Blackfin Sky has a cover!

I'm so, so excited to get to share with you the cover for my book (coming out on 15th May 2014 in the UK, dontchaknow)...

The artwork is by the AMAZING Shane Rebenschied, and I couldn't be more in love with it!!

What do you think??

(By the way, in case you didn't know, you can also pre-order it in these places:

Amazon UK

The Book Depository

Waterstones UK

If you're in a clickety mood, why not add it to your goodreads list?)

BLACKFIN SKY is available for pre-order!

Thanks to my twitter hivemind, today I found out my book, BLACKFIN SKY, is up on Amazon UK, Waterstones UK and The Book Depository for pre-order! (As it's out a little later in the US, I'll let you know when it's up on the US sites.)

Here are the links:

Amazon UK

The Book Depository

Waterstones UK

If you're in a clickety mood, why not add it to your goodreads list? 

Aaaaand I have an author page on Amazon. Check it: http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B00GUKZRYS

Blue's Winter Post

Winter Asylum

Chynna-Blue Scott (a.k.a. Blue - see what I did there with the title?) invited me (in the face, it seems) to write a winter-themed post answering winter-themed questions, so...I'm going to put my own swerve on it. I'm sure Blue will give the swerving 2 thumbs up, complete with blood-red thumbnails.

I'm a November brat, and grew up hating that all my school friends seemed to have summer birthdays where they could have parties outdoors and go rope-swinging through trees and paintballing and shiz like that, but I've grown to love my November birthday. (I don't understand people who hate their birthday because it means getting older. If you didn't have a birthday, you'd still get older, and you wouldn't get a shizload of presents to make up for it.)

Last year, for my 30th birthday, my husband and I went to Florida. Everyone assumed it was because I had issues about the big 3-0, but my only issue was wanting to ride rollercoasters and float around on the Lazy River in the raging heat. And it was GLORIOUS - not only did I get to spend my birthday at Disney World, but when I flew back to the UK at the end of November all the 'it's too soon for Christmas' haters had been silenced by December's imminent arrival. I essentially went from mid-summer to the depths of winter on an 8-hour flight, cutting out that darkening crawl that usually gives me the ughs about Christmas long before Santa has shuffled his buttocks along the gentle slope of my roof.

Despite the lack of Mickey & Co. or even the faintest promise of a log flume, this winter has a lot in store for me that I'm looking forward to. Dark, cold days are perfect for writing, and I'll be making full use of them this year as I have edits and edits and edits to do, then some more edits. And soon my short story Underground will be published in an anthology called PRIMED, which will be my first Real publishing credit and obviously WOOHOO. And, despite the fact that some would call me cynical, I do love the festive season when it's all twinkly and new, and now that I have my zippy camera, I'll be capturing all that twinkliness on my winter adventures in forests and castles and cemeteries and such.

Playing in the snow last winter

[Aside: Because I wanted to have a place where I could post all my favourite adventure photos all together, I now have a tumblr just for that. If you like my pictures, let me know - I'm happy for them to be used on blog posts etc. if you let me know when & where.]

So they're the things I love and am looking forward to about winter. If you'd like to share your own wintry likes, please to share in ze comments.

Snow Kat x

World Fantasy Con 2013: the wrap-up!

A lot of amazing things happened last weekend. I headed down to Brighton for World Fantasy Con on Friday, missed the whole day (thank you, M25 traffic) and arrived windswept and bedraggled at the Hilton Hotel where the con was being held just in time for evening drinks with the wonderful Girl Friday - a.k.a. author Tatum Flynn:

...and the amazing Marieke Nijkamp, who I met for the first time after tweeting and exchanging manuscripts with her over the past couple of years. She's as lovely in person as she is online.

Saturday was my full day at the con, and it started with registration - and a whole heap of free books! THIS is how to do swag, in case you were wondering:

The first panel I went to was focused on YA, and featured Susan Cooper, Garth Nix, Neil Gaiman, Will Hill and Holly Black. I know - that's like writing royalty, right?? Here's a photo I sneakily took of the panel. Yes, I'm hating on the random stander-upper pretty hard.

Next up, I saw Neil Gaiman talking with Susan Cooper, who received a lifetime achievement award at the con. I also got a slightly better picture!

I went to 4 author readings in the afternoon - the first was Holly Black, reading from The Coldest Girl in Coldtown. Her reading was amazing, and I am definitely going to be getting a copy to read the rest!

Next up were Amy McCulloch and Laura Lam, in a surprise-ninja-joint reading session. Amy read from Oathbreaker's Shadow, and Laura read from Pantomime. Finally, I heard Heather Graham reading from her latest novel, Let the Dead Sleep, and was so thrilled when she actually gave me the copy she was reading from!

It was fantastic getting an insight into author readings as I've never been to one before.

After that, I went and took a look around the art displays with Girl Friday (and got a couple of free drinks - yay!), then I snagged a few more freebies on my way out - including an awesome mug to commemorate my WFC adventure (in case you didn't know, I'm a Mug Event Commemorator) and cruised the book stalls.

With the day's panels and events over, I went out for a fantastic meal with my awesome agent, Molly Ker Hawn, and my husband. We ate shark. Yes, we're hardcore.

When it was time to leave Brighton on Sunday, I couldn't help wishing I'd booked to stay longer so I could explore Brighton itself.

Then again, now I have another reason to go back!

Tumbling and Conning

So, I got back from World Fantasy Con in Brighton this afternoon. I had a wonderful time, met wonderful people, and got lots of wonderful stuff...but there will be a special post tomorrow (when I'm slightly more brain-functiony and less tired) all about that.

In my exhausted, post-con state, I decided to set up a Tumblr account where I can put all my photos - the ones I normally blast out on twitter after my adventures. Take a look at my Tumblr, leave a comment or question or whatever and help me figure out how the heck it works! I'm looking forward to sharing more photos with you guys there. There's a tab at the top of this page that'll also take you right to it.

I'm debating changing the header of this blog to the image I've used as my Tumblr header (a photo I took in the forest last week) - what do you think? Yay or nay?

Kat xoxo