For epic fantasy readers…
Robert Frobisher writes to his lover in Dave Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, “Don’t remember summer even saying good-bye.”
Summer has flown, hasn’t it? But it has been a good summer.
These past few months, I’ve been reading and writing, which is the easiest way to describe how I spend my days. I also started a discussion group, because I aspire to improve speaking, listening, and doing both honestly.
I imagine the discussion group will help with the writing, too. Maybe you’re a new writer like me, striving to be better at writing than I was yesterday. There’s a gap to jump over. It will probably take quite a while to leap over it.
Even authors I enjoy immensely, like Jeff Vandermeer, have difficulty in explaining how to write a good novel. (If you are a writer, check out Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Writing Imaginative Fiction.)
There is always more to learn, no matter your space of work or field of interest.
Part of learning is getting involved and being out in the world.
On Tuesday I spent a morning at Barbette reading Borne, by Jeff Vandermeer, before taking a stroll through Uptown, where I used to live before moving to the A-Mill Artist Lofts in 2015. I was wandering, but I wasn’t lost. At least not completely.
I’ve also attended Hespera, put on by fellow Minneapolis writers and artists, and visited bookstores like Moon Palace Books and Magers and Quinn.
Related to my own work, I had fun doing the AMA on Reddit on June 27, 2018 where readers asked about Rise to the Rahz, my latest novel and the upcoming Sound of Stone.
Some good news to share before I sign off: Sound of Stone will be released in October 2018! It is an epic fantasy in the same world as Rise to the Rahz, but with a different story and a new cast of characters.
SOUND OF STONE (Book I of the Interval of Fragments) is an epic fantasy novel which follows a young woman in her search for a home within the tumultuous, subterranean ecosystem of the Known Caverns.
A fearsome huntress living off the land and her wits, Shay stumbles across a mystery in the form of human bones; touching them, she witnesses the infant’s final moments and memories that seem to call out from her own haunted past. But the bones are soon lost and, to recover them, Shay must assist a rag-tag group of wanderers from many tribes who need her special talent to avert an impending disaster.
Next, I’m reading these books and preparing an outline for my next book, Eolian Dunes, which should be out in 2019.
Best wishes to you,
Erik
August 16, 2018
