Hello, friends! I’m so sorry to have absented myself quite that long, but apparently I had to crawl into a hole for a good long while. Who knew writing could make you tired? Anyway, I am recovered and – astonishingly – feeling something like cheerful again. It helps that spring is here. Here’s the cherry tree in our courtyard:

Hard to stay grumpy when that’s just outside your window.

Anyway, I’m here because: NEWS! I will be in Lexington, Kentucky later this month, and I’m going to have a bookstore event at Joseph-Beth Booksellers. It’s Saturday, March 23rd at 2pm. I spent my teenage years in that store, and I’m so excited to be back. I see the event’s not listed at their website yet, but I’m sure it will be soon.

I also have an upcoming appearance at the McGill Branch of the Burnaby Public Library, on Saturday, April 27th at 2pm. That one’s going to be kind of special, I hope, but I’ll have more details closer to the day of. I merely mention it now to tease any snooty Vancouverites who might be thinking, “Burnaby? Bo-ring.” No, no, silly people. BURNABY AWESOME. More to come.

Springtime also gets me thinking about music. With all this time on my hands (translation: all this housework I don’t actually want to do) I might just get really boring next week and write some music posts. I know you love those! Such wonders to look forward to!

It never fails that exciting things happen when I’m trying to stay off the internet, and I can either report them and let myself succumb to distraction, or I can stay off the internet and appear even more oblivious than usual. So yes, while I was gone, I learned that Seraphina is one of the finalists for the 2012 Andre Norton Award. I’m not so jaded by my other nominations that I’m impervious to the tremendous honour of this one. What a wonderful list to be on. I am so very, very awed and grateful.

I finished the current draft of The Sequel Unnameable and sent it to El Capitan Pantalones de Editor. The second book won’t be called Dracomachia, I am reliably informed, but what it WILL be called is still up in the air at this point. I am now off to a week or two (or however long it takes) of unbridled napping. That’s right. I’m tired.

Thursday evening (7ET) I will be participating in an on-line author chat at a site called Figment, along with fellow debut novelists Alexandra Monir and Elizabeth Laban. It should be excellent good fun. I’ll wake up for it, I promise.

I learned today that Seraphina has won a Cybils Award for YA SF/F. My heartfelt thanks to all the nominators and judges from the book blogging community. This is a relatively new award, but Random House notified my editor that I’d won, so I’d say the publishers are taking notice and keeping track.

It was also announced today that Seraphina has been short-listed for the Waterstones Prize in the UK. The story made the BBC news site (I’m linking to that story because the title cracks me up. Beavis and Butthead, y’all! Oh, and some other books!). This is a huge honour. The winner will be announced March 21st. I’ll be under my bed.

In totally other news, my photographer friend Lauren Zurchin is doing a fantasy authors calendar for charity! Go check it out, and then support her Kickstarter to help make it happen! I’m not in it*, but many other exciting people are, the idea is excellent, and the charities are worthwhile.

* Because “Spocktober” is not a month. How was I supposed to know?

Is that all we got? Only one thing more: Vancouver has crocuses, ladies and gentlemen. I’m callin’ it for spring!

I know, I know, I wasn’t going to post this week. I was going to ensconce myself in my Chamber of Clandestine Composition and work until my fingers bled (and believe me, that’s what I’ve been doing). However, I have news so exciting it couldn’t wait. I had to bust out and tell you (also: get myself a cup of tea. Composing clandestinely is thirsty work!).

It’s the new cover, darlings. Here it is!

When you see it in shops, it will have the Morris sticker on it too!

So it turns out, ha ha, the new edition is coming out earlier than anticipated (in the US, anyway) because shops are running out of the older edition. These have already shipped, and shops will be putting them out soon. If you dearly love the original cover (and I do, so I understand that), your time to find those may be limited. I merely mention the fact.

I don’t know what the schedule is for the changeover in Canada. I do know that Canada is planning to re-jacket on the original book; the bonus material will be available online from Random House Canada (link provided on the jacket flap). Once those all sell, the next printing will have the bonus material inside. When I learn any more details, I’ll let you know.

So there you have it, bright and festive, new but not unrecognizably so. I like it a lot, particularly the new font, and that S that looks like a little dragon in its own right.

All right! Back to work with me!

So my guest post on “genre bending“, the big finale to Rachel Hartman Week on Lytherus, is up. It’s been fun over there this week, and I am so flattered that they thought of me.

I have also been  informed that Seraphina made another list, the ALSC 2013 Notable Children’s Books list. I am reliably informed by multiple librarians that it is very tricky to get on both this and yesterday’s YALSA list, so I am feeling quite fortunate to have done so.

But oh, you lovely folks. It has been a wonderful week and also a very difficult one. All this praise. It’s wonderful, and very, very distracting. Real life – where the dog is sick and chores must be done and writing is WORK – seems very hard after a continuous diet of praise. It’s like some kind of Praise Hangover, this malaise.

So I’m going on a little retreat, just a short one, from the internet. I’ll still read e-mail, but I’m taking a break from the blog and all social media for about ten days. I’ll see you all again on the 11th or thereabouts.

And thank you. Thank you for reading, and enjoying, and telling me about it. Back soon!

What a week I’m having! It’s “Rachel Hartman Week” at Lytherus, as I’ve mentioned before, and today they’ve put up a conversation I had with Christopher Paolini, Lauren Zurchin, and Mike Macauley back in July at Comic-Con. Tune in tomorrow for a guest post from me!

In other news: Seraphina made the top ten on YALSA’s 2013 Best Fiction for Young Adults list. Thanks again, YALSA!

All about my Morris Award experience, up at BookPage.

Edited to add: Lytherus is giving away 10 signed copies of Seraphina! Go enter while there’s still time!

Our friend the Morris Award, flanked by Apollo, Athena, the frog, and the ‘mander.

So as most of you have probably already heard, Seraphina received the Morris Award for best YA debut novel yesterday. I feel so fortunate that I got to be there in person and hear it announced. I got to meet this year’s Morris committee, shake hands, have pictures taken (including one where we all wore fake moustaches! Librarians are sillier than is commonly supposed), and just feel so very loved and encouraged all around. I managed to give my speech without falling off the stage, and they gave me a standing ovation.

I have never had a standing ovation before in my life, and I was a pretty good belly-dancer back in the day.

Anyway, it was wonderful. I got to see a whole bunch of Random House people I met last spring, meet a few I missed when I was there, and meet the new publisher, Barbara Marcus, who’s been the energy and impetus behind the new edition of Seraphina that’s coming out (maybe sooner than expected! I’ll get a date for you). She was so kind and encouraging, and she reminded me of Hannah, my boss at Children’s Book World, which was great. I’m feeling all excited to get back to work now!

Hello, darlings! This afternoon I will be travelling to Seattle, Land of Librarians, to be present for the ALA Youth Media Awards announcement tomorrow morning, and to give a little Speech of Gratitude with the other Morris nominees a couple hours after that. I’m the only Morris nominee who will be there in person, I understand, which is too bad because I would have liked to meet the others. Ah well, another time.

Anyone interested in watching the award announcement live, here’s the link. The link to the link, really, not the webcast itself. The presentation is at 8am PST, and I’ll be up for it, win or lose, rain or shine.

Given that it’s Seattle, rain is quite likely.

Apparently there’s a tradition of previous Morris Award winners interviewing the new nominees. I feel honoured to have been interviewed by the winner of the very first Morris Award, and fellow fantasy writer, the incomparable Elizabeth C. Bunce. It’s up at her blog. Go read and enjoy!

Also! Next week (1/28) is Rachel Hartman week at Lytherus.com! It’s mentioned down toward the bottom of this article about Christopher Paolini week (this week). Super exciting!