EOLYN is One Month Old!



HRB writers and companions at the Flint Hills retreat


It’s hard to believe a month has passed since the launch of EOLYN. It’s been a great four weeks, with lots of exciting events, including my time as a writer-in-residence at Andrews Experimental Forest, ConQuesT during Memorial Day weekend in Kansas City, and last but not least, the Hadley Rille Books writers retreat this past weekend in the Flint Hills.

Several writers joined the retreat, including Hadley Rille editor Eric T. Reynolds, M.C. Chambers (author of SHAPER’S VEIL), Cybelle Greenlaw, Dora Furlong, Laura Reynolds and Sarah Reynolds. We stayed in an old farm house just outside of historic Cottonwood Falls, and hiked the National Prairie Reserve in search of the elusive bison. Most of our writing was condensed into an intensive Saturday afternoon session, some of us reworking previously written stories, others creating brand new material. A very diverse set of shorts came out of the weekend, including tales of science fiction, horror and fantasy.



Bison at the National Tallgrass Prairie Reserve

 I focused on the story I started in Andrews Forest, a short that features Briana, Akmael’s mother and heiress to East Selen. Briana never appears in person in the novel EOLYN, having perished before we meet her son Akmael. Yet she retains a powerful presence in the memories of the people who knew her, and continues to play a role in the fates of Eolyn and Akmael long after her death. It’s been a lot of fun building a story around a living, breathing Briana, and I hope that – when the time comes – you will enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

Here’s some news about EOLYN:

As of this entry, EOLYN is now available in eleven libraries in just as many states, spanning the USA from New York to California and from Florida to Washington. (That number is changing very quickly, so by the time you read this, it may have gone up again.)

I’ve hosted two signings since the launch party, one at Powell’s Books in Oregon, and a second at ConQuesT in Kansas City. The next reading and book signing event will be on June 12 at 2pm, in Prospero’s Parkside Books, 208B Northwest Highway 7, Blue Springs, Missouri. I have a special treat prepared for those of you who purchase a book, or have one signed.  Hope to see you there!

On July 9, from 12:45pm to 1:45pm, I’ll be with other authors from the Campbell Conference at the University of Kansas Bookstore, Jayhawk Ink, in Lawrence.

For those of you who have not yet had the opportunity to read the first chapters of EOLYN, in addition to viewing them on this site, for your convenience you can now download a free pdf copy – including Ginger Prewitt’s map of Moisehén. Just take your cursor to the right hand bar on this blog and click on the box that says “Download a free pdf copy of the first three chapters of EOLYN”.  (Or, as you might have noticed, you can just click on the phrase right here...)

EOLYN now has four customer reviews on Amazon.  To read them -- or to write your own, if you've finished the novel -- click HERE. 

The blog for EOLYN topped 6,000 views last month.  Thank you to everyone who has visited and followed this site for your enthusiastic interest and support of this novel -- and all the magic that comes with it!