on the far side of the world to be part of this much bigger picture.
* Note, The Heir of Night will also be published in Australia/New Zealand in October, by Little. Brown (Hachette).