January 14, 2011

My mother said…

Filed under: Ghost of a Chance,links,reviews of my books — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 10:44 am

My mother, children’s writer Mary Hoffman, has reviewed Ghost of a Chance on her blog – and most flatteringly, which she promises is not nepotism!

You can also read a short piece by me about how I came to write the book.

Both blog post and my comments contain a spoiler – although the same one you’d get from reading the blurb of the book.

January 7, 2011

Competition winner announcement

Filed under: competition,Ghost of a Chance — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 12:06 pm

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Ghost of a Chance competition yesterday. It was a strong field with lots of great answers. But in the end I’ve decided that the winner is… ::: drum roll ::

CANDY GOURLAY!
Her answer was: “The best way to solve a murder is to be there at the time. Sadly this might mean you won’t be anywhere else for the foreseeable future.”

Well done, Candy! Email me your address (you can use the contact form on this website) and I’ll send you your signed copy of Ghost of a Chance. I’m impressed with your answer – and with your confidence that you would win!

If you competed but were unsuccessful, look out for another book giveaway in the LibraryThing early reviewers January batch when there’ll be ten more copies on offer.

January 6, 2011

Happy Ghost of a Chance day to me!

Filed under: book release,competition,Ghost of a Chance — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 9:35 am

Ghost of a Chance coverToday is Ghost of a Chance day: my new book has been published. (Officially now, Amazon jumped the gun a bit.)

The wonderful, talented Sara Wallcraft has designed special friezes for my Ghost of a Chance webpage, one of the Chance house, one of some beautiful peacocks. Do make sure to check it out.

You can also find a sample chapter of the book. Hopefully once you’ve read it, you’ll be inspired to rush out and immediately buy a copy.

But for one lucky person there could be a free copy heading your way. To celebrate, I’m announcing a competition to win a signed copy of the book. For your chance to win, comment on my blog with your answer to the question “What’s the best way to solve a murder?” Winners will be announced tomorrow at 9am GMT, to give everyone time to take part. (Make sure to comment on the blog itself, not on the Facebook syndicated version.) If you’ve already ordered a copy, why not have a go anyway and win a copy for a friend or family member?

Happy Ghost of a Chance day to me and to all of you!

Edited to add: Ghost of a Chance is already Book of the Week at new crime blog Crime Central!

Competition entrants, please make sure to check back tomorrow to see if you’re the winner because I will need to get your street address from you to send you your prize!

January 3, 2011

Happy New Year and countdown to Ghost of a Chance!

Filed under: book release,Ghost of a Chance,links,news,reviews of my books — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 4:59 pm

WordPress has sent an email to tell me my blog was “fresher than ever” in 2010, which is nice. Unfortunately I think they are still working from the figures from my old hosted account, not my current embedded one. But perhaps that means my blog is even fresher than WordPress thinks?

Ghost of a Chance coverIt’s 3 days until the publication of Ghost of a Chance and I’ll be celebrating here on my blog so stop by and leave a comment. Amazon started shipping it in December although due to the snow some of those copies are trapped in warehouses. But if you’ve got your copy and have read it already I’d be especially interested to know what you think.

I’ll also be posting the first chapter on my webpage for the book: Ghost of a Chance. So if you haven’t got a copy you can try it out. My artist friend is hard at work designing a new frieze for the webpage which should be online shortly. The book has a peacock theme and so too will the frieze.

One website, The Bookbag, has already posted a review of Ghost of a Chance – and recommended it, thanks Robert James!

I’ve been three years writing this book – a long time for me! And I’m very excited to know what people think of it. I can’t quite believe it’s almost publication day!

September 21, 2010

The angel of death comes for the parents in children’s fiction

Leila Sales, assistant editor at Penguin Young Readers Group , writes about The Ol’ Dead Dad Syndrome in Publishers Weekly.

It is not believable that so many kids are missing one, if not both parents. Slews of them! Hundreds! To quote Oscar Wilde, sort of: “To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose a parent in nearly every children’s book looks like lazy writing.”

I agree with two of her reasons for calling it lazy writing: “First, a dead parent is one fewer character to have to write.” and Second, there’s the instant sympathy factor.. Where we diverge is on Leila’s third point: “Third, grownups are boring.” although she does suggest later that authors could try to “Write parents who actually have something to contribute to the story, who aren’t just a barrier between the kids and fun.”

I don’t think grown-ups are intrinsically boring but they do get in the way in children’s fiction. I think the reason so many authors write them out is because they want their child and teenager characters to solve their own problems, to find their own answers and face their own fears and the role of a good parent is to help with those things. That said, I have by-and-large not played the Angel of Death to the parents in my fiction because I find it more of a challenge to keep them in the text but leave them unable to intervene. In Waking Dream the death of one parent triggers the action, the other parents are at first unaware of what’s happening, then later aware but unable to influence events, reading their children’s stories through diaries that report their ongoing adventures. In Bad Blood the parents are too caught up in the emotional struggle of the family to identify the supernatural elements, they too must wait and worry when the teenager characters are reported missing.

In my forthcoming novel Ghost of a Chance I do admittedly write out two parents. An unknown father is never mentioned and a mother is dead before my heroine knew her. But in neither case were they active, caring and much missed parents. The real parental figure is a grandfather who is hospitalised early in the narrative, keeping him from meddling in my central character’s evolution. Other characters have perfectly functional living parents and have to lie to them to keep them from intervening in the plot.

I really do enjoy the challenge of including parents in children’s books and including them as real people rather than the “clueless or uninvolved” ciphers Leila suggests as a possibility. It’s not a binary choice between parents as all-knowing entities who can solve every problem or hapless and hopeless nonentities. I much prefer them as humans, muddling along between the gutter and the stars. This is one of the reasons I like Margaret Mahy so much. In The Changeover, Catalogue of the Universe and The Tricksters the parents are real people, flawed but trying to do better. Laura’s mother is frantic over the advancing illness of her younger child, Tycho’s parents have given their attention to their charismatic turbulent daughter and pay less attention to their quiet younger son, Harry’s parents are trying to get past a private and personal crisis.

Leila’s piece makes me want to challenge the absenteeism of parents. What if the parents followed you through the hole in the wall? Came along on the quest? Fought the monsters and won – or lost? What effect would that have on the child character, and on the child reader?

January 19, 2010

2010: welcome to the future

Snow in my garden

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

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.

April 16, 2009

Ghost of a Chance

Filed under: Ghost of a Chance,news,Rhiannon's books — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 8:30 am

Yesterday I submitted the first completed draft of my latest novel, Ghost of a Chance, to my publishers (OUP). It comes in at just over 100,000 words but this will be reduced in the edit. I am (tentatively) pleased with it.

I have been looking back through my notes and see that I was at the same stage with Bad Blood on September 19th 2006. That seems like a long time ago, although interestingly my feelings on completion were very similar. It is a relief and a loss at once. It’s over… now on to the next book.

April 1, 2009

Suffolk, Bologna and Place and Space conference, oh my!

Filed under: events,Ghost of a Chance,news,photos — Tags: , , , — Rhiannon Lassiter @ 6:46 pm

If you were wondering why I haven’t updated recently, it’s not because I’ve been slacking off! I’ve been jetsetting (and train- and car-setting) around the place doing various events.

Suffolk Book Mastermind

Suffolk Book Mastermind

On Friday the 27th of March I was a guest at the Suffolk Schools Library Service Book Mastermind Competition where I watched local students compete to be chosen book mastermind. The winner was a 14-year-old named Leanne from Sudbury Upper School. In the afternoon I and Natalie Haynes (another author and comedian) both gave talks and workshops to the attendees.

While in Suffolk I visited my friends Mo and Tracy who kindly hosted me and gavce me a chance to relax before my next event…

Because on Sunday the 29th of March I set off for Italy and the Bologna Book Fair. Bologna really deserves a whole post of its own so for now I’ll concentrate on the highlights. I went with my mother, author Mary Hoffman, who has just started a new blog and posted about the event there. (Check out The Book Maven for her Bologna post.)

Bologna Book Fair

Bologna Book Fair

Together we had an excellent time prowling around the four halls dedicated to publishing companies from across the word, checking out new titles and popular themes. I also met my German editor Antje Keil (from Fischer Verlag) and my Japanese editor Kyoko Kiire (from Shogakukan) and said hello to other publishing folks at the stands for my other UK and oversees publishers. I was taken out to dinner by the people at Frances Lincoln and met up with others for drinks.

After the fair my father came to join us and we went by train to Florence where we spent three days in an apartment with a glorious view of classic florentine roofs and terraces. I visited the Uffizi, roamed the city and bought gifts for colleagues at the San Lorenzo market.

San Lorenzo market

San Lorenzo market

Then on Saturday the 28th of March I flew back to the UK and came racing back to Oxford to join in on the final plenary panel for the Place and Space conference with Philip Pullman, Claire Squires, Peter Hunt and Farah Mendlesohn. Our panel was on working in children’s fiction and was (at least to me) extremely interesting. Although we all had different approaches, we are more similar than we are different in our passion for books. I could say a lot more about the conference too so I will plan to say more once I can track down some pictures of the event. I know lots were taken but none with my camera.

So, now I’m back and writing away since the current book Ghost of a Chance is within a hairsbreath of completeing. The trouble is for every thousand words I write I throw half of them away! But even so I am nearing the end and able to say (cautiusly) that I think this will be a good book. I am (warily) pleased with how it’s worked out.

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