Brief return

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:45:35 -0800

Me, my hat, and the exhaustion of the road!
Actually I’ve been having a great exhausting time... which I shall write about more when I am really back... after Montreal next week and Children’s Book Week.
Meantime, this interview appeared - so if you want to see me and hear me talk click HERE (Warning: I was ever so slightly hungover!)

The Road Part Two

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 14:17:35 -0700

I am well into the tour now. Calgary was great fun and I have just done my first event in Vancouver. mainly for Runestone but with a bit of Vlad thrown in.
I am gone now for three weeks and will find it hard to blog. But if anyone wants to come and see me in Toronto, I am reading from both books on Halloween - check out my ‘Appearances’ page for details. I promise I give good show! I realized long ago that I really write to be read aloud! And my plan is to read some scary stuff on that scary night.
I will report on my return. And meanwhile leave you with another great image from Rob Edmonds based on my book, with my words commenting on the image.

BROTHERLY LOVE
Rob’s ironic words and image. A pivotal moment in the book, the severing of this finger. The smallest finger, the smallest sacrifice? Hardly a death wound. Yet a lifetime of hurt leads up to it. It is one of the oldest stories, Cain and Abel.
What would it be like to lose your littlest finger? You’d live. But what would the repercussions be? People are always losing bits in my books. Anne Boleyn. The Fugger. Vlad. I’ve ceased to wonder why.
As Rob’s image is made of cuts and lines, so was mine. It probably did not come till the third draft, refined further on the fourth when, in a completely new scene, I described how one of Vlad’s quillons – his sword’s cross–guards – had been bent in the fight that won him his throne. He had chosen to leave it bent, to remind all of the warrior he was, how he had triumphed. A touch of vanity, in a man who had little. Yet it cost him much more than a finger in the end. It cost him what he believed was his destiny.

Interview

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:02:48 -0700

An interview has appeared with me on CW Gortner’s wonderful blog:
HISTORICAL BOYS.
Click to check it out!