Quote

Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone.
- Alan Watts

Cover Art: Swedish Harry Potter

The Swedish Covers of the Harry Potter Series

Panel: 2011 World Fantasy Convention

A conversation between Neil Gaiman and Connie Willis at the 2011 World Fantasy Convention in San Diego, CA.

Photo: Stuttgart Library

New library in Stuttgart by DieterJL

Book Trailer: Black Light

Black Light by Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan and Stephen Romano

If you have a supernatural problem that won't go away, you need Buck Carlsbad: private eye, exorcist, and last resort.

Buck's got a way with spirits that no one else can match. He was normal, once. Until Something Horrible killed his parents and left him for dead.

Buck has spent years using his gift to trace his family. It's his only hope of finding out what happened to them-and what made him the way he is.

Now the voices say that something big is coming. Buck already knows what it is-a super high-tech bullet train running express across a stretch of unforgiving desert known for the most deadly paranormal events in history. A place where Buck almost died a few years ago, and where he swore he would never return.

But as the train prepares to rumble down the tracks, Buck knows it can only be the inevitable hand of fate pulling him back to the most harrowing unfinished case of his career at four hundred miles per hour.

Link Round-Up: November 8, 2011

The Haunted Bookshop  in Cambridge, UK. Article about the bookshop and what inspired its name found here. Photo by Grooover

After visiting Nepal in 1998, John Wood left Microsoft to try something different. His organization Room to Read now has created 12,000+ libraries around the world, and given away 10 million books.

The Art of the Novel: an exhibition of paintings by Atkinson Grimshaw.

Design*Sponge Presents Great Ideas For Bookshelves

'He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.' Artist Shawn Cheng and associates draw Cormac McCarthy's visceral masterpiece Blood Meridian page by brutal page.

How we “see” what we read in stories

Sci-fi/fantasy new frontier for publishers: Mainstream publishers can "no longer afford to ignore" science-fiction and fantasy projects.

Spice Up Your Home With Books As Pumpkin Decorations

UK publishers call for e-book chart after WSJ first

Interview: Christopher Paolini

Author Christopher Paolini visited the 2011 San Diego Comic Con and sat down with Suvudu interviewer Shawn Speakman to talk about his novels, what it's like to finish a series, and what fans will have in store in the future! Inheritance, the last book in Christopher’s Inheritance Cycle, hits shelves tomorrow.

Lecture: China Miéville on Scholarly SF/F

In 2009, noted author China Mieville came to the University of Kansas for the Richard W. Gunn Memorial Lecture series. He spoke for over an hour, covering topics as diverse as the effects of H.G. Wells' vision of the future on the genre and how science fiction sees itself today.

Via: AboutSF

Panel: Founders of Steampunk

The Founders of Steampunk - K.W. Jeter, Tim Powers, James Blaylock, John Berlyne - discuss the genre in a panel held at the 2011 World Fantasy Convention.

Proclamation!

A proclamation by children's book author Mac Barnett and signed by Brian Biggs, Sophie Blackall, Lisa Brown, Kevin Cornell, Carson Ellis, Isol, Laurie Keller, Jon Klassen, Matthew Myers, Tao Nyeu, Sean Qualls, Aaron Renier, Adam Rex, Christian Robinson, Jon Scieszka, Dan Santat, Lemony Snicket, Erin E. Stead, Philip C. Stead, Scott Teplin, and Maria van Lieshout.