Click on the illustration above to be taken to the publisher’s page for From My Cold, Undead Hand. Once you’re there, click on the cover illustration there and you can read the whole of the first chapter as a preview to the novel!
News just in!
I’m pleased to announce that From My Cold, Undead Hand, the first of a planned trilogy of teen-vampire novels, will be published in e-book form on 15th September! Don’t go looking for it just yet, as the plan also involves some free extras for pre-orders and/or early purchases – more news about that when I have it. I will also keep you informed as and when it becomes available at Amazon or elsewhere.
There are some preview opinions of From My Cold, Undead Hand here. If you’re on Twitter, you can keep up with the news by following @ColdUndeadHand.
“SORROWBACON is a webcomic about a cat, a badger, and a sentient custard,” says Millie Ho. Who am I to disagree? It started out as doodles which are now “raw and bloody and more lo-fi than a Brooklyn alleyway” and “exposed and vulnerable to whoever happens to stumble upon them.”
Millie has been hinting at its existence for some time, dropping clues about its nascence on her blog. Her latest post announces its launch and it can be found right here. It appears to be executed entirely in ball-point and highlighter, reveling in that everyday, almost banal, technical simplicity. I’m not going to say much about it except that it’s different and makes me want to do wild, fangirly dances.
Got your stake? Got your garlic? Got your gun?
Gun? Hell yeah! Even vampires have constitutional rights, and if they’re armed we’re armed! Not too long now until P’kaboo Publishers release From My Cold, Undead Hand to the reading public. Will you be one of the first to get in on the action? As a taster, here’s a preview by P’kaboo’s Lyz Russo. And if you’re on Twitter, follow @ColdUndeadHand for updates.
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Something completely different now. Writer Angélique Jamail asked me to share a recommendation for a ‘summer read’ with the followers of her blog. I picked the bleak, pessimistic Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, just because I think it’s a book everyone should read. It’s the 2oth century’s greatest political satire, and you can read my essay/review here.
Just when I thought I had enough balls in the air, someone throws me another one. Instead of dropping them all, running, and hiding, I catch it and add it to the juggling act. Okay, last time I reported in, I was doing the final edit of From My Cold, Undead Hand, progressing the sequel KWIREBOY vs VAMPIRE, finishing two short stories – ‘Gravity’ and ‘The Warlock’s Hat’ – for a competition, and contacting a Ukrainian university about Vera Rich’s translations of Ivan Franko’s poetry.
Well, it all seemed manageable. I now have the finalised manuscript of From My Cold, Undead Hand here. It will ready for publication as soon as we have cover artwork and layout. I return to KWIREBOY vs VAMPIRE as often as I can. The short stories have had their final edit, which involved opening up the sealed envelope I was about to mail them in. I have been looking at Vera Rich’s translation of ‘Death of Cain’, comparing it to an earlier translation by the Rev Perceval Cundy, wondering why she rendered ‘город’ as ‘city’ and not ‘garden’ in the context of the poem, and surprising myself at my own cheek at questioning an expert! So, all balls describing a neat arc in the air above my head. Then I found another ball in my pocket – the threequel to From My Cold, Undead Hand (working title KLONE vs OVERLORD) – and added it to the juggled bunch, rather shakily at first, then it too joined the arc. Equilibrium.
Then blow me down! An idea casually tossed to me by a fellow writer exploded in my head, and suddenly I have a plan for a sequel to The Everywhen Angels. With the working title of Among the Grove of Stones (which readers will recognise as a line from an extempore poem in the first book), it will tell the story of Connor Shaw, King Shaw’s nephew, and of how Ashe Sobiecki went missing, of what had been happening to the tulpas of dead Angels as they tried to pass through one last, forbidden door at the moment of death, and of why Angela and the other Unified Angels feel disturbances in the flow that even they can’t control. All of a sudden my control on all the juggled balls is becoming unsteady. I’m hoping I can prioritise and get everything in some semblance of equilibrium again by autumn, and then maybe I will be able to concentrate on finishing one of these jobs at a time.
I think I’m addicted to writing. My hits keep getting bigger.
© Millie Ho
I hesitated to share some of Millie Ho’s preliminary work on the graphic version of From My Cold, Undead Hand, featuring teenage vampire-hunter Chevonne Kusnetsov, because this is as far as we got with the project. It would be doable if we both had unlimited time and no other projects on the go. However, I agreed with Millie when she said that she should concentrate on her own immediate work, and I promptly took my cue from that and dived back into my own. Nevertheless, you’ll all be pleased to know that she has agreed to produce the cover for the text and e-versions of the novel.
© Millie Ho
Meanwhile the editing process has begun. The manuscript is with my publisher’s editor, and his eagle eye has already found an obvious typo on the first page! Chevonne is surprised at that, as you can see, but it shows that the process works. I can recommend it to any fellow authors who are thinking of submitting a manuscript, by the way. It might be costly without a publishing deal, but your submission will be more polished.
Another ‘meanwhile’ – I am busy writing the sequel, provisionally titled KWIREBOY vs VAMPIRE, upper case deliberate. I know where it starts – it starts with a 1960s-style beach party for vampire surfers. I know where it ends – in a devastated DC in the depths of a dark nuclear winter. I know a lot of the middle – blood is drunk, flesh is eaten, there is madness, there is a death cult, there is good, clean fun. How the story weaves from place to place is up to my characters. I allow them to live. Well, apart from the vampires who aren’t really ‘alive’ as such, but you know what I mean.
Watch this space, then, for more vampiric newsgrabs. It’ll be totally swagger!
Yet another ‘meanwhile’. Watch out for Hagridden, a novel set at the periphery of the American Civil War – a dangerous and murderous place to be, where escape from the battle does not necessarily mean an escape from the killing. It’s written by Sam Snoek-Brown, whom regular visitors to this web site will know is a contemporary American author whose writing I admire. There’s not long to wait for this novel, as it is due for launch in August of this year. Reminders here and here.
‘At Jenners, Edinburgh’ (detail) © Paul Thompson
For my Francophone readers, here is a review of the sonnet anthology The Phoenix Rising from the Ashes, of which I was Deputy Editor. The review is by Thierry Guinhut, a well-regarded reviewer in France. The image above is detailed from one which contributes to the visual layout of the anthology. Thierry’s review is glowing; most reviews have been good so far, with the exception of one ‘critic’ who seems to imagine some kind of Corsican vendetta exists between him and the Editor-in-Chief. The anthology is one of the many published items you can find under the ‘Works‘ tab on this web site.
The Spring 2014 showcase at the zen space is now published, and can be seen here. the zen space is my little e-zine for haiku and related in-the-moment poetry. I’ve been editing publishing it since 2011, honing my editorial skills. If you have never visited before, please feel free. There are now eleven showcases to browse through.
My novel aimed at young adults and older children – The Everywhen Angels – is now available internationally atAmazon, in paperback and Kindle formats. Will you be the first to review it, I wonder? I’m looking for reviews for Amazon and Goodreads.
Marie Marshall 