Marie Marshall

Author. Poet. Editor.

Tag: news

Publication tomorrow!

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“… The fog is still yellow and thick. I can see maybe twenty yards either way. The house across the street is a vague oblong, the parallel lines of the sidewalk fade into the general gloom. There’s a thickening, a kind of shift in the fog, like it’s swirling, like it’s trying to contain more than it actually can. And there’s a smell in the air I don’t like. Downhill there are man-size shapes forming in the fog, figures walking towards us – three, maybe four. I look back uphill – figures there too, and a couple across the road. The house door creaks, and there’s another figure standing in the doorway. Maybe a dozen of these figures are slowly closing in on us. I grip the broken chair leg as E.J. moves round me and we stand back-to-back…”

Just how excited can an author get about nearing publication? Do all the big ‘names’ feel as cool as they look? Do they think “Well, there goes another one”, and wait for the offers of interviews from the Times Literary Supplement and the BBC to roll in? Maybe, maybe not. All I know is that I am excited about getting novel No.3 published as I was about getting No.1 out there. I have only twenty-four hours to wait – tomorrow is the big day!

Just how many kinds of vampire are there?

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Big ones, little ones, new ones, centuries-old ones, perhaps ones that have had extensive orthodontic work, and perhaps even ones who have a secret that is kept until the sequel. Yes, there will be a sequel to From My Cold, Undead Hand! More about that later – much, much later – but right now all eyes are on the 15th of September, which is publication date! That’s when you’ll be able to get your teeth into it…

The book will first be available in e-book format direct from P’kaboo Publishers. Shortly after that it will be available via Amazon in both paperback and Kindle formats. However, if you want some bonus extras, in the form of extracts in text and audio of the ‘diary’ of one of the characters, then the e-book direct from the publishers is the way to go. You can even pre-order to make sure!

As you can imagine, I am very excited about having my third novel published. It is, in a way, also a ‘first’, being the first one I have written as a commission from a publisher, my first venture into the genre of teen-vampire fiction, and the first of a planned trilogy. If you would like to know about it, click here to find my answers to questions about it when I was interviewed recently.

If you have any questions about it yourself, please contact me and let me know.

MM

Read the first chapter of ‘From My Cold, Undead Hand’!

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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!

Download my free ‘From My Cold, Undead Hand’ wallpapers

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Make the most of your desktop with these cool, noir wallpapers, and help me celebrate the publication of my first teen-vampire novella. There is a lot of empty space so that your icons don’t appear as ‘clutter’. Choose glacier white or nightwalker black – just click on a thumbnail below and a full-size image will open…

The artwork is © Millie Ho; permission is not granted for use other than as a desktop wallpaper.

FMCUH white wallpaper     FMCUH black wallpaper

Pre-order ‘From My Cold, Undead Hand’!

News just in!

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‘From My Cold, Undead Hand’ – Publication date!

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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.

Membranes of Marrakesh

words © Marie Marshall image © Membranes of Marrakesh

words © Marie Marshall
image © Membranes of Marrakesh

I often say that the strangest place I have ever ‘published’ a poem has to be the time one was etched into an African drum, which is now at the New Orleans Museum of Art. The poem was called ‘Djembe’; I wrote it several years ago, and that’s it above. The image I have used to accompany it shows the raw, waiting bodywork of drums made in the same workshop as ‘mine’ was. If you click on the image you will be taken to a fundraising site for the workshop’s new project. They hope to give away 100 drums at the Burning Man festival in Nevada this year. Have a read through their promotion and watch the video. If you can help this celebration of giving please do, even if it is only with good vibes and good wishes. Thank you.

By the way, if you happen to be in Nevada between August 25th and September 1st this year, then go and experience the Burning Man. If you visit the Membranes’ stall in the Souk, then the patter with which they address you may well have been written by… me! Find out how the young Berber woman, Yasmine, got the better of a mighty desert djinn!

M.

SORROWBACON!

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“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.

Are you ready for the action to start?

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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.

Seeing cover art take shape.

© Millie Ho

© Millie Ho

The wonderful thing about having cover art by Millie Ho is that it feels like a collaboration, it feels as though we are making something together, that the book and the cover artwork are a seamless whole. Hers is not the work of a hack cover-artist, but of someone who has read the book and understands what it’s driving at. This is one reason why I’m rather sorry that we had to abandon our attempt to turn From My Cold, Undead Hand into a graphic novel – but we both had other work to which we needed to give priority.

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© Millie Ho

Anyhow, here Millie has given us an insight into how the cover illustration evolved from a sketch to a finished piece of ‘noir’ artwork; it is fascinating to watch the video of the hand-drawn and computer-finished picture being executed. Exceptionally, Millie produced two completed works, one with a white background and one with a black. The black one fitted my vision for the cover perfectly. However, my publisher might go with other design, because of thumbnail issues, and put it on a coloured background – maybe red. We’ll have to see. Whatever is the case, I am grateful beyond words to Millie for her work, and I hope I have the opportunity to produce more writing that she will be able to illustrate in the future. By the way, as we did with The Everywhen Angels, after publication I hope to offer some free wallpapers based on the book cover. Wait and see what turns up!