News and an Upcoming Cover

I've got news! I've got a huge buildup of news, actually. I love news! So here goes:

1. I am doing an event this week! Listen up, Idaho people, because I am moderating an event at the Boise Barnes & Noble on THURSDAY, Feb 9, at 7pm. I'm going to get the chance to interview the phenomenal Victoria Aveyard, author of THE RED QUEEN series (I toured with Victoria a couple years ago and it was so fun--she's a fellow Tolkien / George R. R. Martin fan, so of course we got along wonderfully) and the brilliant Sophie Jordan, who I've been a huge fan of since her FIRELIGHT series (and now she's going to be here promoting REIGN OF SHADOWS series) and can't wait to spend some time with in person!

I'll also be signing copies of the UNEARTHLY series, THE LAST TIME WE SAY GOODBYE, and MY LADY JANE. So come out!

2. The ebook of THE LAST TIME WE SAY GOODBYE is on sale, big time in Germany all month! The promotional price will be 5,99 € (usually 14,99 €) and the promotion will run 2/1 to 2/28. (Sidenote: I love this cover. The title translates to "The Improbability of Happiness." Make of that what you will, ha, but I love the way it looks like a math problem on the cover, juxtaposed with the dandelion and the girl. (And the ya! in the corner.)

3. MY LADY JANE hit the New York Times list in January! I am so thrilled about this, especially because my two co-authors now get to put the all-prestigious "New York Times bestselling author" label in front of their names. And that label will now go on the paperback, too. (The paperback is coming in June.) MLJ has also been landing on all kinds of wonderful lists lately, including the Amelia Bloomer list (which is all about celebrating feminism, which we really wanted to do when we wrote MLJ), the YALSA 2017 Best Fiction for Young Adults list , and the Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices. It's so great to see this book that gave us such joy to write being appreciated by so many people. Thanks, people!

4. This week, the Janies and I are finishing the first official draft of MY PLAIN JANE, which is the book in which we save Jane Eyre / Charlotte Bronte. This novel has been so much fun to work on, and we can't wait until YOU get to read it. Which will be a while. Like Summer 2018, a while. But we are hard at work on it, and it's coming!

To tide you over, I'll leave you this. It's a brilliant cartoon by Kate Beaton that captures, in a nutshell, what we think might be wrong with Jane Eyre. *spicy language alert*

And now for the biggest news of ALL:

4. I HAVE A NEW SOLO BOOK COMING OUT. It's called THE AFTERLIFE OF HOLLY CHASE, and it will be out on November 7, 2017. You can pre-order here. It's a teenage retelling of Charles Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL, which I had loads of fun writing. It's got a touch of magic and romance and great costumes, and I WILL SHOW YOU THE COVER TOMORROW.

That's right. TOMORROW. 9 Eastern. I will reveal the cover of THE AFTERLIFE OF HOLLY CHASE. It is, in my somewhat biased opinion, the best cover EVER. 

Enter the contest (which involves shamelessly plastering the Holly Chase cover everywhere you can think of) to win the very first ARC of THE AFTERLIFE OF HOLLY CHASE that I get my hands on.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

So stop by here tomorrow!

Signing in Los Angeles

Hi y'all,

For those of you who have been clamoring for me to do a signing on my home turf in LA . . . wish granted. I will be doing an event at the Mysterious Galaxy in Redondo this coming Saturday, March 29 at 2:30. It's called the Triple Trilogy Treat, because I will be joined by my good friends and fellow writers Jodi Meadows and Brodi Ashton.

Woot! I love these ladies! I love signings! If you come I'll even let you take a peek at the secret cover to my next book. . .

Here's the official link to the information.

See you there!

C

New York, New Book

Hello. Long time, no read.

I know.

I have been busy traveling. And traveling. And traveling. So far this year I have spent almost 3 months, in total, on the road. At first it seemed glamourous and fun, a great adventure, but at this point I'm like, "Oh. It's you, airport." Then I sigh.

But this week I am teaching a summer conference at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, holed up in my very own quaint little dorm room, meeting with students and talking about writing until my voice hurts, and then hiding out in the later hours to write.

I am writing a new book.

And it will be published. Unfortunately I can't tell you much more about it until things are signed and sent and finalized, but I will say two things:

1. It is not related to the Unearthly series. But I hope the fans of the Unearthly series will love it, because I love it, and it is a story that is very near and dear to my heart.

2. I will be reading a bit of this new book at the faculty reading on Friday night. So if you want a preview of my coming work, come out and listen! The reading is open to the public at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York (you take the Metro North train from Grand Central Station, about 20-25 minutes).

Here are the details:

7:30pm, Friday, June 28
Reisinger Auditorium
Sarah Lawrence College
1 Mead Way · Bronxville/Yonkers, NY 10708

Here's a link to the campus map.

I will read, and if you wait for me at the end, I'll have time to talk to you and sign anything you want and give away a few bookmarks and such. So if you're in the New York area, and you want to know something about my new book before anybody else, come out.

Hope to see you there.

And now I must go back to writing, writing, writing, writing, writing!

Endlessly and YA Author Week

Hi, y'all! Today I'm off to do a YA library event and signing with Kiersten White, Marie Lu, and Robin LaFevers! Love those ladies and their books!

Yes, for some reason they put up a copy of my UK Hallowed, but hey, it's all good. If you're coming to Oceanside, see you there at 4pm! Be sure to get a few of my Unearthly temporary tattoos!

Also, big happy book birthday to Endlessly, the amazing and fantastic end to the Paranormalcy trilogy by Kiersten White. I am totally going to give Kiersten a big ol' awkward hug and say congrats! Because it is a great book. I blurbed it, actually. Like this:

“There’s not a character in YA fiction that I enjoy reading more than Evie’s. Endessly had me in its clutches from the first hilarious page to the last breathtaking sentence. A fun, heartfelt, and dynamic ending to a marvelous series.”

So yeah, I dug that book. A lot. Check out the trailer.

Fancy New Blog

I'm still in the cave feverishly working on revisions for Boundless, but I wanted to stick my head out for five minutes to tell you that I have a new and improved blog / website. The biggest additions are the left-hand sidebar, where I have the foreign covers of my books linked to the publishers' websites. At the bottom are countries where the rights are sold, but no book has been published yet. I think. And I've moved the right-hand sidebar up to my fancy new events tab.

You will notice that I have a new event coming up:

July 24, 2012, 6pm, at the Oceanside Barnes and Noble with Kiersten White, Marie Lu, and Robin La Fevers, all of whom I adore. (Okay, technically I haven't met Robin yet, but I adore Grave Mercy, so I am pretty darn likely to adore Robin as well.)

I will be there with bells.

Also, for those of you who haven't seen it on my Facebook/Twitter feed, I thought I would toss you a crumb. Below is a picture of my research board for Boundless. There's a lot of stuff on there you won't understand, some clues, perhaps. Closer to the release I will be sure to make a video where I walk you through the board and all its many wonderful parts.

Now back to revising.

Countdown for Hallowed

Yesterday is my author birthday, when I officially became a published author. It's been one crazy/surreal year!

And now Hallowed go-time is less than two weeks away. I am so excited to be going back to Idaho for the launch, and I've got 2 signings going on there.

The first will be on Saturday, January 21 at 1pm at the Idaho Falls Barnes and Noble. I had my Unearthly launch at this Barnes and Noble last year and it was such great fun. I grew up in Idaho Falls, and so many of my old friends/neighbors/classmates/teachers came to the signing (I expect to see you all there this time too, guys, love you!), along with my very first teen readers that I got to meet in person. It was a magical day, and I'm so excited to get to go home again for the launch of Hallowed. Thanks so much to Kaaren at Barnes and Noble and my awesome publicist, Marisa, for making it all happen.

The second signing will be on the following Saturday, January 28 at 1pm at the Hyde Park bookstore in Boise, Idaho. I lived in Boise for 3 years while I was getting my MFA from Boise State, and in the general Boise area for 7 years when you count my 4 years in Caldwell when I attended College of Idaho, so it's a place close to my heart. (Plus my best friend lives there. Linds! I need bestie time.) I love Boise. Seriously, if I were suddenly to make a million dollars, I would probably pack up my family and move there. It is a great town.

I am also doing a mess of school visits, so you might see me at your school if you live in either of these areas.

In the meantime, I have to hunker down and finish Book 3, and, quite frankly, it's been kicking my butt. So many threads to tie up. I am going a little crazy here, but Clara is still making me laugh, which is the important thing. I am also doing two separate blog tours, which is keeping me plenty busy. See my shiny new UK blog tour graphic over there on the sidebar? Which means 2 things: I am going to be busy writing for other people's blogs for a while, so I probably won't be writing much on my own, but I have some really great blog posts planned for my tour (on the UK one, I'm doing separate posts about my thoughts on Christian and my thoughts on Tucker, sharing my Hallowed playlist, giving you a run-down on my dream film cast for Unearthly, and so on, and on the US one I am planning a couple of vlogs shot in Jackson and the Tetons. . . ) so please check it out.

It also means that I am mostly saying no to any interview requests I'm getting outside of these tours. I am getting 1-3 requests for interviews a day right now, which pains me, because ultimately I have to say no. I would love to do interviews, but I am out of time, folks. Book 3 has to get written if you want to read it next year.

If you super want me to do an interview, please ask to schedule it for after March 1, and make it 5 questions or less, and follow up with me about it. Things will calm down a bit in March.

Here is the awesome UK trailer for Hallowed. Post this trailer on your website, or share on twitter and facebook, and I will enter you in my final Hallowed ARC contest. Just comment below on what you did, 1 entry for each thing. I will give away 2 signed copies, winner to be announced January 12, so I can have it in the mail by the 13th before I head off to Idaho. (and if I miraculously get my advanced REAL copies of Hallowed before then, I will send those instead. Because they are SHINY.)


I also saw the US trailer for Hallowed today, and it was awesome!!! Watch for it to go live any day now. I will give you double points for sharing this trailer.

And now back to scribbling away on Book 3. Peace out.

Hallowed Giveaway and News

Hi y'all. The YA tournament was so much fun! Whew!

I am up to my eyeballs in writing Book 3 right now, deep deep deep in my writerly cave, so I am taking a wee hiatus from blogging, but I want to announce a couple things.

First, I am hosting a Hallowed Christmas giveaway on Goodreads.
See here to enter (I don't think it officially opens for a few days, so check back):

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Hallowed

by Cynthia Hand

Giveaway ends December 25, 2011.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
Enter to win

I also wanted to announce a few tour stops. First, I will be in Idaho in January. I'm still nailing down the details, but I will be doing school visits in the Jackson Hole and Idaho Falls areas mid-January (definitely a reading at the Idaho Falls Barnes and Noble on Saturday, January 21. I will announce the time as soon as I know). I am also considering traveling over to Boise and down to Salt Lake City around this time, so stay tuned.

In February, HarperTeen is sending me to Texas on the Winter Dark Days of Supernatural Tour, with the lovely Courtney Allison Moulton, author of Angelfire and my hilarious horse-loving friend and fellow angel writer, and debuts Brodi Ashton (Everneath) and Jodie Meadows (Incarnate). I am so thrilled to be spending time with these ladies. Dark Days is awesome!

Here are the dates and times:

Thursday, February 16th – DALLAS – B&N Southlake – 5pm

Friday, February 17th – AUSTIN – B&N Austin – 7pm

Saturday, February 18th – HOUSTON – Blue Willow Book Shop – 4pm

In March I plan to do a few stops in my local area of Southern California, hopefully a reading at Pepperdine in Malibu and a few school visits and signings in Ventura County and Los Angeles County.

In April (11-15) you can catch me in Chicago if you attend the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention, for Teen Day, where I am on a panel, doing some speed reading, and signing and hanging out with a huge bunch of wonderful fellow YA authors. Seriously. So many amazing writers are going to be there. Like I will totally have to resist fangrrling all over the place.

That's all the stops I have planned at the moment. But there will be more. Oh, there will be more.

In the meantime, I'm going to go back to my cave and continue to scribble furiously.

O Wondrous Night

Yesterday I finished up the next round of edits for HALLOWED, which means that we're getting very close to having the book ready to send to production. Whew. This book has been a doozy to write, let me tell you, but of course it's totally been worth all the long hours, tears, and contractions (there was a time in February where I was having major Braxton Hicks contractions while I was trying to finish that round of edits, and they stopped pretty much as soon as I sent the draft off to my editor. Clearly I was stressed. . .).

There's a reason why writers talk in hushed voices about the terror of writing the sophomore novel.

For me, writing the second book was an entirely different experience than writing the first one. With Unearthly I spent every day for six months at my computer (generally during my son's naptime), moving along at the average pace of 800 words a day. It grew slowly, and I started nearly every writing session by circling back over what I had already written, revising as I went.

With Hallowed I didn't have anywhere near that kind of leisure. I was pregnant. Teaching two classes at Pepperdine. Working on marketing and promotional stuff for Unearthly. And running after my four year old, who no longer took his nap. To top it off, my husband had to go out of town for almost a month during the summer! It's no surprise that, under these conditions, the writing didn't exactly flow out of me the way it did when I wrote Unearthly.

During that time I wrote the following email to my agent. The subject line was : One of those nights! Woohoo!

I thought I'd share it now:
So, last night. Very hot. No AC. Been feeling horrid all day (see: hot, no AC, terrible stomach with no desire to eat anything, which only leads the stomach to become more terrible) then actually veered the car over 2 lanes when I saw the $2 sign for biscuit and gravy at Denny's. Haven't eaten at a Denny's in possibly more than 10 years. Ate the $2 biscuits and gravy, which was fine, but very Denny's quality. Drove to grocery store, bought sausage and milk to make my own biscuits and gravy. Came home. Really freaking hot in the house. Too hot to cook. Tried to write. Will's in daycare, which means I really MUST write, otherwise it is wasted money. Tried for a couple of hours to write. Like pulling teeth. Miserable. Finally went to see Inception (which I liked btw) just to cool off. Went and bought two huge fans. Picked up Will. Spent evening putting together the fans. Still too hot to cook. We ate cereal for dinner. No real writing done all day. Feeling failure stifling me like the heat. Still lately my writing has been uninspired, work, not play. Been feeling panicky about it, like can I do this? In such a short space? Pregnant and cloudy-headed and sick all the time and exhausted by 2pm? Why will this book 2 come not to me?!!!! How can a little life form the size of a pencil eraser be playing such havoc on my body?!!! Why now? Clearly casting around for a metaphorical paper bag to breathe into.

So, in essence, horrid day.

Fast forward to 2am, one of the big fans blowing directly over my bed. Woke to a huge crash outside my open window. Completely terrified, clutching baseball bat by the bed, cursing stupid insensitive husband who thought it was a great idea to leave his pregnant wife home alone. Crashing outside continues. Turns out to be a possum? Raccoon? Some large creature eating the plums out of our plum tree. I can actually hear munching.

I wait to fall back to sleep. Munching creature. Fan that sounds like an airplane taking off.

And then:

tidal wave of book 2 inspiration. I turn on the light, grab notebook by the bed, and write what turns out to be about 15 handwritten pages of notes. It just comes pouring out, complete with dialogue in places. A totally improved arc for almost the entire book, all the way to a few scenes before the end. So, in essence, an outline of the book, scene by scene, sometimes coming in order, sometimes not, but understanding completely how it all weaves together: Clara, Christian, Maggie, Jeffrey, Angela, Tucker, Wendy, even a bit of Kay. Kept going back to bed and having to reach over and turn on the light again to write just one more thing. And one more thing. And one more thing. Then laid in bed for an hour just wanting to write it all out, get it ALL on paper as quickly as possible.

Marvelous night! O wondrous night!

This morning: thrashed of course. Exhausted feeling in my stomach. Need to take Will off to tee-ball.

But first I'm going to make us some biscuits and gravy.

Looking back, I honestly don't know how I made it through, except that I was determined to keep writing. And that's the lesson I get out of all of us. Sometimes it's not easy. But keep at it, keep jumping over your obstacles, and the magic will hit you when you least expect it.

Such is the mystery of writing.

Now I'm going to go play me some video games, for the one-whole-day I'm going to allow myself to simply waste my brain power before I start working on Book 3 (which I am totally excited to get to, btw!)

And, in you live near San Diego, come to my signing at the Mysterious Galaxy bookstore at 2pm on Saturday. I'll be there with Timothy Power and Greg Van Eekhout kicking off the Summer Reading for Teens and Tweens.

What color is Clara's hair, anyway?!

So some of you may of seen the UK cover floating around the internet. It's beautiful, ethereal and provoking, I think, but when I first saw it some months ago, it kind of made me laugh. I've had four covers designed for Unearthly, and each one shows Clara with a different hair color! This kind of makes sense, since in the book, Clara is a blonde but dyes her hair (disasterously, I might add) to red in Chapter 2. But now I have them all.

Check it out:

Clara as a platinum blonde, in the UK.

Then there's:

Clara as a red-head. What I love most about this one is the orange, smoky forest. And, of course, the dress.

Then we have:

Clara in purple. Ha ha. Okay, so we can't quite tell what color her hair is, but she seems to me like a brunette. (That and I know the model has brown hair. . .)

And finally:

The raven-haired Portuguese Clara. I was drinking a glass of milk when my husband showed me this cover, and I literally spit milk all over the counter. It's a cool cover, that I will give it, but Clara was showing a bit more skin than I expected. Hee hee. My husband reminded me that everything is more exciting in Portugal.

So, what do you think? Which model seems the most like Clara to you?

I am waiting with bated breath to see what they come up with for the Hallowed cover.

In other news, Unearthly is coming to ebook (yes, I mentioned this before) on April 19, so just a few days now! You can pre-order it from Amazon here.

And it will be available in the UK on May 2. Woohoo! I got my box of UK editions this week, and I am completely charmed by the way they changed the word "Mom" to "Mum," as in "I find Mum standing at the kitchen stove. . ." Love it.

And tomorrow (takes deep breath) I am showing my face to the public again, at least in the authorial sense. I am thrilled to be taking part in the Ontario City Library Teen Book Fest in Ontario, CA along with Katie Alender, Nancy Holder, Alyson Noel, and Marlene Perez from 1-4 pm. There will be a question and answer session and a book signing, so if you live nearby, come by and see me! I will also (takes another deep breath) have my baby girl Maddie with me, as she does pretty well strapped to my chest (I taught my novel-writing class with her in a carrier on Wednesday, and she was fabulous and quiet and just looked at my students all perplexed while they cooed at her).

Cross your fingers for me that she cooperates this time.

The launch (5 days away!) and my new master plan

So, according to my fabulous new countdown widget, I can see that right at this moment I have 5 days, 13 hours, and 7 minutes until Unearthly hits the shelves. I am already starting to get that breathless feeling. This is actually going to happen. Wow.

Monday I am flying to Idaho Falls to have a launch party at my hometown Barnes and Noble, which is actually mentioned on page 218 of Unearthly. The party/signing/hugfest will be Thursday, January 6, at 7pm. I am so excited to get to see everybody, and to share in this amazing, life-changing time with them, and even more than that, I am super excited to see teens and actual readers from my community, so please, if you live nearby, drop by and see me and get a book signed!

I will be having other signings and doing other events over the next couple of months, so please see my website News page for the schedule. Yes, I have a brand spanking new website (you may have noticed I also have a brand spanking new matching blog design), and I love it!

I am also concocting a new master plan of how to connect with readers who won't be able to make it to any of my events. Here's how it goes, all through the month of January:

1) Go to your local bookstore and take 2 pictures, one of Unearthly on the shelf in all its booky glory (make sure we can see the other books around it, too, as part of the fun for me is seeing what company I'm keeping), and one of you holding the book.

2) Email me the photos, along with your name, address, and the name/location of the bookstore where you took the photos. My email address: writercynthiahand@gmail.com

THEN, I will:
3) add your photos to my Unearthly on the Shelf! compilation, which I will post to my blog in stages, with a big final post sometime in early February.

4) mail you a bookplate, (I had these printed special and they are all purply beautiful) which I will sign so you can put it in your copy of Unearthly and therefore have a signed copy even if you can't make it to a formal signing!

5) choose three (3) of these entries at random and mail them a signed and doodled upon (meaning, my little comments and pics in the margins every now and then) copy of Unearthly in hard cover.

Sound good?

The Dark Days and Tour Dates

Okay, so watch this. Go ahead, I'll wait. . .


Yep, it was awesome, wasn't it? The first time I ever watched this I sniffled a little. And every time I've watched it since then, I've got the chills. It's very, very cool--super surreal, as a matter of fact-- to be part of something like this.

28 days until Unearthly hits the shelves! 

So. The time has come to announce tour stuff. Keep checking back, as this will change, but as of today, I will be going to these places on these dates:

January 6, 2011, 7pm: Barnes and Noble, Idaho Falls, IDAHO. This is a signing (my first signing!) but really, in my mind, a launch party, my dream location to launch my book from, as Idaho Falls is my hometown and a key scene from Unearthly takes place there (in fact, there is mention of this particular Barnes and Noble, even, on page 218 of my book). So, if you're in the area, please come out and I will sign copies of my book and try to appear authorial and dignified and not jump around all crazy and squealing. I don't know if I'll succeed. Come share this day with me!

January 13, 2011, 4pm: Copperfields Bookstore, Petaluma, CALIFORNIA (near San Francisco). This is the first Dark Days of Winter event, with me and the fabulous Ellen Schreiber. I can't wait to meet her!

January 15, 2011, 2pm: Borders Bookstore, Redmond, WASHINGTON (near Seattle).
Dark Days event, with Ellen Schreiber and--squee!--Kimberly Derting. I am a huge fan of The Body Finder and can't wait to read the next book, Desires of the Dead.

Sometime at the end of January/beginning of February: I will do a reading/signing at Pepperdine University, in Malibu, CALIFORNIA. Still working out the details. Stay tuned.

February 13, 2011, 4pm: Flintridge Books, Los Angeles, CALIFORNIA. This is a Writer2Writer event with me as the guest speaker.

And that's it for now! I am so excited about it, so eager to meet my readers, meet these amazing other authors, and just stoked to be out there in the real world with my book.

See you there!