A few years ago, I made a commitment to work on diversifying not only my own reading list but what the boys reads as well. Though I think I’ve done a decent job of that, there’s always work to be done. I think one of the best ways to understand the world is to read about perspectives that are different from your own.
Right now in particular, I wanted to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and highlight children’s books by Black creators. I’ve come across a bunch of good lists for these that I’ve posted below, and here’s a non-exhaustive list of Black authors and illustrators to check out if you’re at all interested in children’s literature:
I hope you all enjoyed the reading I did of my middle grade adventurePIRATE ISLAND last week. I love presenting workshops and talks to writers and readers in person, but something about recording a video makes me nervous. I think I’m just the type of person who thrives on that face-to-face interaction, but we all must adjust during these strange times.
I’ve been working on my video space and equipment in particular because I recently became Talkabook Certified. Talkabook is a website where readers can book live video calls with authors. I’ll be offering several different options once they launch later this year, and I’m excited to be able to connect with readers this way and details will be on my author visits page.
In book news, ELIXIR SAVED launches in less than a month! It’s been a bit of an ordeal to get it listed for pre-order, but after many chats and emails with various distributors, I think it’s up in paperback and ebook most places now, including IndieBound, BookShop, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. If there’s somewhere you like to buy books and it’s not there, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
It’s really hard to have book coming out amidst everything going on in the world, but I’m doing my best to get the word out without being obnoxious about it. If any bloggers have guest spots open in July, I’d be happy to hop on your blog. I’m working on some fun promo stuff for release day, including a “book birthday” video and a quiz take will tell you what element your magic is aligned with.
At the beginning of the year, I ordered a bunch of bookmarks (pictured above) to give out at in-person events, which obviously aren’t happening. I’m not running any kind of official pre-order campaign for ELIXIR SAVED, but if you have ordered it, drop me a comment or an email and I’ll send you one (U.S. only…sorry).
As for work-in-progress news, I’ve been getting up early a couple mornings a week and hopping on video chat with one of my writer friends to continue drafting my witchy middle grade book–think Mean Girls meets The Crucible with a slight paranormal twist. With everyone still at home , early mornings are the best option for any kind of writing time…at least distance learning for the two older kiddos is over and they’re on summer break. I’ve come up with themed activities for kids for the summer that will hopefully allow me some time to work during the day.
One last thing (this update turned out longer than expected!), I have a secret project I’m working on that I’m hoping to release later this year or early next year. It involves a design skill set that I’m teaching myself, and it’s a project some of you might be familiar with. I got all the rights for it settled, so now it’s a matter of carving out the time for it and figuring out how to make it work.
Sending you all healthy vibes! I’d love to know what you’ve been up to or if you have any summer plans.
Sunday was Pirate Day in my hometown, a place with a rich history of pirate lore and the inspiration behind my middle grade adventure PIRATE ISLAND (as I’ve shared on the blog before “The Real Pirate Lore That Inspired PIRATE ISLAND”). I was a featured performer at last year’s Pirate Day where I had games set up for little ones, a photo station where you could take your picture on a “pirate ship,” and I did two talks about the town’s Captain Kidd history.
The harbor was swarmed with people as Captain Kidd, Jack Sparrow, and their troupe of pirates arrived on the ship. Not something that could happen this year, so I decided to hop on my personal pirate ship and do a reading from the first two chapters of PIRATE ISLAND.
If you stick around until the end (it’s only like 11 minutes, so hopefully not too long a time to listen to me!), you’ll get a peek at my first mate, who unfortunately was engaged in mutiny. Also, if you listen closely, you may hear my littlest shipmate playing the ukulele and singing what I can only assume was a sea shanty. It’s all small ship!
About PIRATE ISLAND
A thrice cursed island, a legendary pirate treasure, and one not-so-brave boy. What could possibly go wrong?
For centuries, the whereabouts of Captain William Kidd’s lost pirate treasure has remained a mystery. When Billy’s best friend, Andy, proposes they look for it on nearby Pirate Island, Billy thinks it’s just another one of their crazy adventures. It’s usually Billy who ends up in trouble as a result, but he goes along for the ride…like always. The more he delves into the life and death of Kidd, the more he thinks the treasure is real and that it might be buried on the small island in Long Island Sound. Billy—nope, call him William—becomes obsessed with the captain of the same first name. He even believes he’s possessed by Kidd’s restless soul. Now he and the spirit of a long-dead pirate are leading the crazy adventure on Pirate Island. And what they find is far bigger than the treasure they imagined.
Leading up to the July 14, 2020 release of my latest YA fantasy ELIXIR SAVED, sequel to the award-winning ELIXIR BOUND, I’ll be posting teasers and tidbits on Tuesdays. As always, feel free to share the images.
I know I’ve been saying that ELIXIR SAVED has three point-of-view characters, but that doesn’t count the prologue and epilogue (yup, I went there despite the controversies that seem to arise over prologues and epilogues), which is from the POV of Odeletta, also known as the Ice Queen.
Today you get not only a teaser image, but the whole text of the prologue. Enjoy!
ELIXIR SAVED Prologue:
Odeletta, the Princess of Spring, had been holed up in the frozen wasteland of Blanchardwood for hundreds of years. Her only respite from the cold was the courtyard garden in Kristalis, her ice palace. But there was no respite from a broken heart. Or the bitterness that had turned her more frigid than the coldest of winter days.
Hopes of returning to her former self dwindled with each passing year. Her love, Fyren, had betrayed her, tricked her into loving him so he could steal the power of true love’s kiss. He’d taken what he wanted and abandoned her, never having loved her at all. His true love was power, and there was never enough of that to go around for creatures like him.
Odeletta was the Ice Queen now, and would remain so forevermore. The problem with stealing another’s power, though, lay in the bonds that tied the two together. A magic that—unlike hearts—was unbreakable. So when Fyren began using that power to amass magic in the old fort of Drim, Odeletta sensed this. For she didn’t know it, but all during her sojourn in Blanchardwood, she had slowly been strengthening. The hurt of a broken heart concealed her growing strength, but it was there. Oh, it was there.
The sensation, a tingling under her skin, a blaze of heat she had felt only one other time in the moment just before Fyren’s lips had touched hers, awakened one frozen morning and set it apart from all the thousands of frozen mornings before. And with it, she became aware of her strength, something she had long thought dead and buried beneath the mountains of snow.
All morning it rippled and wrapped around her, growing like poison ivy strangling a tree. She relished the feeling as it replaced the years of heartache, until finally it burst forth in a spark of fire. An arc of lightning surged into the sky and landed far, far away. With it three messages were sent, irrevocably.
Odeletta, spent of her power, retreated to her garden sanctuary where she would listen, and wait, and feel. For now that she had released her heartache into the world, her insides were no longer frozen. It was exhilarating and terrifying. There was hope once more that spring would return to Blanchardwood, but it would come at a cost. And it was no longer Odeletta who would pay the price.
If the messages were heeded, sacrifices would be made. Lives would be changed. And lost.
About ELIXIR SAVED:
Three lives saved by the Elixir; three lives bound by it.
The Elixir entwines the lives of those it touches. Once upon a time, Kylene, Zelenka, and Devon tasted it and escaped death. None were left without scars. Now, a shocking message from the Ice Queen–one of Mother Nature’s higher beings–sends each survivor on a quest. Kylene travels to the frozen depths of Blanchardwood, Zelenka heads back to the wilds of Faway Forest, and Devon journeys to a reclusive mountain temple. The three paths converge in a war against an ancient and tricky foe. And even the Elixir cannot save everyone. The fate of the world balances on the edge of a sword, and the outcome depends on whether the survivors will sacrifice their second chances.
Escape back into the world of the Great Peninsula in this much-anticipated sequel to the award-winning ELIXIR BOUND. Perfect for fans of the Thrones of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas.
I’m so happy to welcome author Kai Strand back to the blog, this time to celebrate her middle grade fantasy DAY OF RECKONING (Concord Chronicles Book 1). Be sure to enter the giveaway at the end of the post and check out my 5-star Goodreads review.
To Revise or Not To Revise – Is Not Even a Question by Kai Strand
Hi Katie! Thanks for inviting me here today. I thought I’d talk about revision. It’s, quite possibly, my least favorite part of writing a book. So, why would I want to talk about it? It’s also, quite possibly, the most important step to writing a book.
Day of Reckoning was the very first book I wrote. Therefore, the first draft was absolutely abysmal. There were more info dumps in it than in my local landfill. My prose was so purple, I could have handed it a scepter and put a crown on it.
Needless to say, I had a lot of work to do. And it took me years to edit this puppy. And even after I worked on it for years, I still had more collaboration with content editors, like yourself, and a line editor to go through.
In my humble opinion, a book is never really finished, but nor is the first draft ever publishable. All these years later, I write a much cleaner first draft, but I could never publish one! It just doesn’t take me a decade to revise anymore. I love how a story, or a character expands with the help of critique partners. Or how a setting becomes more stable or even more important as I get to know my story better with each revision pass.
I have a lot of advice I could share with new authors, but this point is one I hope to make abundantly clear. Revise the heck out of your story. And then when you’re done, revise some more, but stop when all you are doing is tweaking one word here and one word there.
Do you have a favorite revision technique? I’d love for you to share!
Not only does twelve-year-old Terra learn she’s a Nature’s Spirit destined to serve the peaceful underground city of Concord, but she also finds she is named in a prophecy as the only one who can thwart the leader of the death tribe.
The Trepidus are the death janitors of the Underworld. They’re responsible for the termination and cleanup of Concord’s beings. When their leader, Blanco, learns Terra is the one who can derail his day of reckoning, he does everything he can to get rid of her. Including, dispatch a “Bringer” to complete the ultimate of death janitor duties.
Not only does Terra want to stay alive, but she hopes to complete her training and discover her Spirit talents too. So, Frank, a Spirit of Security, is assigned to protect her. Together, they undertake a secret investigation of how to defeat Blanco. But with the future of Concord and Terra’s very own life at stake, will they find the answer in time?
For those who aren’t familiar with the author, here’s a bit of background on her.
Award-winning Kai Strand, author of the action-packed Super Villain Academy series, is often found exploring hiking trails and snapping pictures of waterfalls in her Oregon hometown.
Mother of four, Kai uses her life experiences to connect with young readers. With middle grade works such as Save the Lemmings, The Weaver Tale series, and Day of Reckoning, and emotional YA adventures like Finding Thor, I Am Me, and Worth the Effort, Kai has written compelling stories that tweens, teens, and their parents love.
Kai has given numerous presentations throughout Oregon about her work and the writing process. She loves interacting with teens and gaining their insight on their latest reads as well as what they would like to see in future stories.
Author Kai Strand is giving away four $5 Amazon Gift Cards and one lucky winner will receive a digital copy of DAY OF RECKONING along with a $15 Amazon Gift Card.
To enter the giveaway, just click on the Rafflecopter widget below and follow the instructions. The widget may take a few seconds to load so please be patient. If the widget doesn’t show up, just click HERE and you’ll be directed to the widget.
Thanks for stopping by and be sure to follow Kai on her week-long tour HERE. You never know what you might find out. What do you think about a 12-year-old protagonist? Do you see how she could grow and develop over a series?
