General

This year was my first time attending Litquake in San Francisco and it was such a wonderful experience. I participated in two events – the first was “New Voices,” an afternoon of readings from debut authors held at Z Space, a theater downtown. On the way there, my cab driver drove like a maniac and blasted jazz the whole time, all the while wanting to know about my book. It got things off to a real kinetic start.

I read with six other authors: Jan Ellison (A Small Indiscretion), Isaac Constantine (Jeremiah’s Ghost), Victoria Shorr (Backlands), Michaela Carter (Further Out Than You Thought), Val Brelinski (The Girl Who Slept With God), and Angela Pneuman (Lay It on My Heart).  I really enjoyed sitting in the audience and listening to everyone’s stories.

For my reading, I had gotten the urge several days before to try something completely new, so I read part of the Alexander Pushkin lifetime and what happens when Bryan comes out of the recall. It’s a good example of the jumps between lifetimes and how Bryan handles remembering. I’ll definitely do it again.

The next event, “First-Time Authors Reveal All,” was a panel discussion geared for writers and was held at the Foundation Center. The event had a great turnout – a big thank you to all the writers who came! Sharing some photos below: heading into the building, the event and our silly selfie afterwards. Also, this talk was recorded. There is a link to it on YouTube if you want to take a look.

  

While I was in San Francisco, the days could not have been more gorgeous and planes were flying overhead for Fleet Week. There was a real excitement in the air and it was fantastic connecting with so many writers in a city-wide celebration of books. Thank you, Litquake! Happy 16th year and here’s to many more!

 

Here is a link to an interview I did with Brad Bogner discussing The Memory Painter.

Click here to listen.

 

Novelist M.K. Tod invited me to do a Q&A for her blog Inside Historical Fiction.

Click here to read the interview at awriterofhistory.com  

 

 

A special e-book promotion begins today for The Memory Painter. The e-book has been discounted from $12.99 to $1.99 at all major e-book retailers from 9/28 – 10/4. Links to the book are below. Please help spread the word. Thanks!

AMAZON

iBOOKS

KOBO

NOOK

Next month I’m really excited to be participating in Litquake in San Francisco & the Texas Book Festival in Austin. If you’re in either city, here’s a link to the festivals below. I’d love to see you there.

For Litquake I’ll be participating in two events:

October 10th, New Voices, which is part of Off The Richter Scale, a weekend of events at Z Space. New Voices goes from 12:45 – 2:30.

October 12th, First-Time Authors Reveal All at 3pm at the Foundation Center.

For The Texas Book Festival:

The festival dates are 10/17 & 10/18. Their event schedule will be up mid-September. Here’s a link to the festival’s site.

 

The last day of August is here and since I haven’t updated my website for a while I thought I’d give a brief snapshot of my book adventures over the summer in one big post.

In late June I went to Denver for the Historical Novel Society conference. I really enjoyed this conference and there were so many highlights, including David Blixt’s weapons training workshops with the broadsword, short sword, rapier, and dagger.

I met Diana Gabaldon, which was another highlight – I’ve been a fan of hers forever. And I joined in the book signing before the banquet.

Next from historicals to thrillers… This year I was a part of ITW’s Debut Author Class at ThrillerFest in New York. I really loved Thrillerfest and meeting all the other debuts. The conference hosted The Debut Breakfast on Saturday and later that day we signed books.

Another highlight in NY – seeing my agent again. Here is the lady, Brianne Johnson, who got this whole journey started.

A few days later I was back in LA for Book’d In Burbank – a fun night of author readings at Theatre Banshee and I read a scene I had never done before. (When Bryan and Linz meet at the museum for the first time and play chess at the park.)

 

Two more readings finished off the summer. The first was at Barnes & Noble in Torrance. I decided to read the opening three pages of the book and then when Linz first sees Bryan’s paintings at the gallery. It’s been interesting switching up the readings and I have to say these two in combination have become my favorite to do.

Next I did a reading at Redondo Beach Library. I’ve been to this library before to attend an event and it’s such a beautiful building. I love this wall of windows. Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore came to sell copies of the book and the library’s Events Director was a wonderful host. Somehow I didn’t end up with one picture of the reading, but we had a great audience and in-depth Q&A afterwards.

Other news this summer – The Memory Painter was a beach read pick in Coastal Living which was exciting and also the inaugural pick for the AB-Ootlanders’ new book club, a lively bunch of Outlander fans up in Canada. I did an online chat with them at the end of July. I also received my copies of the Canadian edition. Below is a picture of the two covers together.

 

Now I’m on hiatus working on my next novel but there are several more book events in October and November I’ll be doing that I’m looking forward to. In the meantime, I do post more regularly on Twitter or Facebook if you’d like to connect there.

Happy summer’s end as we enter September. Cheers!