How to use this Page

So, at long last, I'm happy to announce that Flora Segunda will be published in the UK in June!

There's been a small title change: gone is my baroque sub-title and in it's place we have: Flora Segunda of Crackpot Hall. I have it on good authority (mine and my British editor's!) that though the text will remain the same, there will be a few additions, including some supplemental material in the back, and a cast of characters listing. Plus, a lovely lovely blurb by the fantastic and fabulous Diana Wynne Jones.

Also, the cover will be different--much different. I do not post a link to the Amazon image here because really it doesn't do the cover justice at all. Firstly, there are two covers; an outside cover with little windows cut into it, through which you can just see the faces of several of the inhabitants of Crackpot Hall. Then when you lift that cover, you will have another cover with a full size of portrait of Flora herself (in a proper redingcote, I might add), as well as deliciously evocative portraits of Buck, Hotspur, Val, Udo and Flynn. Nowdon't expect photographic-type portraits, warts and all;these images are a bit more in the caricature line, but they are really wonderful, and very arresting. The whole package is marvelous and I'm quite excited about it.

Callo-callay!

PS. oh and the proper spelling has been restored. What have Americans got against the letter U?

Cynthia Leitch Smith's blog Cynastions has just posted an interview with yours truly.

It's just chock-full of pearls of wisdom and bon mots.

Ayah so, not really, but maybe it will be of interest. Do check it out... Read the rest of this post

I've had several people contact me to say that they can't access the Chicago Tribune review--I think you need some kind of registration to view the page.

Anyway, here's the text of the review, which was by Mary Harris Russell.

Flora Segunda

By Ysabeau S. Wilce

Harcourt, $17

Ages 12-15 years

It takes a few pages to get the very funny feel of this teenage narrator. Her mother is the commanding general of the army. Her father is a loopy sort of post-hippie who must be prevented from trashing the kitchen of their home, Crackpot Hall. Flora cares neither about joining the army, as everyone else does, nor having her Catorcena, the coming-out party of her world. (Chicagoan Ysabeau Wilce's experience as a military historian provides her, apparently, with a great number of convincing inside jokes and asides.) She dreams of being a famous ranger and increasing her magical abilities. A dry wit combines with an adventure and fantasy plot that link up in unexpected directions.

End quote.

Flora was reviewed today in The Chicago Tribune.

Good review--but I'm not sure how the reviewer got the idea that Hotspur is a "post-hippie"! I suppose we all bring certain ideas to what we read, preconceptions you could call them, and these preconceptions can be pretty colourful sometimes.

Hey--Valefor is in Wikipedia.

Ain't that gonna swell his head (neither donkey nor lion shaped) the size of a small country? Particularly the part about leading legions.

(And for the record I did not know there was any Valefor in any video game. I guess the vidgame people and I used the same source material.)

I am happy to have this be our first appearance in Wikipedia. But I hope it shall be our last.

I've just been told that VOYA, a bimonthly journal for educators who work with young adults, has put Flora Segunda on their list of Best Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror of 2006. Apparently, at some point in the past, Flora was reviewed in VOYA, and earned a "prestigious" 5Q rating. I'm not sure exactly what 5Q means, but it sounds cool, eh?

Later: Poking around the VOYA website, I discover that 5Q means: "hard to imagine it being better written."

Thank you, VOYA!

So, I have just been given a sneak preview of Charles de Lint's review of Flora Segunda, which will be running in June's Magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy, and I'm happy to say that it's very enthusiastic! Alas, there's no online version, so you'll have to hit the magazine rack if you want to read the whole review--but since F&SF is worth buying anyway, you should do that.

Sieur de Lint was kind enough to read an early draft of Flora, way back when, and he's been supportive of me and my work ever since. He's a real gentleman, and a great writer and musician, to boot.

Thank you, Sieur de Lint!

In case you are still wondering if you want to give up your valuable reading time to Flora Segunda, here's a little taste to wet your whistle.

An amuse-bouche, as they say.

Or should that be amuse-yeux?

Either way, I hope all of you--not just eyes or mouth--is amused!

I'm happy to report that Flora Segunda is an Editor's Choice in this Sunday's New York Times. Our girl, Udo, and Flynn are doing pretty good for themselves.

Ooh-rah!

By the way, a recent review accused me of using "made up" words in Flora Segunda. I'd like to state for the record that, with only one or two exceptions, I did not use any made up words in Flora Segunda!

Some of my vocab may be arcane, out-of-date, or just plain obscure, but I promise you (almost) none of it spilled forth from my imagination. Most can be found in the Dictionary of Record, the OED. Some it requires Partridge's Dictionary of Slang. Some sources are even more arcane. But it's all real. Being not even a teeny tiny bit of the linguist that other much more august writers might be, I wouldn't dare to embark upon making up my own words. If you aren't an Oxford don, therein lies Trouble.

Besides, with all those lovely words out there waiting to be used, why would I want to make any up?

So next time, watch those mingy howlers, pluggy, or we might be coming to milvads, or worse, I might erucate into fulginous fury and after clocking you in the eyghen defenestrate you.

So, I've finally started working on the final draft of Flora Redux (working title, of course), which first draft I finished at the end of the December. My Divine Editrix has informed me that Flora's further adventures, along with the paperback of Flora Segunda, should arrive in bookstores Spring of 2008.

Which only seems far away. In book production time, that's not so far away at all. One of the many mysteries of book publishing to which I was not privy until recently is that it takes quite some time to go from manuscript to hefty volume. Sometimes as long as year. In Flora Redux's case, the final draft needs to be finalized by July. So I have to get cracking.

I'm super excited about this book; in some respects I think it's ages better than Flora Segunda. That book had a rather long and torturous path from my imagination to printed page. The first draft was only about 3/4 as long as the final, and I had to retro fit an entire subplot into the main plot, and cut quite a bit of extraneous stuff out (including Udo's younger brother--oh Gesilher, we hardly knew ye!), and it was a painful process. While I believe that the Flora Segunda that is in stores now is the best Flora Segunda that Flora Segunda was ever going to be, I couldn't help but feel that I could do better.

Viz., Flora Redux.

Though I initially had a hard time picking up Flora's voice, once I gathered steam, and Flora settled back in, the story really chugged along. The dangers are far more dangerous; the enemies far more devious; and the stakes far higher than they were in the first book. This time, it's not just Flora herself who is threatened, but the entire City of Califa.

Flora Redux picks up a month or so after Flora Segunda ends. Much at Crackpot Hall has changed, and yet, alas, much remains the same.

What else we got? Well...dragon-horse cars; earthquakes; ruined bath-houses; extremely loud rock bands; Hotspur-Sober-Now-A-Stickler-For-Rules; deserter sisters; more rangers; a horrible secret hidden deep beneath the City's crust; a riot; bear-headed girls; phosphorescent bullets; revolutionaries; oubliettes; Udo's new hat; and, of course, snacks.

I think Flora Redux is pretty good. I hope you will ditto.

I am marvelously happy to report that Flora Segunda has a full page review in this Sunday's New York Times.

Needless to say, I am thrilled, excited, and super surprised. Never in my wildest imaginings (and those who know me well know well my wild imaginings!) did I hope for such an honour. And it's a good review, too! Icing in my cupcake...

Many huzzas and much celebration here.

Whoo--hoo!

Sandhya over at WORD: The Official Blog of Read and Writing Magazine just posted a hot diggity dog good review of Flora Segunda. Of the kind things she said, the most pleasing was that Califa seemed so real. It's a real place to me, so I am glad I was able to convey that verisimilitude to others.

WORD is running a contest, too--if you are a kid and send her your guess on what city the City of Califa is modeled on, you can win a free signed copy of Flora Segunda. Note that I said you need to be a kid--in years, not in mentality--so keep that mind if you should decide to play.

WORD is a super cool site, particularly if you are still in your salad days (i.e., still green in years and heart) and I urge all budding young writers to check it out. They have lots of great writing tips, cool contests, and great interviews. Check out this Q & A with China Mieville, whose new book, Un Lun Dun, is getting fabulous reviews. I haven't cracked it yet, but the review was a reminder to me that it's on my to read shelf, and I should get to it.

Thanks, Sandhya!

Owen Richardson, the very talented artist who did the cover art for the US edition of Flora Segunda, has just posted images of the cover-in-progress.

I didn't see the artwork until the cover was done, so I the first two treatments are new to me. I have to admit that I really like Flora Sketch 4. She looks so furious--typically Flora--and very active. And while I think the in the final version of the cover the blue looks marvelously bright and vivid, blue is a color I always associate with Bilskinir, so I would have been just happy with the green wash, I think. (The Fyrdraaca family colors are purple and yellow.)

I have never met Sieur Richardson, but clearly just from his art alone, I can tell he's a super cool gentleman. And according to his bio, he named one of his daughters Ozma. How cool is that? Very cool indeed.

But--if you are still reading the CPG, Sieur Richardson--as I commented on your blog: do tell about Flora's hair! I am dying to know if it gave you as much trouble as it gives Flora.

I seem to be the last one to weigh in the controversy surrounding this year's Newberry Winner, The Higher Power of Lucky, in which author Susan Patron had the gall to use the word "scrotum" when referring to that particular part of a dog's anatomy.

Now librarians throughout America have united to express their disapproval of Ms. Patron's word choice and claim that because of it the book is not welcome in their libraries. And this being America, where we all have opinions , other librarians, writers and publishers have leaped to defend her. (For more details, I link to Gwenda Bond's blog entry on the topic which then links to everyone whose opinion is actually informed, as opposed to knee-jerk.)

Of course, my opinion that the librarians are being childish for twittering over a perfectly normal anatomical term. But I also have to admit that I wouldn't want to read this book aloud to a group of snickering ten-year-olds either. Glad it's not my personal dilemma.

The brouhaha has made me think even more about a topic that I've been thinking about a lot ever since I went to the Children's Lit Lunch a couple of weeks ago. There I met many lovely librarians who were all universal in their desire to purchase books that did not have sex, swearing, or any thing else squiggy in them, and who implored me to keep all three categories out of my books.

But how do you write a book about a fourteen year old girl without at least skirting the edge of these issues? Fourteen year old girls do think about sex, and they do swear, and they do squiggy things. In Flora Segunda, our heroine is a bit preoccupied with other matters to confront the second topic, and I dealt with the first by making up my own profanity. But there is a lot of squigginess in the book that perhaps those lovely librarians would not have liked one bit.

And Flora Redux (which I just finished a couple of weeks ago) deals more with sex, albeit in a round about non-graphic non-overt tasteful way--she is fourteen for pigface's sake! There's swearing too, lots and lots of swearing (not by Flora), but I had already decided to handle that via Gramatica-type substitution. And like Book I, Book 2 is much with the squigginess, Califa being a very a squiggy place, after all.

Initially, my talk with the librarians left me panicked. Would no library take my books if I didn't censor myself? Must you decide to be true to your Art or write to your audience--or rather the gatekeepers who stand between you and audience? Well, in the end, of course, I realize that you must write the best book you can, be true to the characters and true to your audience, and let the librarians do what they will. A false book is much much worse than a banned book.

Still, I swear I won't ever use the word "scrotum." Maybe that will save me.

So, I just stumbled upon my first really really bad blog review today and now I feel sad. Not so much because the reviewer (and alas, I'm not big enough to link to him) panned Flora Segunda roundly--but because in doing so he basically spoiled the ENTIRE PLOT, including every plot twist and reveal, and the ending, too.

And that just doesn't seem fair.

I certainly understand that no book can be everything for everyone, and there will always be someone who either doesn't like or doesn't understand what you are trying to do. (And to salvage my ego a bit I don't think this reviewer understood AT ALL what I was trying to do. Nor did he seem take into account that FLORA SEGUNDA is a book for kids--but I digressively wail, sorry.)

The real sticking point is: Just because you dislike a book, must you entirely ruin the book for others by outlying the entire plot? I suppose if you think the book is total crap (clearly this reviewer 's opinion) then you think the book is past ruining.

But it seems unfair to readers who might want to give the book a try anyway. At the very least, you could warn the reader that there are spoilers ahead. This seems to me to be common courtesy to both readers and authors. In the reviewer's defense--he did note that he doesn't normally write reviews, so perhaps that's why he didn't seem to understand professional reviewing courtesy. Still...the person he guest-reviewed for should have known...

Also--I don't think it's very nice (or professional) for a reviewer to actually call an author stupid. But perhaps I'm just overly sensitive. Writers often are!

Maura McHugh has an incredibly nice and super insightful review of Flora Segunda on her blog. Of all the reviews I've gotten so far, Maura's the only one to point out a few effects I was working hard to achieve, and which--since no one else had noted them--I feared I had utterly failed to achieve.

All good reviews are delightful, of course, but this one is particularly pleasing. I find it easy to get all the whiz-bang adventurey hi-jinks down, it's the subtle stuff that is so very very hard. Trying to strike a balance between telegraphing your sub-text (and then it's hardly subtext any more is it?) and being so sub-textual that you are sub-sub and no one notices--that's a difficult teeter-totter to stay on.

Thank you, Maura!