Rhiannon Lassiter

Snow in my garden

Happy new year to everyone! This post is 19 days late because I began the new year with a stinking cold and I didn’t even go out and play in the snow which has been 8 inches deep or more across Oxford. Here’s a view of my garden from my window. I only went out to put out the compost: those are the tracks you can see on the right.

Since then I’ve been trying to get caught up with work. I am having cover discussions for Ghost of a Chance with OUP and also working on the revisions. Ghost of a Chance will be out in 2011.

I’ve also been working on a redesign of my website. For the first time I’m outsourcing the majority of the work – although I have briefed the designer about the layout I want and collated much of the code. The design will be based on a template created by Matthew James Taylor whose css layouts are well-worth checking out. The site is being constructed by Mo Holkar of Freeform Games in his alter-ego as web designer. It’s a real relief to be able to pass on some of the work of putting the site together to a friend I trust. Mo also runs the sites I designed for Celia Rees and Frances Hardinge so he’s familiar with the way I create sites and write html and css.

I’m also a judge for the 2009 Clarke award so I’m reading my way through the submission list. (I’ve been looking for a link to this but I think it’s not online yet.) I’ll check with the committee to find out where and when the full longlist can be seen.

Shadow gazing up at me

I’ve various other projects on the go which I’ll write about in separate entries. The current great joy of my life is that my little black cat, Shadow, has been driven by the cold to sit on my lap. This is something she has rarely deigned to do in the past so I feel very honoured. Here’s a picture of her eyes beaming up at me.

So here I am in 2010! It’s the future: 2010 is a really science-fiction sounding year. I hope it’s been good to everyone so far and here’s wishing you all the best for the year ahead.