All The Stuff Of February

So!  Remembering occasionally that this blog is supposed to have at least a glimmer of information about Stuff And Things, rather than just its usual rambles, an update on Incoming Stuff:

1.  Touch is being published!  Whoop whoop!  I’ve heard a few dates – it’s somewhere between February 24th-26th for sure in hardback, ebook and audio (the audio should be awesome – I am personally a huge fan of having an actor making the words sound better) and um.  Yes.  With any luck it’ll be fun.  It’s quite different from Harry August, but in a good way, I hope, and is the adventure of an entity called Kepler, an individual with no body to call its own, that lives vicariously through other people’s bodies, with all the problems that therein ensue.  I guess it’s more thrillery than much of the stuff I’ve done – if you take out the whole body-jumping element, it’s very thrillery indeed, but um… yes.  I liked writing it; I hope people like reading it too?

2.  On February 26th, I’ll be talking at Waterstones Kingston about life and books and everything.  Please come and say hello, if you’re in the area!!

3.  My publisher is currently scheming to send me on adventures around the country sometime between March-May, and once I know details of that I’ll put it up here too!  (Northampton I am definitely coming your way in the name of lighting, might see if I can add some writing to the job list while about…)

4.  On which theme, there’s a… oooh… 65% chance that I’ll be going to Eastercon this year, so again, if anyone’s there, CAKE!  Let’s just have all the cake…

5.  The judging process for the ever-awesome Kitschies award is coming to an end.  Just like last year it has been both awesome and exhausting being a judge; awesome because ALL THE BOOKS but exhausting because my god, all the books.  Thankfully this year’s judges – Glen Mehn, Kim Curran, Frances Hardinge and Adam Roberts –  have read faster and more thoroughly than I thought possible, and I think we’ll have an awesome shortlist soon.  I also suspect we’re all looking forward to the moment in a few months time where we can lay aside some of the most intelligent and progressive speculative fiction of 2014, and read a nice, boring book on macroeconomics, or dog walking, or maybe just watch a bit of TV….

6.  Otherwise, I’m about two weeks off finishing ClaireNorthBook3, and though I think I know what I wanna scribble next, a holiday – oh, a holiday – would be nice.  I’m trying to talk my friends into going for epic ambles across England, and in the autumn there is a thin danger that I’ll be deposited in America.  2015 was going to be the year of epic train rides across Europe, but my partner is half-American and needs to see his family, which seems more important frankly.  Instead, therefore, I’m seeing if I can talk him into taking the train from Florida (where branch 1 of his family is) to New York via North Carolina (where branch 2 of the family resides) possibly stopping off en route to look at all the books.  Because a holiday isn’t a holiday unless you spend at least some of it in all the bookstores on the way….