Hey friends!
This month’s newsletter will be on the shorter side — and also sorry for missing last month! Life has been, well, life-ing, if we can use that as a word, and spare time has been non-existent as of late. As a broad glimpse at my last few weeks, I’ve been juggling double overlapping deadlines, two damaged Achilles tendons (yep, both of them, ugh), an autoimmune flare up that left me in excruciating pain for days, and — not even kidding with this — a cyclone/hurricane (the first to hit my region in over 50 years), all on top of scary-but-thankfully-okay-now family health things, and just… well, as I said, life has been life-ing!
BUT!
I wanted to get this out to you because even though it doesn’t contain as much as usual, it does have some time-sensitive things, like an upcoming event with limited tickets, and also news on how you can get signed and/or personalised copies of Wandering Wild (with international options). So for anyone who didn’t see these announcements on my social media because of the unreliable algorithm, I didn’t want to risk you missing out!
Aside from the above, this newsletter also includes some long-awaited news for UK readers, a link for the live spoiler Q&A chat I did to celebrate the 10-year-anniversary of Akarnae (featuring my talk with the producer who holds the film rights), and an artist spotlight showing the draft-to-finished-version artwork for some character portraits and scenes I commissioned for The Prison Healer series a while back (purely because I think it’s so cool to see how things start and where they end! Artists are so talented!!). There’s also three of your questions answered, and a couple of other things, so let’s get straight into it!
SIGNED AND/OR PERSONALISED COPIES
A lot of people have asked about these, so I’m happy to share that both QBD Books and Harry Hartog are offering signed copies of the AUS/NZ paperback edition of Wandering Wild — and YES, it’s the one with the pearlescent/shimmery cover and pink sprayed edges!
QBD Books is offering signed-only copies, which you can order here.
Harry Hartog is offering signed and personalised copies (ie. I’ll also personalise it to a name of your choice), and you can order here. They also have a VERY LIMITED number of copies of the special edition hardcover of Akarnae available, too!
INTERNATIONAL READERS who would like to get this book can order from Harry Hartog, since they have global shipping options available. Please use the link above for details!
EVENTS:
I have a number of VERY FUN events happening this year, but so far, only one has been announced: Sydney Writers’ Festival! I’m so thrilled to be attending their All-Day YA day on Saturday May 24 where I’ll be doing a solo session (eeek!) to talk allllll about Wandering Wild, and also touch on my career to date and my jump across from fantasy to contemporary with this book. This in-conversation will be moderated by Alex Adsett (a fab Aus literary agent) and taking place from 5:30-6:30pm, with time for signing afterwards. Books will be available to purchase at the festival, or you can bring your own from home! (I’m unsure if there’s a signing limit, sorry!)
Details about my session are below. Tickets are limited but they’re AVAILABLE NOW and you can buy them by clicking here.
I also have other events happening to celebrate the release of Wandering Wild (and all my books!) which I’ll share about soon! (Likely over my socials in the next couple of weeks, with an overview in my next newsletter.) Stay tuned!
UK NEWS:
I know a lot of UK readers have been patiently (ish, lol) waiting for news about whether you’ll be able to get your hands on Wandering Wild once it releases, and I mentioned a few newsletters ago about how tricky it is to sell rights to the UK when full Commonwealth rights aren’t available (which they aren’t for my books, since I always sell AUS/NZ independently, given that I live here).
Well, I’m thrilled to share that my agent (who is the best agent ever) worked her magic and there’s now a UK publisher on board for this book! Woohoo! I can’t share all the details until everything is signed, but once I have confirmation of the release date and pre-order info, I’ll let you know!
WRITING/EDITING UPDATE:
I mentioned at the beginning of this newsletter that I’ve been on double overlapping deadlines (which isn’t fun at all), but thankfully I’m now just back on one — that being the second round of edits for my upcoming YA fantasy book. A lot changed last round, more than usually changes for me during edits (including me adding in a whole new time stream of events, which was super challenging but I love the end result!!), so this round is focusing on the finer details and adding in some more sensory depth and character introspection. All small things, but finicky work that requires a lot of concentration, with the payoff being a much more immersive reading experience. Think of it a bit like adding spices to a meal and how a few little additions add a whole heap of flavour. That’s where I’m at with these edits.
Aside from that, so (so!) much exciting stuff is happening with this book/series, none of which I can talk about until it’s announced (hopefully soon!), so for now, all I’ll say is that I love it soooooooo much and am desperate for you to meet these characters and the world they live in when the time comes! I’m not meant to have favourites, but… *whispers*… it’s entirely possible this is my favourite book I’ve ever written!
MEDORAN CHRONICLES Q&A TALK
If you missed the spoiler(!) Q&A when it aired live (the one where I was joined by the producer who holds the film/TV rights and asked her some of your burning questions), you can watch it here. You shouldn’t need an Instagram profile to watch it — just click the cross on the top right corner of the login pop-up to make it disappear.
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: DOMINIQUE WESSON
I’ve worked with a heap of incredible artists over the years since I love seeing my books come to life and sharing the artwork with you. The artist I’ve probably worked with the most is Dominique Wesson, who created a full set of character portraits for The Prison Healer series, as well as some gorgeous scenes. Dominique’s talent is off the charts amazing (and, unfortunately, means her art has been fed into AI generators, so a lot of the AI “art” you see steals from her work), and I’m constantly astounded by what she creates!
I thought it might be fun to show the evolution from first draft to finished version for some of the pieces she’s created for me, so let’s start with the iconic River Room scene from The Gilded Cage. Here you’ll see a few changes from the first version to the final — most notably, the background, but also smaller things like the colour of Jaren’s coat, and so many of the finer details added, like the sparkles on Kiva’s dress, the Z scar, skin/muscle/vein definition, even actual threads and fibres on Jaren’s clothes (if you zoom in). It’s so stunning!
Next up is Kiva’s portrait, and honestly, there weren’t a lot of changes from the initial sketch to the finished result other than Dominique adding in colours and details.
Then another example is the Caldon portrait, which went through a few different drafts to get him perfect. After seeing the first sketch I wanted his hair to be a little shorter, and his overall vibe to be less Tamlin-coded (IYKYK). I also wanted to focus on him as a warrior rather than just his elemental skills, so Dominique added in the sword and included flames to showcase his magic. The end result is amazing!
I find Dominique to be very intuitive with her art, which means she requires very little direction from me (which I love, since I get quite anxious when I work with artists, especially when asking for changes or corrections), and for most of the other characters, the process of getting them from draft to finished version was so easy and simple. Some of them were spot on from the get-go and didn’t need any changes at all (characters like Naari, Ashlyn, Navok, Eidran and Zuleeka), while others needed a little tweaking (like Cresta, moving her snake tattoo to a different position on her face, and Tipp, to make him come across a little softer and less serious). But in the end, they all turned out perfect because Dominique is a master! Here’s the full set if you’re a new reader and haven’t seen them before:
As a fun little teaser, Dominique is currently working on a full set of character portraits for my next fantasy series (and some scenes), and from what I’ve already seen, YOU ARE NOT PREPARED for how gorgeous these pieces are looking! Here’s a sneaky (cropped) look at one of the characters, just to give you an idea of what you can look forward to in the coming months. I can’t wait to show you the rest when the time comes!
YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED:
Q. Will you ever branch into adult fiction?
Never say never! At this particular point in time, I’m staying firmly in my YA lane for at least my next few books, but who knows what the future holds! If I’m inspired to write something that I think would be better suited to a more adult audience, then I’m not afraid to venture down that path. I just really love the YA genre and readership, so I’m happy to stay where I am for the foreseeable future!
Q. How do you organise your knowledge about characters? Sticky notes?
Like many authors, I use a program called Scrivener to keep copious notes on everything from character descriptions, personalities, and relationships to a whole heap of world building things like places, magic, weapons, creatures, clothes, food, medicine, plants/flowers, timelines, etc. I’m not kidding when I say Scrivener keeps me sane (or as sane as possible, at least!).
A lot of authors also write their books in Scrivener since it has a heap of fancy functions like tabs for chapter outlining and things like that (I think!), but I’ve always preferred to write in Microsoft Word, so I only use Scrivener for the note taking things I mentioned above.
Q. Do titles for your books come easily to you? Do they change?
Sometimes they come easily, and sometimes they take a little work (or a lot!). Sometimes I know the title when I start writing the book (like in the case of The Prison Healer) and sometimes I’ll start with one title in mind and then change it partway through drafting if I have a lightbulb moment and realise something different fits better (like Wandering Wild — for a long time I was calling it A Dose of Reality).
Then there are instances where sometimes I’ll love a title but my agent or publishers (and/or their marketing teams) will disagree. This has only happened twice, if memory serves — once for Whisper, which was originally Whisper of Promise, but my then-agent suggested shortening it to make it snappier before we went out on submission, and once for The Gilded Cage, which was originally The Rebel Princess, but my publishers thought (rightly) that it was too generic in YA fantasy and didn’t stand out the way it could.
Then — here’s a fun little snapshot into my brain — there’s the instance of Vardaesia which was originally called Tia Auras, but the series font used on the covers of The Medoran Chronicles has a bit of a curve on the capital T that makes it look a little like a J, and that bothered me enough to change the entire title just to avoid that letter, hahaha. Of course, I then went and wrote We Three Heroes and got stuck with the J-ish-T anyway, lol. Ah well, you can’t win them all!
… And yes, the T on We Three Heroes still bugs me to this day! I mean, look at this! Once you see it, you can’t unsee it!
That said, regardless of the J-ish-T, I really do love this cover!!
Thanks for your questions! If there’s something you’d like me to answer in an upcoming newsletter, drop it in the comment box below and I’ll add it to my list!
Righto, I think that’s all for now!
Next month I’ll have a lot more news about upcoming events to celebrate the release of Wandering Wild (and maybe some other winky-wink surprises), but until then, I’ll continue to share stuff as I’m allowed over social media!
Thanks for reading, and catch you next time!
Just bought my SWF tix!! See you there 🤍
[screams in British] YAAAAAAAAAY!!! 🇬🇧