Today, excited and proud to announce the publication of MISTLE CHILD, book two in my Undertaken Trilogy.

MISTLE CHILD is my twelfth book and with its publication I celebrate a decade in mainstream publishing with major houses.

I've posted some of the images that both inspired the book and served as research on my website:

http://www.ariberk.com/mistlechild.html

From the book jacket:

In life, in death: family remains.
Silas Umber has finally come into his own as the Undertaker of Lichport when a mysterious invitation calls him beyond the marshes to Arvale, the ancestral manor of the Umbers. There, his extended family endures, waiting for a living Undertaker to return and preside over the Door Doom, an archaic rite that grants a terrible power to summon and bind the dead in judgment.

As Silas assumes the mantle of Janus, the Watcher at the Threshold, deep below the earth in the catacombs and sunken towers, grim spirits grow restless at his arrival—hungry for freedom and eager for vengeance against a family with a long history of harsh judgments. Now, Silas must right an ancient wrong and accept that even a house of ghosts can be haunted by its past—for in matters of family, we are who we were.

Delving deeper into the haunting world of ghosts, ancestors, and eldritch lore, Ari Berk returns to the series that Publisher's Weekly calls "thought-provoking gothic fantasy," with a style the School Library Journal praises as "reminiscent of the classic gothic works of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Shirley Jackson."

* * *

Early praise for MISTLE CHILD:

"Fine bedtime fare for readers looking to cut down on their sleep."
— Kirkus

"Berk’s second title in The Undertaken Trilogy will definitely satisfy gothic fantasy lovers. Berk is certainly a master storyteller. He understands how to tell a ghost tale dripping with rich detail and vivid imagery. He leads readers into a captivating world that seduces with each page turn. Readers who are fans of this genre will devour this sequel and look forward to the conclusion."
— VOYA

Cat Helps Write The Novel — A Play In One Act
by Ari Berk


CAT
[coming into my study]
I have just woken from a nap and would like to help you finish your novel because no one else is home and I am bored.

ME
No.

CAT
[brushing against my leg, whining for me to move so she can get under the desk]
Is this helping?

ME
No.

CAT
[jumping up on desk, pushes carefully ordered papers off with her tail]
Surely this is helping you finish your novel?

ME
No.

CAT
[runs to the stairs and cries as though something miserable has happened]

ME
[getting up and going to the stairs]
What?!?

CAT
[rolling over]
This is my belly. You should rub it.
[I rub the cat's belly. She purrs.]
Is this helping you finish your novel?

ME
No.

CAT
I think there's just no helping some people.

ME
Get out.

CAT
What time is Kris coming home?

ME
Get out.

CAT
Has *any* part of this been helpful?

ME
Get out.

[Curtain closes]

Just for Halloween, a visit to one of Lichport's oldest ghostly habitations...a shadowland that stands partly in the Narrows and partly at the edge of the suburbs of Fengdu, the City of Ghosts. Join Silas Umber for a cup of tea and perhaps a dumpling in the spectral Peony Lantern Teahouse...

http://www.ariberk.com/deathwatchpeony.html

Excited and proud today to announce the publication of my book NIGHTSONG. My hope is that people of all ages will enjoy this story about conquering fear and singing your song out into the world. It is also about the joys of adventure, the importance of home, and the power of listening...how by listening to the world around us, we can see the truth in all things. NIGHTSONG is my eleventh book published by a major press. If ya'll keep reading them, I'll keep writing them! Thank you!

From the publisher:
NIGHTSONG
by Ari Berk
illustrated by Loren Long
Published by Simon and Schuster.
On shelves September 25th!

"What is sense?" The little bat asked.
His mother folded him in her wings and whispered into his waiting ears, "Sense is the song you sing out into the world, and the song the world sings back to you..."

With these words, Chiro's mother sends him off into the night for the first time alone. It's an adventure, but how will he find his way? And how will he find his way home? As the young bat discovers, navigating the world around him is easy as long as he uses his good sense.

This beautiful and touching coming-of-age story, with mesmerizing artwork from New York Times bestselling illustrator Loren Long and lyrical text from Ari Berk, conveys a heartwarming and universal message: No matter how far from away you go, you can always find your way home.


REVIEWS

"Chiro is both alien and us, bat and beyond, childlike and knowing, a savant and anyone who grows into his/her song. This is what a picture book should be."
— Jane Yolen, best-selling author of How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?

* "Exquisite design coupled with evocative illustrations enrich this charming tale of a little bat taking his first solo flight and how he learns to “see” with his “good sense,” otherwise known as echolocation.... Talented storytelling features rich yet concrete language to describe and to build suspense during the bat’s nocturnal trip...Young ones will relate to Chiro and cheer as he gains confidence with his newfound skill and will be deeply satisfied flying along on his sensory-rich journey."
— Kirkus Reviews, starred review


"Berk (The Secret History of Giants) presents a delicate, lyrical story about independence, trusting one’s instincts and abilities, and bats. Written in passionate prose-poetry, it stars Chiro, a bat who is nervous about his first solo venture. Momma reassures him that his “good sense” will help him find his way. “Sense is the song you sing out into the world, and the song the world sings back to you.” It’s a brilliant description of echolocation and an equally strong metaphor for the logic and perception that human children can use to cut through fear. Long’s (Otis and the Tornado) soft lines convey the concept clearly; surrounded by ink-black night, Chiro’s song illuminates a cone-shaped area in front of him, which reveals trees, geese, and other surprises in the dark."
— Publishers Weekly


"An ideal book for sending a child to school for the first time, tryouts for a team or a class play...[t]his lyrical, sumptuous picture book about a small bat taking his first solo night flight will inspire confidence in any child trying something new--and independently--for the first time."
— Shelf Awareness

A little nice news today: NIGHTSONG was selected as one of only four picture books on Amazon's "Editors Picks In Fall Reading for Kids" list!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_364982502_5?ie=UTF8&docId=1000830081&plgroup=1&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-1&pf_rd_r=B9B13FF1DD2C4292A52E&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1393120342&pf_rd_i=5742004011

Up now over a Fate Magazine, a spectral Q&A with yours truly put together by the altogether phantastic and phantasmal author and researcher April Slaughter. Was a total pleasure answering her questions and now you can read the results and learn a little more about some of the ideas buried beneath my novel DEATH WATCH. Enjoy!
http://www.fatemag.com/bloggers/april-slaughter/death-watch/

To read more about April and her ongoing ghostly investigations, check out her website:
http://www.aprilslaughter.com/

Was delighted to learn today that NIGHTSONG has been included in the ABA (American Booksellers Association) ABC 2012 Best Books for Children Catalog!

http://news.bookweb.org/news/2012-abc-best-books-children-catalog-titles-unveiled

Reviews of NIGHTSONG and samples pages with some of Loren Long's wonderful illustrations can be seen here:

http://www.ariberk.com/nightsong.html

Returned home yesterday after a month's traveling in the west. Just a few moments ago, I sat down at my writing table for the first time since getting back. On a piece of scratch paper, I found a mysterious note. Words in black ink. Not mine. Not Kris's. Not Robin's. Did the house-sitter take up my customary chair and pen this query to the genius of the house in the silence of our absence? Or perhaps the hob left it? Or the cat? Or some wandr'ng spirit, momentarily drawn in by the gravity of my obvious love of the past? Who can say? It was left face down on the desk and I think it was not left there on purpose, which makes it a little more wonderful...

"...how many years has it taken you to accumulate this collection? Where did you start and what ways have these wonderful things come to you?
What is the wheel?
How does it work?"

So a few days ago, some folks on Facebook were mentioning the first Mythic Journeys conference back in 2004, a gathering (of artists, writers, poets, musicians, scholars, psychologists, dreamers, imaginauts, celebrants and wandering bards) of near epic proportions I was honored to help organize. One of the most enjoyable parts came when friend Charles Vess asked if I would like to write the introduction to the catalogue that would accompany an art exhibit to run concurrently with the conference. It was a delight to wander through the worlds of those paintings, sculptures, and photographs. As a result of the recent chatting about the conference, a friend asked to read the essay I wrote for that exhibition catalogue, so I thought I might brush the dust off it and put it up on my website so anyone interested could also read it if they liked...and here it is:

http://www.ariberk.com/ancientspiritmodernvoice.html

...and if you'd like to learn more about the Mythic Imagination Institute, the organization behind the conference, you may do so here:

http://www.mythicimagination.org/Mine/main.html

Shared by friend Alan Lee, here is a site with some truly disturbing images of period ventriloquism dummies. Now I am wanting a whole abandoned house of these things in book three of the trilogy. The plot has no need for such a thing, of course, but, lord, they need to live somewhere outside my head now...

I wish I hadn't looked, frankly. So, of course, I must share them. "Enjoy."

http://io9.com/5913114/vintage-ventriloquism-portraits-were-incredibly-unnerving

I rather like it when, out of the blue, someone discovers, on some dusty shelf, one of my older books and takes the time to say a few words about it. In a way, I think, it's more fun to find a book on your own, to have no preconceived notions, to have read no reviews, and then just fall into that world and make your own way through it. So...here's a loverly little review of Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Letters, a book I made with artist Brian Froud. It is a thing of mild madness. Truly. I remember the publisher telling us we had one dollar and ten cents to spend on "mechanicals" (all the little notes and flaps inside the book). A flap cost .07, an envelope cost .10, etc. Brian and I were in Los Angeles at the time. We went down to the stationary store and bought all these envelopes and card stock and began cutting it all up, scribbling all over everything. We planned out the whole interior of the book on my mother's kitchen table! There was wine involved, or was it tequila? I'll say no more.

Enjoy the new review...
http://creativesketchbook.blogspot.com/2012/05/bookshelf-lady-cottingtons-pressed.html

...and, if you like, a little more about this book may be found here:
http://www.ariberk.com/cottingtonletters.html

This is absolutely wonderful. I am pretty sure this is how my son feels everyday when the school day ends. I sure did when I was his age...

I like stuff...

A new addition to the cabinet of curiosity may be found here:

http://www.ariberk.com/cabinet.html

Just in time for the post-Thanksgiving return to the grind...a little distraction...
Chapter 33 of Death Watch--wherein our hero meets some of Lichport's most eccentric specters--lovingly uploaded for your enjoyment.

Who says death and humor can't go hand in hand...

http://www.ariberk.com/deathwatch.html

I love relics and oddities.

More often than not, an artifact is the point of origin for my writing, so I thought I might, every so often, share a thought or two about the some of the objects I've found inspiring.

So, join me for a few ruminations on some well-favored curios. More to come!

http://www.ariberk.com/cabinet.html

Dire in California as well as here in Michigan. This is an insightful but heart breaking assessment of what's going on in education back in my home state. I remember when prop 13 went through in 1978 (I was eleven), and all of a sudden we had no money for drawing paper in school. Where are the politicians with **any** vision on either side? It leaves me wondering: at this point, is it too far gone to fix? Does it have to fall apart completely before we can even begin making it right? Are people now absolutely dead-set against ever paying for anything unless they receive instant, personal benefit?

...and don't even get me started on my son's school with 26 kids with one teacher (who we do like) in a second grade class, one day of art a week (I should be grateful he gets that), endless repetitive worksheets because the kids have to be kept busy, and no gifted program or ANY flexibility in curriculum.

Betraying the California Dream, by Jeff Bleich

And as the old year went down into its grave,
they knew at last the Great Darkness was brought
not by death,
but by distraction.
So they looked up,
on this very night,
up, up, above the sleepless wires and ordered lines,
above the mad words colliding in the lower aires.
And in that one moment at midwinter,
they gazed upon the ever-living stars,
and the darkness fell away from them,
and for all the season,
and always.

Reposted from
http://www.ariberk.com/forthcoming.html


January 1, 2010.

Up late New Year's Eve to write a few paragraphs on the novel, you know, just to start the year as I mean to go on...

Hobgoblins book slowly moving towards gettin' done. I've seen nearly all the art now, and WOW! In this book, there is art by both Alan and Virginia Lee, Larry MacDougall, Gary Chalk, and Fernando Molinari...oh just wait until you see it.

But day and night, it is the novel. Last month, I made a large map of the town in which most of the book takes place. So, now I know where people are when they walk down a particular street and take a left! More than this, I needed to see how places in the town related to each other in space.

And then there are the dead who crowd around my writing table all wanting to have their say. It is a book of many voices, which is, I think, as it should be. More and more I see these ghost stories as being about allowing people (living or dead) to speak their peace, literally; about allowing the dead to tell their tales so that a place resolution may be found. Without such a space, a space where truth may reside, there is the stasis of limbo. My town is filled with them. Limbos. The Peony Lantern Tea House. The Theatre of Midsummer, The Coaching Inne, The Red Parlor, The Lonesome Valley, The Bowers of the Night Herons...all the curious places where the dead bide their time, still bound to earth and the affairs of the living. Somehow both lost and ever-present at once.

It is a great privilege to be able to spend so much time writing. That time requires the help of others. As the new year rises, I am so very grateful for my wife and family. Without their love, help, and support there would be no words. Thank you.

Rescued from the vaults and just in time for Spring, here are some thoughts on seasonal "upheavals" and a retelling of the ancient tale of the Battle of the Trees.

http://www.ariberk.com/battleofthetrees.html

So excited to just (literally) receive a copy of the long-awaited Secret History of Hobgoblins book!

There was, apparently, a tassel malfunction (I couldn't make this stuff up) that slightly delayed its publication, but the UK edition is now out and I am beyond thrilled with it. The stories of Hobgoblins are closely tied to hearth and home, and from where I sit on this rainy Saturday, leaves piling up around the house, it's the perfect book for Fall and Winter. The artists have done the most extraordinary job! Larry MacDougall, Alan Lee (of Lord of the Rings fame), Virginia Lee, Gary Chalk, Douglas Carrell, Fernando Molinari....the books is bursting with the most wondrous illustrations. But don't take my word for it, I've put some art and page spreads up on my website. Have a look!

http://www.ariberk.com/hobgoblins.html


And while you're at it, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE HIS LIFE AND TIMES is also now available in both its US and UK editions. This was a joint effort by Kris McDermott and myself...our first wife and husband bit of co-authoring! I've also put up some art, pages, as well as a video the publisher made of all the little flaps and pamphlets in the book being opened. It's gotten awesome reviews so far. You can see all that here:

http://www.ariberk.com/shakespeare.html

Enjoy!

Friends and Neighbors,

In an effort to centralize, I will be posting blog/journal entries over at my website for the foreseeable future.
Please join me over there....

http://www.ariberk.com/journal.php

Best,
Ari

Yesterday, my first novel (and 10th book) DEATH WATCH was published. Beyond excited. Though it was only four years ago I knew it would be a book, the world of DEATH WATCH has been with me a LONG time. From my strange, dark, seventeenth year, to all the days I ditched school to wander the cemeteries of Los Angeles, to all the books of weird and wondrous funereal lore I've sought out....this book has been waiting a long time to be born. And now, here it is between two covers. Amazing.

I have put lots of DEATH WATCH-y things up on my website to peruse: the book's first chapter, several quotes of an antiquarian nature from the book itself, photos that I used for reference in creating Lichport, the town where the story takes place, and a bunch of AWESOME reviews that I am so, so, grateful for. All that and more can be found here:

http://www.ariberk.com/deathwatch.html

Enjoy!