The YA Scavenger Hunt winners have been posted over at the main site, along with many individual winners.
Computing the results of my bonus contest was harrrd work here, taking a group effort. It started with Hemingway helping read the numbers of entries from the desk:
And that was only the beginning…
(Warning: Gratuitous pet photos ahead. Viewer caution is advised.)
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Everyone’s A Winner (+ Gratuitous Pets) Read More »
That would be waking to this lovely tweet featuring my beaming editor holding a finished copy of Blackwood!
Look what just arrived in the office: The VERY FIRST Strange Chemistry books, direct from the printer!yfrog.com/es5palpdj @gwenda
— Angry Robot Books (@angryrobotbooks) August 6, 2012
And then beaming editor Amanda sent along a fabulous review of Blackwood by Faren Miller in this month's Locus (!). An excerpt:
"Offbeat and imaginative, Blackwood mingles past and present, dark forces with a hint of pulp SF, along with many kinds of drama — from Shakespearean revenge to an amphitheater show where the island’s legend is just an entertainment for passing tourists. Whether viewed as young adult, genre mix, or a first novel, it belongs with the year’s best."
*falls over dead*
Less than a month now until the official release.
*jumps up and down*
As you were.
p.s. One more pointer to the Waterstones interview for the week-day crowd.
And so ended the great YA Scavenger Hunt of Summer 2012 with its bountiful prizes! Special content is being pulled down and winners are being calculated to be announced over at the main site in a couple of days.
The response to the Blackwood contest was shockingly fabulous, and now will result in some epic tallying on mine and my lovely assistant Mr. Rowe's part. I wasn't really thinking how we would calculate with so many entries…and so we will be doing by it hand with slips of paper, a certain number for each comment depending on how many entries you receive. I'll photo-document. (And I'll email the winner, as well as it being posted over at the main site.)
The delightful Kaylie Ashton (follow her!), who runs the YA Bluewater Reading Group at the Bluewater Waterstones, has posted an interview with me at the YA Bluewater blog. Kaylie asked great questions, and this was a fun one. It also yielded what I am calling right now as the truest thing I will ever say (perhaps because I did this interview mid-revision from draft zero to draft one of The Woken Gods; in other words, while mad):
Writing a novel is like chasing a whirlwind with a butterfly net. And, if you’re lucky, after a great deal of work managing to catch that whirlwind, which is actually a story, and then showing it to other people and hoping they say, “Oh, that’s a story,” and not, “What is that? It just looks like a big mess of stuff blowing around.”
Also? I compose a dream fictional character dinner party. Check it out if you're so inclined.
Pencils Down & A New Interview Read More »
Welcome to this stop of the YA Scavenger Hunt extravaganza!
(I'm Gwenda Bond *wave* and my stop on the hunt is being hosted by Marley Gibson–so go there to see the title of my 2013 book and two prologue-y teasers from it. Eek! Note: Bonus content came down at the end of the hunt, but I added a little info at the end of this post.)
If you're new to the hunt, this tri-annual event was first organized by author Colleen Houck as a way to give readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors…and a chance to win some awesome prizes! At this hunt, you not only get access to exclusive content from each author, you also get a clue for the hunt. Add up the clues, and you can enter for our prize–one lucky winner will receive one signed book from each author on the hunt in my team! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 
72 hours!
Go to the YA Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are TWO contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or both! (Go for both! These are pretty amazing prize packages we're talking about here.) I'm a part of the BLUE TEAM–but there is also a red team contest with a chance to win a whole different set of signed books.
If you'd like to find out more about the hunt, see links to all the authors participating, and see the full list of prizes up for grabs, go to the YA Scavenger Hunt homepage. (And an extra round of *applause* for organizers extraordinaire Colleen Houck and Beth Revis.)
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YA Scavenger Hunt! (And Bonus Contest!) Read More »
Well, coming tomorrow to be exact — the YA Scavenger Hunt will kick off, with all the participating authors' posts up no later than noon PST Aug. 1 and the competition running through noon PST Aug. 5. There are 54 participating authors, divided into two teams. People who want to play hop through the blogs on one or both teams, and gather some very easy-to-find info in order to enter for the grand prize of a signed book from each participating author on that team. Which is a pretty sweet prize package, not to mention a great way to find out about a whole bunch of new books and authors. If you're interested in playing, there's more info here on how to do that and the prizes. (Also, hats off to Colleen Houck and Beth Revis, awesome authors and awesome organizers of this whole thing.)
Lots of people also run bonus competitions, and I'll be running one here that involves completing a simple task and leaving a comment for a signed copy of Blackwood and a piece of special swag to be determined (but good, promise!).
Nattering part of this post…
I think one of the funnest things about this blog-stravaganza is that every author provides exclusive material for readers that is hosted by another author and ONLY live while the contest is on. For my exclusive material, I'm going to announce the title of my next book, turned in yesterday (squeak!), and will be giving a sneak peek at a couple of pieces of front matter that will let you get a sense of the world. I'm nervous/excited/eek about it. I'll add a link to that post at the bottom of this one when it goes up, for those of you who might be interested but aren't doing the whole hunt.
Funny story: The title I was going to be revealing a week ago for this book and the title that I'll be revealing tomorrow are…not the same. Titles are HARD, and it's best if everyone closely involved–editor, agent, sales team, other important types at the publisher, etcetera–likes the one that gets chosen. Some of us liked the first title, but it was not unanimous (spoiler alert: someone hated it and I don't think any of us really loved it). In a panic, I sent my list of every title I'd ever brainstormed or used for this book (including my "I don't have a title yet" standby–The Man on Lincoln's Nose, which, trivia alert, was the working title for North by Northwest) and lo! everyone ended up really liking one on my discard list much better than what we'd almost settled on. Including me, but I needed their confirmation. I do not trust my own judgment where title fu is concerned.
Anyway, I hope y'all like it too. (Squeak dieux!)
Title Reveal and Exclusive Sneak Peek Post: Here you go — title and two bits of front matter-ness (read: we don't have flap copy yet!).
Updated to add: Special content is all down now. BUT… the book is a near future urban fantasy set in Washington, D.C., about a 17-year-old girl who must find a mysterious missing relic and navigate intrigue involving dangerous gods to save her father, and will be out sometime during the second half of 2013 from Strange Chemistry. And it's going to be called…
::drumroll::
THE WOKEN GODS.
So there you go!
And a few promo-type things:
Wednesday Hangovers Read More »
Still on deadline(s) so just dropping in here with a few quick things.
First off, SFX has a great preview of the Strange Chemistry imprint today by way of a fab interview with editrix-in-chief Amanda Rutter. It includes some newsy-ness, including that the imprint will be going to two titles per month starting the second half of next year. Check it out.
My sadness at the news that Margaret Mahy has passed on is immense. What a brilliant, beautiful genius of a writer she was. I wrote about two of my favorites of her books a few years ago; I sense a reread coming on. (I actually just reread her Alchemy a week or so ago, and was reminded of the fabulous strangeness that permeates her work.) I also highly recommend Karen Healey's Strange Horizons column about her. I hate folding this into a post about other things, but I didn't want to let it go uncommented on. R.I.P.
And, finally, switching gears completely–I'm SO excited to be part of the Summer YA Scavenger Hunt, coming your way very soon. Like all the other authors, I'll be contributing a signed copy to the prize package. My special content will be some information about my next book, a reveal of the title (yes, it actually has one now!) and a little draft front matter. Behind the cut you can get a glimpse at the details on all the participating authors, courtesy of Colleen Houck. What company to be in!
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Below are high resolution image files of my author photo and the covers for all my books, as well as an abbreviated author biography, for the use of media and bloggers. If different materials or formats are needed, please contact me.
Author Photo:
Or download the file (295K, .jpg format). Photo credit: Sarah Jane Sanders.
Biography:
Gwenda Bond is the author of Girl on a Wire, a novel about a daredevil heroine who discovers danger and passion lurking beneath the big top. Next up is Lois Lane: Fallout in May 2015. Her previous novels include The Woken Gods and Blackwood. She has also written for Publishers Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, among other publications. She has an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband, author Christopher Rowe, and their menagerie. Visit her online at www.gwendabond.com or @gwenda on twitter.
Cover Images and Book Descriptions:
Or download a file of the cover (655K, .jpg format).
Sixteen-year-old Jules Maroni’s dream is to follow in her father’s footsteps as a high-wire walker. When her family is offered a prestigious role in the new Cirque American, it seems that Jules and the Amazing Maronis will finally get the spotlight they deserve. But the presence of the Flying Garcias may derail her plans. For decades, the two rival families have avoided each other as sworn enemies.
Jules ignores the drama and focuses on the wire, skyrocketing to fame as the girl in a red tutu who dances across the wire at death-defying heights. But when she discovers a peacock feather—an infamous object of bad luck—planted on her costume, Jules nearly loses her footing. She has no choice but to seek help from the unlikeliest of people: Remy Garcia, son of the Garcia clan matriarch, and the best trapeze artist in the Cirque.
As more mysterious talismans believed to possess unlucky magic appear, Jules and Remy unite to find the culprit. And if they don’t figure out what’s going on soon, Jules may be the first Maroni to do the unthinkable: fall.
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Or download a file of the cover (jpg format). Visit book page for more information.
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Or download a file of the cover (.jpg format). Visit book page for more information.
Yes, I'm afraid it's that time in revision/deadlineland (swarming deadlineland, really) when I fall off the map. I'm behind on email, and am trying to answer urgent stuff, but may not get caught up until early August when I will have finished/survived for now. Etc.
I might drop in here, but will likely be scarce for the next couple of weeks.
p.s. Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes last week. You are all The Best.
p.p.s. Planning for Blackwood's release proceeds apace. Just added to the events calendar: an epic Angry Robot Author Showcase event on Friday, August 31, at 7 p.m. at one of Chicago's finest indie bookstores, The Book Cellar, with myself, Kim Curran, Adam Christopher, and Chuck Wendig all to be in attendance signing our shiny new September releases. During WorldCon, so come over, or if you're not World Con-ing but are in the vicinity of Chicago, come out!
Today I'm over at the Strange Chemistry blog doing the All About the Books meme. Picking just one book for anything is so hard and my answers would probably change daily. That said, I only cheated a smidge on one or two categories–which is hardly cheating at all.
How I still adore that Spellbinders in Suspense cover.
Unrelated update: I promise I'm not going to share every positive review (double promise!), but this one by Waterstone's bookseller Jane Sharp is kind of a day-maker (and not spoilery!). Like a little pre-birthday present.
Elsewhere (teeny update) Read More »
