| holly bennett |
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Holly's new book... Redwing, published by Orca Books, will be in stores this Autumn. |
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2012
April 2012
Always the bridesmaid -- no Willow award for me this year. But, as they say, just
being nominated is a great honour. And I hope some Saskatchewan students
have become fans, or at least Irish mythology nerds, because of this awesome
awards program.
More exciting, I just got a sneak peek at the cover of my new book, Redwing. It's
always a scary moment when the cover is unveiled -- what if I really don't like it?
But I think the illustrator did a really wonderful job -- conveying a sense of
excitement and mystery, and capturing something important about the book itself.
January 2012
Well, I didn't win the Sunburst award, but did I ever have a great time at the
ceremony at Toronto's Harbourfront. We were treated to a tasty and convivial
dinner, a great evening and a night in a very comfy hotel, so I was happy. Plus I
got to meet some talented and lovely fantasy writers. One writer that I talked to a
lot, Erin Bow, went on to win the TD Prize for Children's Literature for her wonderful
book, "Plain Kate". Congrats to Sunburst winners Paul Glennon for "Bookweirder"
and Guy Gavriel Kay for "Under Heaven."
And Shapeshifter is nominated for Saskatchewan's Snow Willow Awards, so that's
another great honour.
Meanwhile, I've been working hard on Rowan, who still doesn't have a decent title
but WILL by the time he gets printed (Fall 2012). I've given him a good stiff
revision and sent him back to my editor to see what she thinks. And I may have a
new book brewing (!) -- a contemporary fantasy this time, which would be a fun
new challenge. Too soon to tell if it will fly yet, but fingers crossed.
2011
July 2011
I’ve just been told that Shapeshifter is a finalist for the 2011 Sunburst Awards (for
"Canadian Literature of the Fantastic"), in the Young Adult Category. The awards
ceremony is September 14th at Harbourfront in Toronto, and will include a reading
by each author. I think my summer reading list just got longer -- I’d love to check
out some of the other nominees’ work. Fingers crossed!
April 2011
Good news -- I just signed the contract with Orca Book Publishers for “the Rowan
book.” Now I really need to think up a title! Also, they want me to rework the first
part of the book so that the action kicks in sooner -- a good summer holiday
project. Right now I have no clue how to fix it, but sometimes you just have to trust
that there’s a way. And the book won’t be published until 2012, so I have a bit of
time to figure it out.
January 2011
I finally finished the new story on New Year's Day -- that seems a good sign! Now
we wait to see if my current publisher wants to take it on, and if yes, when they'll be
able to actually publish it. Publishers plan for a certain number of titles each
season, so it can be a long wait if they’re already booked up. Though of course,
there’s lots of editing and rewriting (and map drawing!) that goes on in the
meantime.
The story is about a boy named Rowan Redwing, who lives in the world of the
Bonemender books but not in the same country. So sorry, Gabrielle fans, it’s a
whole new cast of characters. Rowan has been raised in a family of musicians,
but when they die of the plague he’s left alone (with his instruments, a caravan
and a pair of mules) to make his way in the world. Or not quite alone -- there’s a
ghost story here, and an unlikely friendship that leads him into a very dangerous
adventure.
So now, the hardest part: a title. I’m completely at a loss this time with the title.
Hopefully my editor will have a good idea!
It’s always a bittersweet moment when I finish a book. It’s great to be done, but...
When you’ve been carrying those characters and their hijinks around in your head
for a year or two or three, they leave an awful hole when you put them away. So
now I’m in the horrible in-between stage, where I’m done with one book but have
nothing new to work on. I need a new story!
2010
October 2010
We moved house recently - a very, very big job! Because of that, I haven't really
written anything on my new story since the summer holidays; all my spare time
went first into cleaning the house when it was up for sale, and then into packing
everything up, and now into unpacking! But most of the boxes are empty now, and
my office is all set up. I think one more weekend of intensive "house" work, and I’ll
be ready to get back to Rowan and his adventures (he's the main character in the
book I'm working on now). It’s a good sign, I think, that I'm starting to miss him.
Meanwhile, the reviews for Shapeshifter have been good, so I hope that now the
school season is in full swing it will find its way to more readers. If you've read it,
let me know how you liked it! I have a couple of library/school visits coming up that
I'm looking forward to. It's a bit hard to take time off from my job to do these visits,
but when I can make it work, I'm always glad that I did.
June 2010
I've been watching anxiously for the first reviews of Shapeshifter to come out, and
found one today in Quill & Quire. Quill & Quire is an influential and well-
established Canadian literature magazine, and I haven't had a review in it since
my first novel, The Bonemender. That one, while not entirely negative, was not all
that great either. So I'll admit I was kinda nervous to read what they had to say
about Shapeshifter.
Phew! They liked it! And the review even gave a nice nod to my previous Irish
legend book, The Warrior's Daughter. So today I’m doing the happy dance.
May, 2010
Book promotion is definitely more fun for YA and children’s authors. Last week I
attended a couple of cool events: I was guest at a live author chat for a teen
reading club run by the Greater Victoria Public Library; and I visited the high school
in Brighton, Ontario, to read from Shapeshifter and talk with a group of students
who were doing an all-day readathon to raise money for AIDS orphans. It’s so
great to meet a group of kids who are passionate about reading and about their
favourite books.
I also applied to participate in the Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s Reading
Week next spring. That’s a week-long, intensive tour of schools and libraries,
always out of your home province. Exhausting, I’m sure, but what a great chance
to really make contact with a lot of readers. Fingers crossed!
April 5, 2010
We’re planning my book launch on May 6th - 7pm, at the local independent
bookstore (Titles - 379 George St. N., Peterborough, ON. See LAUNCH
INVITATION) that has hosted all my launches. Book launches are fun, but even at
number five I find them nerve-wracking as well: First, will anyone come? So far my
friends and family have rallied around, which is great but leads to the next bit of
nerve-wrackery: you have to give a talk and and read. Urgh.
Choosing an excerpt of a book to read is harder than you’d think: you want to give
an exciting bit, but not give anything crucial away. You have to judge how long is
long enough to give a flavour of the book and get people interested, but short
enough to hold people’s attention. And at the launch, I’m reading to a bunch of
mostly adults, who are not the real audience for my book, which is a bit weird. I
actually do find it much more comfortable and fun to talk and read to groups of
students.
2009
December 30, 2009
It’s almost the new year, and I’m finishing off 2009 by finishing the last copy-edit of
Shapeshifter. It feels good to send it back to my editor for the last time, knowing
that it’s better now than when we started working the revisions. Now it’s just the
long wait until the actual book is in my hands.
Meanwhile, I have a started-and-shelved story waiting for me to give it some
attention. My New Year’s Resolution: to wrestle this thing from a half-baked half-
idea to a story with enough drama, complexity and life to carry it through to the end.
Wish me luck!!
October 4, 2009
What’s with the deer?
Those are red deer on my home page -- the kind native to Ireland and Great
Britain. And they are there because my new novel, The Shapeshifter, is the story of
a woman who becomes trapped in the body of a deer. (Yes, it’s another Irish
legend -- those Celts were big on people taking on animal shapes).
But here’s the thing. This woman, Sive, is a woman of the Sidhe (pronounced
shee). Think the Irish version of Tolkien’s elves and you’ll get a pretty good image.
The Sidhe are a graceful, beautiful people. And I, being Canadian, was picturing
Sive turning into one of our North American White-tailed deer: the big liquid eyes,
expressive ears, graceful shape. It’s easy to imagine there’s a beautiful woman in
there!
Then I started looking at photos of red deer, and I was frankly pretty disappointed.
To me they look, well, goatish. Knobbly and none too bright. It just didn’t seem
right.
So when you read the book, feel free to imagine Sive leaping about as a lovely
Canadian white-tail. I do!
I’ll be getting the edited manuscript for The Shapeshifter any day now, and the
work on revisions will start. It’s still a long wait until I see it in print though!
July 1, 2009
Happy Canada Day! Let summer begin.
I’ll be doing revisions on The Shapeshifter starting in the autumn, so I’m hoping to
get lots of writing done on my new story over the summer. I’m only a little ways in -
at the stage where I’m not really sure if it’s going to work and it’s hard to say what
it’s about. The main character is a boy this time, and a musician (I live surrounded
by boys and musicians, so it seemed about time). It’s going to be a bit of a ghost
story I think. It’s funny the little details that can really hang you up in a book - right
now I’m waffling about what a person who makes their living playing music in a
pre-industrial fantasy country is called. Bard? Minstrel? Player? The first two feel
overblown and pretentious, the last more like an actor, plain old Musician too
modern....
June 1, 2009
I just found out The Warrior’s Daughter was shortlisted for the 2009/10 Stellar
Award (BC’s Teen Reader’s Choice Award). It’s a long time to keep my fingers
crossed - the program won’t actually start up until autumn 2009 and the winner
will be announced in May. I love these student choice award programs - it’s a
great way for kids to get engaged in books and writing and for authors to have
contact with their real readers.
May 14, 2009
My website goes live! It’s been fun planning out the pages and what goes where.
If you’re visiting, welcome... Let me know how you like the site, and especially if
you encounter any problems with it.
2008 Highlights
Author visits:
I was able to talk with a lot more readers last year than ever before, visiting
schools and libraries in Toronto, Brighton and Lakefield, Ontario, and making my
first-ever trip to Vancouver to speak at a couple of libraries in Richmond, BC.
Summer Festival:
In July I was also invited to present at the Lakefield Literary Festival, with authors
Shane Peacock and Hugh Brewster. Hugh came in period costume for his book,
Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, and Shane, who is also a playwright, gave a very
dramatic reading from his first “young Sherlock Holmes” novel, The Eye of the
Crow. That’s when I had the weird thought that if I was going to do well as an
author, I might need to take acting lessons!
White Pine Awards:
I was very happy to be part of the White Pine Awards again this year. This is a
wonderful program from the Ontario Library Association in which the participating
kids vote on the winning books. It was a cold, windy day at Toronto’s Harbourfront
and we froze our butts off, but nobody cared. Tons of kids attend the ceremony and
they make the whole thing so much fun - cheering for their favourite authors, lining
up for autographs - as one fellow author said to me, “It’s the closest we’ll ever
come to feeling like rock stars!”
I did a workshop that day that I wasn’t sure would work. The kids who signed up
were given a “sneak preview” of my then work-in-progress, The Shapeshifter, and
asked to help me wrestle with some of the plot problems I was encountering. I
didn’t know if I could summarize the story well enough to bring them into the loop
quickly, and really wasn’t sure if anyone would actually be able to get into the
brainstorming afterwards - but they were awesome! I came away with lots of
creative ideas and suggestions, and even more importantly, such a sense of
enthusiasm from the participants that I was really inspired to get to work and
finish the story.
April 2012
Always the bridesmaid -- no Willow award for me this year. But, as they say, just
being nominated is a great honour. And I hope some Saskatchewan students
have become fans, or at least Irish mythology nerds, because of this awesome
awards program.
More exciting, I just got a sneak peek at the cover of my new book, Redwing. It's
always a scary moment when the cover is unveiled -- what if I really don't like it?
But I think the illustrator did a really wonderful job -- conveying a sense of
excitement and mystery, and capturing something important about the book itself.
January 2012
Well, I didn't win the Sunburst award, but did I ever have a great time at the
ceremony at Toronto's Harbourfront. We were treated to a tasty and convivial
dinner, a great evening and a night in a very comfy hotel, so I was happy. Plus I
got to meet some talented and lovely fantasy writers. One writer that I talked to a
lot, Erin Bow, went on to win the TD Prize for Children's Literature for her wonderful
book, "Plain Kate". Congrats to Sunburst winners Paul Glennon for "Bookweirder"
and Guy Gavriel Kay for "Under Heaven."
And Shapeshifter is nominated for Saskatchewan's Snow Willow Awards, so that's
another great honour.
Meanwhile, I've been working hard on Rowan, who still doesn't have a decent title
but WILL by the time he gets printed (Fall 2012). I've given him a good stiff
revision and sent him back to my editor to see what she thinks. And I may have a
new book brewing (!) -- a contemporary fantasy this time, which would be a fun
new challenge. Too soon to tell if it will fly yet, but fingers crossed.
2011
July 2011
I’ve just been told that Shapeshifter is a finalist for the 2011 Sunburst Awards (for
"Canadian Literature of the Fantastic"), in the Young Adult Category. The awards
ceremony is September 14th at Harbourfront in Toronto, and will include a reading
by each author. I think my summer reading list just got longer -- I’d love to check
out some of the other nominees’ work. Fingers crossed!
April 2011
Good news -- I just signed the contract with Orca Book Publishers for “the Rowan
book.” Now I really need to think up a title! Also, they want me to rework the first
part of the book so that the action kicks in sooner -- a good summer holiday
project. Right now I have no clue how to fix it, but sometimes you just have to trust
that there’s a way. And the book won’t be published until 2012, so I have a bit of
time to figure it out.
January 2011
I finally finished the new story on New Year's Day -- that seems a good sign! Now
we wait to see if my current publisher wants to take it on, and if yes, when they'll be
able to actually publish it. Publishers plan for a certain number of titles each
season, so it can be a long wait if they’re already booked up. Though of course,
there’s lots of editing and rewriting (and map drawing!) that goes on in the
meantime.
The story is about a boy named Rowan Redwing, who lives in the world of the
Bonemender books but not in the same country. So sorry, Gabrielle fans, it’s a
whole new cast of characters. Rowan has been raised in a family of musicians,
but when they die of the plague he’s left alone (with his instruments, a caravan
and a pair of mules) to make his way in the world. Or not quite alone -- there’s a
ghost story here, and an unlikely friendship that leads him into a very dangerous
adventure.
So now, the hardest part: a title. I’m completely at a loss this time with the title.
Hopefully my editor will have a good idea!
It’s always a bittersweet moment when I finish a book. It’s great to be done, but...
When you’ve been carrying those characters and their hijinks around in your head
for a year or two or three, they leave an awful hole when you put them away. So
now I’m in the horrible in-between stage, where I’m done with one book but have
nothing new to work on. I need a new story!
2010
October 2010
We moved house recently - a very, very big job! Because of that, I haven't really
written anything on my new story since the summer holidays; all my spare time
went first into cleaning the house when it was up for sale, and then into packing
everything up, and now into unpacking! But most of the boxes are empty now, and
my office is all set up. I think one more weekend of intensive "house" work, and I’ll
be ready to get back to Rowan and his adventures (he's the main character in the
book I'm working on now). It’s a good sign, I think, that I'm starting to miss him.
Meanwhile, the reviews for Shapeshifter have been good, so I hope that now the
school season is in full swing it will find its way to more readers. If you've read it,
let me know how you liked it! I have a couple of library/school visits coming up that
I'm looking forward to. It's a bit hard to take time off from my job to do these visits,
but when I can make it work, I'm always glad that I did.
June 2010
I've been watching anxiously for the first reviews of Shapeshifter to come out, and
found one today in Quill & Quire. Quill & Quire is an influential and well-
established Canadian literature magazine, and I haven't had a review in it since
my first novel, The Bonemender. That one, while not entirely negative, was not all
that great either. So I'll admit I was kinda nervous to read what they had to say
about Shapeshifter.
Phew! They liked it! And the review even gave a nice nod to my previous Irish
legend book, The Warrior's Daughter. So today I’m doing the happy dance.
May, 2010
Book promotion is definitely more fun for YA and children’s authors. Last week I
attended a couple of cool events: I was guest at a live author chat for a teen
reading club run by the Greater Victoria Public Library; and I visited the high school
in Brighton, Ontario, to read from Shapeshifter and talk with a group of students
who were doing an all-day readathon to raise money for AIDS orphans. It’s so
great to meet a group of kids who are passionate about reading and about their
favourite books.
I also applied to participate in the Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s Reading
Week next spring. That’s a week-long, intensive tour of schools and libraries,
always out of your home province. Exhausting, I’m sure, but what a great chance
to really make contact with a lot of readers. Fingers crossed!
April 5, 2010
We’re planning my book launch on May 6th - 7pm, at the local independent
bookstore (Titles - 379 George St. N., Peterborough, ON. See LAUNCH
INVITATION) that has hosted all my launches. Book launches are fun, but even at
number five I find them nerve-wracking as well: First, will anyone come? So far my
friends and family have rallied around, which is great but leads to the next bit of
nerve-wrackery: you have to give a talk and and read. Urgh.
Choosing an excerpt of a book to read is harder than you’d think: you want to give
an exciting bit, but not give anything crucial away. You have to judge how long is
long enough to give a flavour of the book and get people interested, but short
enough to hold people’s attention. And at the launch, I’m reading to a bunch of
mostly adults, who are not the real audience for my book, which is a bit weird. I
actually do find it much more comfortable and fun to talk and read to groups of
students.
2009
December 30, 2009
It’s almost the new year, and I’m finishing off 2009 by finishing the last copy-edit of
Shapeshifter. It feels good to send it back to my editor for the last time, knowing
that it’s better now than when we started working the revisions. Now it’s just the
long wait until the actual book is in my hands.
Meanwhile, I have a started-and-shelved story waiting for me to give it some
attention. My New Year’s Resolution: to wrestle this thing from a half-baked half-
idea to a story with enough drama, complexity and life to carry it through to the end.
Wish me luck!!
October 4, 2009
What’s with the deer?
Those are red deer on my home page -- the kind native to Ireland and Great
Britain. And they are there because my new novel, The Shapeshifter, is the story of
a woman who becomes trapped in the body of a deer. (Yes, it’s another Irish
legend -- those Celts were big on people taking on animal shapes).
But here’s the thing. This woman, Sive, is a woman of the Sidhe (pronounced
shee). Think the Irish version of Tolkien’s elves and you’ll get a pretty good image.
The Sidhe are a graceful, beautiful people. And I, being Canadian, was picturing
Sive turning into one of our North American White-tailed deer: the big liquid eyes,
expressive ears, graceful shape. It’s easy to imagine there’s a beautiful woman in
there!
Then I started looking at photos of red deer, and I was frankly pretty disappointed.
To me they look, well, goatish. Knobbly and none too bright. It just didn’t seem
right.
So when you read the book, feel free to imagine Sive leaping about as a lovely
Canadian white-tail. I do!
I’ll be getting the edited manuscript for The Shapeshifter any day now, and the
work on revisions will start. It’s still a long wait until I see it in print though!
July 1, 2009
Happy Canada Day! Let summer begin.
I’ll be doing revisions on The Shapeshifter starting in the autumn, so I’m hoping to
get lots of writing done on my new story over the summer. I’m only a little ways in -
at the stage where I’m not really sure if it’s going to work and it’s hard to say what
it’s about. The main character is a boy this time, and a musician (I live surrounded
by boys and musicians, so it seemed about time). It’s going to be a bit of a ghost
story I think. It’s funny the little details that can really hang you up in a book - right
now I’m waffling about what a person who makes their living playing music in a
pre-industrial fantasy country is called. Bard? Minstrel? Player? The first two feel
overblown and pretentious, the last more like an actor, plain old Musician too
modern....
June 1, 2009
I just found out The Warrior’s Daughter was shortlisted for the 2009/10 Stellar
Award (BC’s Teen Reader’s Choice Award). It’s a long time to keep my fingers
crossed - the program won’t actually start up until autumn 2009 and the winner
will be announced in May. I love these student choice award programs - it’s a
great way for kids to get engaged in books and writing and for authors to have
contact with their real readers.
May 14, 2009
My website goes live! It’s been fun planning out the pages and what goes where.
If you’re visiting, welcome... Let me know how you like the site, and especially if
you encounter any problems with it.
2008 Highlights
Author visits:
I was able to talk with a lot more readers last year than ever before, visiting
schools and libraries in Toronto, Brighton and Lakefield, Ontario, and making my
first-ever trip to Vancouver to speak at a couple of libraries in Richmond, BC.
Summer Festival:
In July I was also invited to present at the Lakefield Literary Festival, with authors
Shane Peacock and Hugh Brewster. Hugh came in period costume for his book,
Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, and Shane, who is also a playwright, gave a very
dramatic reading from his first “young Sherlock Holmes” novel, The Eye of the
Crow. That’s when I had the weird thought that if I was going to do well as an
author, I might need to take acting lessons!
White Pine Awards:
I was very happy to be part of the White Pine Awards again this year. This is a
wonderful program from the Ontario Library Association in which the participating
kids vote on the winning books. It was a cold, windy day at Toronto’s Harbourfront
and we froze our butts off, but nobody cared. Tons of kids attend the ceremony and
they make the whole thing so much fun - cheering for their favourite authors, lining
up for autographs - as one fellow author said to me, “It’s the closest we’ll ever
come to feeling like rock stars!”
I did a workshop that day that I wasn’t sure would work. The kids who signed up
were given a “sneak preview” of my then work-in-progress, The Shapeshifter, and
asked to help me wrestle with some of the plot problems I was encountering. I
didn’t know if I could summarize the story well enough to bring them into the loop
quickly, and really wasn’t sure if anyone would actually be able to get into the
brainstorming afterwards - but they were awesome! I came away with lots of
creative ideas and suggestions, and even more importantly, such a sense of
enthusiasm from the participants that I was really inspired to get to work and
finish the story.
