Rhiannon Lassiter

REDIRECTING YOU NOW

2009-07-29T12:00:00.003Z

You are being redirected to my wordpress blog.

http://rhiannonlassiter.wordpress.com/

Just sit tight and you'll be there in seconds.

New blog at wordpress

2009-02-18T19:55:00.005Z

There have been updates at www.rhiannonlassiter.com, tweaks to the layout of the 'about the author' and 'connect' areas, a new blog added and lots of links to social networking sites where I have a presence.

http://www.rhiannonlassiter.com - for the website
http://rhiannonlassiter.wordpress.com - to go directly to the new blog.

Please admire the curvy corners of the connect area.

PS: My reasons for moving from blogger to wordpress are:
a) easier to customise css
b) better implemenation of tagging and archiving
c) generally recommended

However, it's not perfect at wordpress, problems are:
a) can't edit html at all
b) customising css could be even easier still if not based on a template

Disaster has struck

2008-12-10T11:40:00.000Z

I have damaged my MacBook (as yet I'm not sure how badly/expensively). I have lost data (9 days worth - don't know yet if it's recoverable). I have lost access to my normal file structures. My email is a mess.

Um. If you want to connect with me electronically, you may be out of luck. If there's anything urgent, please phone.

WOE. WOE IS ME.

At the Guardian Award

2008-10-05T17:15:00.003Z

I've been sick with a nasty cold recently so I'm late in updating my blog about the Guardian Award. The party was held in London, in the old press room. Writers and judges mingled with book world folk and the junior critics and I found myself the centre of a swarm of well-dressed and self-possessed young people who politely asked me to sign copys of my book and autograph books and to have my picture taken.

I did meet Nancy Netherwood and her sister Evie, as well as a host of Twilight fans (all team Edward), an intense and determined aspirant young writer called Arram (pictured right) who I wouldn't be at all surprised to see publishing her own work in another five to ten years. Shout outs also to the very pretty girl in the polka-dotted dress, the critic's friend who was given my book because her friend thought she'd enjoy it and the brunette in the pink top whose picture is below. I promised her a copy of this photo but being ill has driven it out of my mind, except I *think* it began with an R - let me hear from you, my friend.

The award was won by Patrick Ness for The Knife of Never Letting Go.

Grauniad Competition

2008-09-23T10:52:00.003Z

Thanks to a tip from my friend Farah, I got hold of today's Guardian to find an article about this year's competition. Young critics (aged from 8 to 16) have been "shadowing" the award and the article is about their impressions of the books.

"Bad Blood is a chilling read, not to be read after dark..." warns Nancy Netherwood of Rhiannon Lassiter's dark family tale shot through with hints from the supernatural. Not that it deterred her. Nancy loved the clever plotting and strong characters, describing it as an "incredible book, combining modern family troubles with a world of sinister magic". Tommie Hassall, from Westbourne School, was also gripped. "The book's pace is riveting. It holds the reader in the haunting world of the supernatural but does not shy away from the reality of the modern-day family, homosexuality and mental illness."

I'm going to the award ceremony tomorrow so more news will be forthcoming soon, including the name of the winner. I should also be meeting some of the young critics so I'll look out for Nancy and Tommie there. Nancy in particular has a name that makes Bad Blood a very suitable choice for her...

Techno-joy

2008-09-10T16:24:00.002Z

Today I have achieved techno-joy in managing to syndicate my blog on my Facebook as notes. This is awesome because I won't have to update in multiple places when I've got news to share.

If you're a LiveJournal user, you can also find the RSS feed here: http://syndicated.livejournal.com/lassiter_rss

Angus Book Award

2008-09-08T22:51:00.004Z

I've just heard I've been longlisted for the Angus Book Award for Bad Blood. That takes my tally of longlistings to five. Huzzah! I haven't actually won an award yet but it's encouraging news.

Waterstones signing in Witney

2008-09-06T17:00:00.004Z

On Saturday 6th of September, I went to the Waterstones in Witney, Oxfordshire, to sign copies of my books. As well as Mary Hoffman, authors Sarah Singleton and Mark Robson were present signing copies of their books.

Mark I know from his excellent advice on self-promotion at events like this. He's inspired me to create some postcards and bookmarks to hand out at events. Sarah I've heard of because several people have told me that our writing is similar. I bought a copy of her Heretic which she kindly signed for me and she bought a copy of Bad Blood which I signed for her - so we should be able to discover whether there are similarities between us.

Mary and I signed books from 12 noon to 2pm (Mark and Sarah stayed longer) and we all chatted with with bookshop customers. I recommended Robert Muchamore's CHERUB series to a couple of people and bought the latest myself. I also now have a copy of City of Stars by Mar, so I've got plenty of reading to get on with. And that's in addition to the Arthur C. Clarke hopefuls which are arriving thick and fast.

Manchester Book Award: longlisting

2008-08-12T13:12:00.001Z

Bad Blood has been longlisted for the 2009 Manchester Book Awards. The shortlist will be decided by the young people of Manchester in November and there will be an award ceremony at the City of Manchester Stadium, Wed March 11, 2009, for the shortlisted authors.

Arthur C. Clarke award judge

2008-06-15T13:23:00.002Z

I've been invited to be a judge for the Arthur C. Clarke award.

I'll be one of two Science Fiction Foundation nominated judges for the 2008/2009 period. I'm still grinning from ear to ear about it. As well as the prestige, fifty science-fiction novels will be winging their way to me. I don't dare buy another book this year!

Leeds Book Award ceremony

2008-05-23T13:17:00.003Z

I was a short-listed author for the Leeds Book Award and attended the award ceremony in Leeds where the winner was announced. The books are selected by Leeds students and each school did a presentation on their favourite book. The star of the event was the poet Craig Bradley, acting as Master of Ceremonies, who got everyone "rhyming it" in hip-hop style.

Unfortunately I didn't win, the prize went to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne.
After the ceremony I signed books and talked to students and took photos with them.

Visit the events photos page to see more images from this and other events I've attended.

Snow

2008-04-06T11:32:00.003Z

This morning I woke up to see thick white snow - in April! While probably the effect of the dreaded global warming and therefore not a good thing in planetary terms, theres something wonderful and magical about snow. All the more so when you can see blossom trees and grape hyacinths beneath it.

I went for a walk up and down the local streets and through the little Church and cemetery. For pictures of my walk, click the photo below and visit my Snow in April album on Flickr.

Ghost

2007-08-15T14:13:00.001Z

Last week my beautiful silver tabby cat Ghost was killed by a car. I had her for nine years and it's still difficult to believe she's gone. She will be very much missed.

My black cat Shadow, Ghost's sister, is still with me and we are comforting each other. Anyone who has ever been owned by a cat will know how I'm feeling right now.

Bad Blood has been published

2007-08-03T17:32:00.000Z

The 2nd of August was the official publication date of Bad Blood, my new horror novel. I'm really excited about this book because I think it's my best work to date. In this novel I accomplished almost all I set out to do. (I say almost only because it's hard for an author to achieve the platonic ideal of the book we originally conceive of writing.)

Anyway, Bad Blood is a novel about books and names, about family feuds and twsited relationships, set in a sinister landscape of imagination run wild and dangerous. Unlike my fiction to date it counts as horror but psychological horror with a quasi-magical flavour.

I don't want to say too much and spoil the story but once people have read it we can have a discussion on the fan forums and I'll be happy to answer any questions people have about it. There are also some brief answers to questins about it in the author area of my site.

Next week is the official launch party and I'll be posting photos from that at some point. Meanwhile, I'm crossing my fingers and hoping everyone likes the book as much as I do.

Bad Blood - coming soon

2007-07-21T11:24:00.000Z

Although the official release date isn't until the 2nd of August, Bad Blood is already shipping from Amazon. Amid all the latest Harry Potter embargo kerfuffle it seems foolish to complain about early release when it's a stated fact so I shall instead simply be charmed that its 'perfect partner' on Amazon is Frances Hardinge's Verdigris Deep.

Friends and relations are calling with praise for the book as well and I'm still thrilled about the cover quote from Celia Rees. You can read Celia's comments in full on the Bad Blood page.

I've much more to say about this book and how pleased I am with it but I shall leave my own comments for the official launch date!

Roundabout published in paperback

2007-07-18T17:12:00.000Z

Roundabout was published in paperback on 7 July 2007.

Visit the Roundabout pages on my website for more information about this contempory young adult novel.

Bologna

2007-05-17T19:03:00.000Z

At the end of April I visited the Bologna Children's Books Fair. This event if primarily for publishers to agree foreign rights with other companies. Not many authors attend but I've been going every now and then ever since I first started writing professionally - this was my fourth Bologna and my mother's eighth.

We shared a room in a hotel convenient for the station and the bus to the fair and had meetings during the day with our various publishers, colleagues, agents and friends. The fair takes place in a convention centre on the outskirts of the city and occupies several large halls. In addition to stalls for every major publisher in Europe and the US there are exhibits of illustrations, talks, awards and parties.

During the fair I was hosted by various publishing companies including Frances Lincoln (publishers of Lines in the Sand and Arena (German publishers of Hex). I took a lot of photographs using my new digital camera - enough that I really think I should get some kind of Flicker account or similar photo uploading facility.

One of the most useful aspects of Bologna for me is the opportunity to see what publishers are promoting, how and why. Philip Pullman's legend continues to loom large with the forthcoming film of His Dark Materials and although I didn't see Philip at the fair we ran into him quite randomly on the train back from Florence. Random House were making a big thing of the sequel to Stargirl across their stand but, try as I might, I couldn't determine what the title was. I saw a lot of interesting looking Gothic fantasies and an awful lot of princess-themed stories of one kind or another. My mother is promoting her new Grace title - Princess Grace, a subversive take on the idea of being a Princess - and was keen for us to spot all things pink and princessy. But spotting a stall without its pink princesses would have been a tougher challenge.

The greatest pleasure came from spotting the cover of Bad Blood prominently adorning the OUP stand (see left and on my photos page) and later attending the OUP party, to celebrate their centenary of children's publishing, and having various people tell me how much they enjoyed the book. Everyone who's read it so far has found it compelling and frightening in equal measure and we're all looking forward to publication day.

After the fair a number of the attendees traditionally take a few days holiday in Venice or Florence - my father came to join my mother and me in Florence for a couple of days. We visited the Bargello museum, the Boboli gardens and various other impressive cultural edifices. But we also found time to stroll the streetmarkets and successively evaded a pair of thieves who targetted us while we bought shoes. Escaping with shoes and existing possessions intact, my parents treated me to several fine meals and I bought Italian flag pasta and Grisbi biscuits to take home for family and colleagues.

Sadly England has been dismally rainy ever since but Italy was in the high seventies when we visisted and I'm still carrying the high of the sunshine, fine company and enthusiastic publishers.

Happy new year

2007-01-02T12:14:00.000Z

Happy new year to everyone. I spent Christmas mostly with family and most of that time eating. Mmm, Christmas food. My mother makes the most fantastic hazelnut roast for us veggies and it wouldn't be Christmas without it.

This year I plan to submit another contemporary novel, another horror novel and my first adult novel. I also want to try and get at least one book published through print-on-demand, because it's an excellent way of getting something published that wouldn't normally get seen. I even have something that never found a publisher although I was very proud of it and it would be nice to see it in print. I'm also planning to get other authors on board an edited collection I'd like to do (still very secret so I'm not announcing the title yet.)

Revisions to Bad Blood should be finished soon and that comes out this autumn. I also want to write another Super Zeroes book, so stay tuned for more news about that.

I am also determined to escape the clutches of uk2net and remove once and for all their banner over my website. That, I think, will be new years resolution number one.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

2006-12-01T16:30:00.000Z

Years seem to go by faster as you get older and come February 2007 I will be passing the Rubicon of 30. But first there is Christmas and I must do all those Christmassy things like making lists, buying presents, putting up the decorations and planning parties.

I have less time than usual this year because in addition to writing I have a part-time job working at a local university. So I'm not sure when everything's going to get done by. Not to mention the Armadillo that will need to be finished soon and some writing projects that need to be turned into official submissions. I'm actually not under contract at the moment for the first time in years, which is curiously liberating and yet makes me feel that the pressure is on to make sure that the next book I write is as good as the one I've just finished.

For those not yet in the know, that's Bad Blood, forthcoming from OUP in 2007. I'm incredibly pleased with it and with myself. I feel as if my writing has reached a new level, but this makes it all the more difficult to decide where to direct my energy next.

People often ask writers where their ideas come from. Seriously, the problem isn't having the ideas - it's deciding which will fly. I have something called my ideas file in which I keep draft submissions and draft chapters for ideas I've had but I'm nit yet sure I'm ready to write, really want to write, or feel as if they generally need a bit more time percolating before they're ready to serve. The trouble I have at the moment is that my head is full of ideas that need to be unloaded into the file and I don't have enough time to pour them out. Ah, if only we had neural nanonics and could just plug a USB pen drive into our brains...

It's alive!

2006-11-10T13:59:00.000Z

It works, it works! Even in IE. Amazin'. I've got so used to the idea that this cranky old web browser will break every site it touches it's amazing to discover that it's actually worked, despite the css code tweaking I had to do.

Okay, time for some actual bone fide news. On the 25th of October I went to London to give a reading to the BSFA and to be interviewed by the lovely Farah Mendlesohn. I was accompanied by my friend Neal, who was supposed to protect me from the screaming hordes of sci-fi fans - but this turned out not to be necessary. Everyone was friendly and not frightening. I read an extract from Bad Blood, my forthcoming young adult horror novel with OUP, which seemed to successfully creep everyone out. Then Farah asked a series of insightful and interesting questions about my writing and inspirations, followed by questions from the audience. All of this was (scarily) taped, so I might be able to get hold of the audio file for this website - I'll ask.

After a few drinks (all bought for me) I drew raffle tickets for the book auction and was taken out to dinner where I had even more interesting conversations (and slightly heated debates) with people from the BSFA.

A special shoutout to Kate who rescued me from wandering around and around Belgravia forever when I got lost on the way. It was also very cool to meet Meredith, who runs Diana Wynne Jones' website - which brings me one step closer to the great woman herself.

blink Was that a year going by?

2006-11-09T23:23:00.000Z

Err, yes. So this blog has become rather defunct. So defunct that I'd forgotten its very existence. But it has now been revived and brought into line with the current rhiannonlassiter.com style.

I've spent the last few hours tweaking the css to try to work around some issues with the sidebar. Left and right floats have caused immense problems - but it's looking okay in Firefox and Safari. Tomorrow I will, no doubt, discover how hideously borken(tm) it is in IE.

This is merely a technical update. I have lots of writing news but anyone still reading will have to wait for it. Sorry about that. I will leave you with the news that I am reading David Brin for the first time. I'm not sure how this can be the case but somehow he was missed out of my sf education.

Words written on water

2005-09-30T12:16:00.000Z

Hmm, I am now a bit disgruntled. I had composed a post and published it and now it appears to have vanished into the ether. This is one I can't be responsible for. It was there and now it isn't. Other things that aren't there include my current website (my web-diversion expired and uk2.net are taking an age to bring it back) and my new official website (not yet uploaded).

The post that vanished was mostly about Farah Mendlesohn and her Inter-Galactic playground blog. Despite extreme ineptitude on my part Farah has managed to get in touch with me, tracking me through publishers, across blog sites and even enlisting some of my friends. She is both patient and persistent and has also reviewed some of my books so favourably that I should blush to link you to them.

People often ask me who I write for. For myself? For a certain sort of reader? For posterity? I'm now of the opinion that I wrote the Rights of Passage series for Farah. Despite starting with the second of the three published books and not knowing how many more there would be, she seems to have found out all my secrets and is still keen for more...

Hello, World!

2005-09-19T17:30:00.000Z

This is my brand new weblog. I've decided to have a blog in addition to my fan forums so it will be easy to find information about what I've been doing recently.

Last weekend I was at 'The Shock of the New', a literary conference held at St Catherine's college, Oxford. As well as talks given by such luminaries as Michael Morpurgo and David Fickling, I attended a session on ePublishing and another on secondary worlds given by my mother, Mary Hoffman. The whole experience was fantastically exciting and I'll be sharing more information and web links I've gleaned from it in various parts of this site. I also met lots of great people and sketched out ideas for some exciting projects.

In the spirit of the shock of the new, I now resolve to get the new version of my website online by the end of this month!