Appearances, Questions and Vampires

The contest for an early copy of The Eternal Kiss is closed: thank you all so much for entering! It is deeply, deeply appreciated. I had so much fun seeing everyone's pictures! People with weapons! People dressed up as Mae! It was horribly difficult to choose.

The winner is: demon circles, fever fruit and talismans - drawing summoning circles at three a.m. is my new definition of hardcore.

The winner of another advance copy of The Eternal Kiss, which I obtained by probably nefarious means: Sin, fever blossoms and a demonic penguin.

Email me at sarahreesbrennan@gmail.com, you guys.

Trying to choose honourable mentions actually made me collapse under the sheer weight of awesomeness, but I admit to a particular fondness for Mae in Sydney.

This Friday I will be heading off to the UK to do a number of things, like a photoshoot (Oh God, 2859 pictures of The Distressed Wombat Face) and a debate on Ghosts, Faeries and Demons. I will naturally be arguing on the side of the demons. Evil wins again!

I will also be doing two Lexiglass events. (I made up the name, so I keep gleefully using it at every opportunity...)

The Lexiglass Event
July 11, 2009: Glasgow, Scotland, 3pm
Borders Glasgow. 98 Buchanan Street, Glasgow, G1 3BA
Signing and appearance with Cassandra Clare, who will be launching City of Glass in the UK

The Irish Lexiglass Event
with Cassandra Clare
July 16th 6:30 PM
Eason
40 Lower O'Connell Street, Dublin 1, Ireland

Then there are some plans for appearances in the US.

For a start, I will be attending Comic Con in San Diego, July 23rd to the 26th.

Events there will be as follows:

Friday, July 24 Panel

12:30-1:30 Future Fond Memories Room 3

Panelists: Michael Spradlin (KEEPER OF THE GRAIL: THE YOUNGEST TEMPLAR); Michael Reisman (SIMON BLOOM: THE OCTOPUS EFFECT ); Sarah Rees Brennan (THE DEMON’S LEXICON); James Owen (THE INDIGO KING); Mary Pearson (THE ADORATION OF JENNA FOX), P.J. Haarsma (THE WORM HOLE PIRATES OF ORBIS 3); and Alyson Noel (BLUE MOON: THE IMMORTALS).

Moderator: Maryelizabeth Hart, Mysterious Galaxy

1:30 - 2:30 Signing in the convention's autograph area.

The morning of Saturday the 25th, I will be signing in the Every Picture Tells a Story booth, exact time to be announced.

And for the rest of Comic Con, I will probably be wandering around going 'Oooh, look, a Wonder Woman costume!' and being extremely happy about the weather, so come say hey to me!

Now, I know quite a lot of writers called Sarah. It is, as I have pointed out to my mother while explaining my preference for 'Esmeralda,' a fairly common name. At this stage I believe Sarahs might be numerous enough to take over the world.

Before we do that, though, we're having a Sarah Signing in New York.

1.00 pm - 3.00 pm, Sunday August 2nd. Books of Wonder, 18 West 18th Street, New York, NY 10011.

Sarahs will include me, our fearless organiser Sarah MacLean (the Season), Sarah Cross (Dull Boy), Sarah Beth Durst (Ice, Into the Wild) and Sarah Ockler (Twenty Boy Summer) with more Sarahs to be announced!

Other US appearances will be in early October, and the details will be enormously awesome, but I cannot tell you them yet!

At all appearances I will have stuff like bookmarks, gel pens, cheery yet insane smiles, and little giveaways of the first chapter of The Demon's Covenant.

And since this post has been all about announcements, something for the rest of you. I would tell a story about my life, but telling stories like 'Yesterday my flatmates found me sticking Post-its ON MY OWN FACE' is too shameful. So instead...



Q: When is the sequel out and whose point of view is it told from?

A: The Demon's Covenant is out June 2nd, 2010, and it's told from Mae's point of view.

Q: And what's it about, what is this summary at the back of the UK edition?

A: Mae Crawford always thought she was in control. Now she's learned that her little brother Jamie is a magician and Nick, the boy she'd set her heart on, has an even darker secret. Mae's whole world has spun out of control, and it's only going to get worse.

When she realises that Jamie has been meeting secretly with the new leader of the Obsidian Circle, and that Gerald wants him to join the magicians, she's not sure how to stop Jamie doing just that. Calling in Nick and Alan as reinforcements only leads to a more desperate conflict because Gerald has a plan to bring Nick down - by using Alan to spring a deadly trap.

With those around her torn between divided loyalties and Mae herself torn between her feelings for two very different boys, she sees a chance to save them all - but it means approaching the mysterious and dangerous Goblin Market alone...

Q: Is Nick's psychology influenced by kids with Asperger's or autistic kids?

A: No. At least not consciously - I have worked with austistic kids and Asperger's kids, but I haven't done anything like the in-depth study I would have to, to write anything like that.

I did read a lot of reading on psychology, but my basic intentions were: Nick as a thoughtful look inside the head of a particular kind of hero, which struck me as an essentially very troubled but hopefully still compelling place to be, and Nick as a kind of feral child - a nonhuman child raised by humans, as opposed to a human child raised by animals.

Also there's the fact that Nick is a demon, and equating any psychological disorder to actually, literally being demonic would be very, very problematic.

That said, I have no control over my subconscious, and everyone reads books a different way, so your mileage may vary!

Q: Is Jamie gay?

A: JAMIE: "I thought they were just dreams, strange dreams of someone beautiful outside my window, asking to be let in."
MAE: "A succubus. Or an incubus, that's the word for the men, isn't it?" p. 23

Nick rolled his eyes, reached over, and took the knife, tucking it into the waistband of his jeans. He saw Jamie's eyes wander to the flash of skin and didn't make an issue out of it; a lot of people liked to look at Nick. p. 130

There are other such moments, and also most of the characters in the book are either teenagers or demons who have to-do lists on which sexy times feature prominently so all things are fluid, but the answer is basically: yeah.

Q: So Anzu and Jamie...?

A: Given that Anzu's the Obsidian Circle's go-to demon, and the one with the nasty sense of humour (which yes, demons do have) I was thinking yes, but it isn't explicit in the text.

If you have other questions, pray ask them and I will answer them! I will add to this post as I go.